The Defenders
This series focuses mostly on humor as the characters spend most of their time arguing with and criticizing one another. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire , featuring Doctor Strange attempting to reunite the original four Defenders to battle Dormammu and Umar.
These members were then mind controlled by Yandroth into forming the world-dominating "Order"; once the Order were freed from this control by their fellow heroes , the Defenders apparently disbanded. The Defenders briefly reunited in Defenders #1-12, in which Yandroth manipulated Gaia into "cursing" the primary four Defenders so that they would be summoned to major crisis situations. Eventually, leadership of the Secret Defenders passed to Doctor Druid, who faked his own death in Secret Defenders #25, the series' last issue. The supervillainThanos also organized a team of "Secret Defenders" during this period, though that team had nothing to do with Strange's group. A number of then-popular heroes appeared in this series; the first group organized consisted of the membership of "New Fantastic Four" , who battled the Human Torch in Fantastic Four #374-375. Several years later, Doctor Strange organized a new "team" called the Secret Defenders, whose membership varied for each mission. This team only appeared once, in issues #3-4 of the relaunched Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme series. Several of these seemingly-deceased members later returned as the mystical Dragon Circle. The remaining group of Defenders finally disbanded in New Defenders #152, as a number of the members had apparently died and several others left the team to join X-Factor.
This was the result of an alien prophecy that stated that these four, operating as a group, would be responsible for destroying the world. A large number of other heroes worked alongside the team in its original incarnation, with a number becoming "official" members. Though the team was founded by Strange, Namor and the Hulk, the others are generally considered to be core members of the team. The Defenders first appeared as a team in Marvel Feature #1 , where the founding members gathered to battle the alien techno-wizard Yandroth and decided to remain as a team. In the second arc, , Namor enlists the aid of the Silver Surfer and the Hulk to stop a potentially devastating weather control experiment. The first, , Sub-Mariner #22 , and The Incredible Hulk #126 also featured Doctor Strange, with each individual future Defender drawn together to protect the earth from invasion by Lovecraftian inter-planar beings known as the Undying Ones. Two members of the Defenders, the Hulk and Namor the Sub-Mariner, appeared in two cross-over story arcs prior to the official founding of the team. Marvel recently published a new eponymous miniseries featuring the classic line-up.
Strange assembled teams on a single mission basis. The concept was modified in the 1993-95 series Secret Defenders, in which Dr. The group was featured in an eponymous series with a rotating line-up from 1972 until 1986, retitled near the end of the run as The New Defenders and featuring none of the original line-up. They first appeared as The Defenders in Marvel Feature #1. Strange and also includes The Silver Surfer, Namor the Submariner and the Hulk, all popular superheroes in their own right. Its current and arguably most popular incarnation is led by Dr. The Defenders are a Marvel Comicssuperhero group, usually presented as a "non-team", given how fluid its membership is, that usually battles mystic and supernatural threats.
With books that range from 1954 to present day, covering multiple genres and publishers, you'll never know what's going to turn up. So while this isn't an actual Hulk issue, hopefully it'll be good enough to scratch that gamma-ray irradiated itch. The Defenders #51 from September 1977, published by Marvel Comics. I'm usually all over alternate histories, diverging futures, and goatee'd doppelgangers, but for some reason I never jumped on board this particular one.