Richmond later retires as Nighthawk, feeling that he can better serve the public good as a politician, eventually becoming President of the United States. However, President Richmond is mentally assaulted by the alien entity known as the Over-Mind, who nearly obliterates the real Richmond's mind and then embarks on a campaign of world domination via an artificial duplicate of the President. The real Richmond is rescued by a psychic entity from Earth-616 with ties to that world's Kyle Richmond, and reconstructs his mind to make him temporarily believe that he is the Nighthawk of Earth-616 (then presumed deceased by his teammates in the Defenders). When the other Squadron members, save for Hyperion, are mind-controlled by the Overmind (who itself is later revealed to be a pawn of another alien menace, Null the Living Darkness), Hyperion and Nighthawk recruit the Defenders to help free the Squadron and defeat the alien threat. When the Richmond working with the Overmind is revealed to be artificial, Nighthawk recalls his true identity and rejoins the Squadron Supreme.