Synopsis / Summary / Plot
A small group of Avengers/Eternals/X-Men revived the dead Celestial Progenitor in order to stop the war between Eternals and mutants. That worked but Progenitor then started to judge the human race. At the end of A.X.E.: Judgment Day #5 a slightly different small group entered the body of the Celestial to find and push its self-destruct button. We have followed their slow progress in AXE: Avengers 1-shot (where Iron Man was judged) and AXE: X-Men 1-shot (where the same happened to Jean Grey). The rest of the team are Eternals Ajak, Makkari and Sersi and mutants Mister Sinister and Wolverine.
Now the trek continues as angry Jean Grey blasts her way through the immense body. Priestess Ajak comments that she believes they're making good progress but more large antibodies attack them and Jean has to psychically suppress the Eternals' inbuilt prohibition against harming Celestials to allow them to fight back.
Tony Stark asks Sersi why she agreed to come on this mission. She says it's because she doesn't trust Ajak and Makkari, as priestesses of the Celestial gods, to do the necessary thing. Tony asks why they should trust *her* because Progenitor has already found her unworthy, and she won't tell them why. Sersi remembers (off-panel in Eternals #6) when she failed to persuade Ikaris not to tell humanity how 1 of them (or possibly a Deviant) has to die every time an Eternal gets resurrected, and then she sent Jack Of Knives to threaten to kill anyone he *did* tell. And that's why she failed the Celestial's test. But she deflects his question by suggesting that Stark only passed because the rebuilt Celestial was partly based on *his* nervous system. She also points out that the Eternals' actions are determined by principles built in to them by their Celestial creators so Progenitor shouldn't really judge *them*. But Makkari says that *she* was judged negatively because of the way she interpreted the 'scriptures'.
The other priestess Ajak says her own judgment was suspended ... but then it recommences. The Celestial sends her on a journey to face all the beings who died for *her* resurrections. 1st is the Deviant who died for her after she was killed by the 1M BC Avengers (as described in the Eternals: Celestia 1-shot). The vision of him tells her that in order to progress she must kill him (again). After she does that she meets a human (who in passing explains the he was alive in 1M BC because his grandmother and some others fell through a chronal rift). She kills *him* and the Celestial tells her she'll have to kill all the others who died to keep her alive.
But we skip over the rest of them until she finishes and then asks her god if she has passed. But appearing as the deaf/dumb Makkari the Celestial signs that she negatively judged Sersi for keeping the deadly cost secret form humans, and she asks the priestess what *her* excuse was. Ajak says telling them wouldn't change anything, and she tried not to die unnecessarily. Progenitor then accuses her of being unfaithful to her gods because, before she helped revive him she tortured his 'ghost' to learn Celestial secrets (Et#11). She counters that the Celestials failed *her* when they stopped communicating with their priests, and later when it was revealed that the Eternals weren't created to protect humanity but to nurture its potential for superhumans/mutants, and that the Deviants were more important than them in that respect. She helped create Progenitor as a better god who could free them from the curse of deadly resurrection. Only then can they try to make amends with humanity.
Progenitor points out that her actions created this version of him that is now killing humanity. She replies that it's not too late for him to be a better god and she still has faith in that. He condemns her for too much faith. But she believes this is as much a test of *him* as of her, and she has faith that in the end they both will not fail. So he gives her another test by stopping Jean Grey from being able to affect her mind. Now the Celestial 1st Principle will prevent her from attacking Progenitor, but she will have the freedom to ignore it by her own will when the final conflict occurs.
Ajak's consciousness now returns to her companions and no time has passed. She leads them down a shaft which she believes will lead to their destination.