Defenders #2

This volume collects issue #2 of the 2017 Defenders series, written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by David Marquez. In the previous issue, Jessica Jones was shot and hospitalized, and Luke Cage, seeking revenge alone, was poisoned by 'Diamondback' and left to die—binding four street heroes together against the same enemy. This issue opens with Jessica rushing to the night clinic to sit by the unconscious Cage, where night nurse Linda Carter tells her the antidote exists only overseas; at the crucial moment, Blade delivers the antidote with only the words 'you owe me one.' Meanwhile, Daredevil questions Ben Urich of the Daily Bugle on a rooftop about Diamondback's background, with little to show for it. At a gala at the Guggenheim Museum on the Upper East Side, Wilson Fisk—the Kingpin—who claims to have gone straight, gives a speech; Danny Rand, the Iron Fist, approaches him as a civilian and argues that the old and new kings of crime will inevitably clash, so better to let the heroes remove Diamondback. In his hideout, Diamondback fumes that he didn't get to watch Cage die, when Jessica bursts in swinging; Daredevil and Iron Fist arrive, and in the melee Diamondback displays speed far beyond human, escaping. The three lose their target in an alley, only to be shot at by the Punisher lurking on a fire escape—ending on a cliffhanger.