The Defenders #137

With Gargoyle under the control of a powerful mage, the Defenders are hesitant to fight their friend!

The Defenders confront the sorcerer who is controlling Gargoyle. They try to speak with him, to no avail. Suddenly the sorcerer demands that his slave defeat "the demons," and Gargoyle can do nothing but attack his old friends. Gargoyle almost kills Cloud, but Angel saves her. Valkyrie flies with Aragorn towards Gargoyle and uses her mystical sword to wound him, but when she is about to kill him, she can't do it, and Gargoyle punches her away. Moondragon then enters Gargoyle's mind and tries to convince him to destroy her headband (created by Odin to stop her from doing evil), so she can stop Gargoyle. Gargoyle refuses, and when the sorcerer realizes what she's doing, he blasts her off.

Finally, Beast recognizes the strange names that the sorcerer is invoking, and talks to him using the same terminology, confusing him. Then Angel grabs him and tries to catch the pentagram, but his hand catches on fire (just an illusion). Gargoyle attacks again, Valkyrie holds his hand and Beast uses her sword to cut off Gargoyle's hand. The hand turns into a two-headed dragon and attacks everyone.

Again Moondragon reaches Gargoyle's mind and beg him to destroy her tiara so she could save everyone with great power, but Gargoyle denies it saying she was evil inside just like Odin told him. But he tells Moondragon about one weakness of the Sorcerer - he can only see with one eye.

The Defenders defeat the dragon and Moondragon makes up a plan: they use Valkyrie's sword to blind momentarily the sorcerer and when he asks for Gargoyle's vision to fight, Gargoyle shows him another place where the Defenders look like the true forms of their souls, and not demons as he had thought. He sees Beast as a wise man, Angel as a sacred dove, Iceman as a full with pure heart and Cloud as a boy and a girl in one body. However when he looks at Moondragon and Valkyrie, he is filled with fear and runs outside the pentagram at the ground around them. That makes his enchantment disappear and Gargoyle is freed again.

Before passing away because of his injuries, Gargoyle warns everyone about Moondragon...