Doctor Strange has been sitting out his time with the team.
This issue starts with him being attacked by a new character, Agent of Fortune, in his Sanctum Sanctorum. Agent of Fortune has a cockhead. Weird.
The Agent steals the Eye of Agamatto on behalf of his cult.
The Defenders think Devil Slayer is allied with the cult, so they fight him when they first encounter him.
This issue happens shortly after his debut in Marvel Spotlight #33. This isn’t the first time The Defenders has been used to help launch new characters—it’s one of the things that made the book so much fun. Literally anyone could turn up at any time.
Anyway, after the fighting, he helps assemble the team to help Strange–whose head is all bandaged up from the earlier attack.
He ends up joining the team in this story.
We get a look inside his “cloak dimension” to explain some of his powers.
Other than that, this is a story about getting back the Eye and fighting the Agent of Fortune. The cult is trying to raise yet-another demon who sounds like the Devil himself, this time named Belathauzer.
Meanwhile, Hellcat is a bad driver. And Nighthawk gets a power upgrade.
Also notable about this issue is the art. I’m usually not an Ed Hannigan fan. He always looked a little too much like Al Milgrom, whose art always felt chop-a-block to me–not real distinctive. But he does a good job here in service to the story.