Issue(s): Defenders #93
Cover Date: Mar 81
Title: "The woman behind the man!"
Credits:
J.M. DeMatteis - Writer
Don Perlin - Penciler
Joe Sinnott & Many Hands - Inker

Review/plot:
Lady Dorma appears, somehow miraculously resurrected.

She convinces Namor to launch a war on the surface people.

The Defenders get involved and it turns out that Dorma is really Nebulon.

He'd been imprisoned by his people but he escaped looking for vengeance on the Defenders. Once exposed, he's relatively easily to defeat, and his people show up looking for him to imprison him again.

Competently told but ultimately forgettable.

Nighthawk is attacked off panel in this issue, leaving him paralyzed.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - Nighthawk paralyzed.

Chronological Placement Considerations: Hulk is still with the team at the end of this issue, but he won't be seen again in the Defenders until issue #98. There's no explanation of why he's left. But I have the Hulk appearing in England in Captain America #257 next (Banner was kidnapped by Matrix Eight), and then he appears in Hulk #255, possibly back in New York after taking a plane home from England (with Captain America?). At the end of Hulk #255 the Hulk gets on a boat, starting off his "world tour". This also takes place before Llyra's re-appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #213-215, because Namor still thinks Llyra is dead.

References:

• Lady Dorma was killed in Sub-Mariner #37
  
• A footnote says the Namor will learn that Llyra is still alive in Amazing Spider-Man #214. Perhaps it is Dorma's resurrection here that has him send out the scouts that alert him to Llyra's presence in that issue.
  
• The Atlantean people aren't sure if they want to go war so soon after the misunderstanding with the surface people in Amazing Spider-Man #211.
  
• Nighthawk's injuries relate to the fact that in Defenders #14, he had died, but the Defenders donated a portion of their life energy to revive him. Something has now severed the bond between them. Nebulon was also first defeated in that issue.
  
• Nebulon also appeared subsequently in a plot extending from Defenders #34 to Defenders annual #1.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Around this time a Sub-Mariner mini-series by Stern/Byrne was announced. Jim Shooter claimed to have had the mini-series concept before DC did "World of Krypton" in 1979, but he stated any such things would have wound up in Marvel Premiere/Spotlight anyway so Marvel didn't do them. He didn't offer any evidence, though...