Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue Puck, Sasquatch, Shaman, Talisman and Windshear joined Goddess' Infinity Crusade flock in Paradise Omega, and Aurora, Guardian, Northstar and Wildheart went to join the left-behind heroes in Avengers Mansion. Meanwhile Witchfire was contacted by her unknown father and converted to a demonic form to oppose Goddess' plan to turn the universe good. Her 1st act was to apparently kill most of Beta Flight (Goblyn, Pathway and Persuasion) and Alpha Flight's guest Wyre. She took Manikin prisoner.
Now Guardian, Northstar and Wildheart have returned to Department H to answer a distress call, and find it transmuted to something out of Hell. They are worried about Aurora who changed to her religious Jeanne-Marie persona in IC#2 and felt the call of the Goddess. Iron Man, Mr Fantastic and Vision accompanied her in an Avengers quinjet to visit Paradise Omega (a new planet on the far side of the Sun).
Wildheart wonders if the 2 events are connected, and Witchfire mentally listening in knows he's right. They enter the building and are confronted by monsters in the darkness. Guardian and Northstar fight them but Wildheart battles savagely, reverting to his old Wild Child persona.
Meanwhile Witchfire is torturing Whitman Knapp just because she can. She claims that her father set free the demon she always was inside the human she pretended to be. She leaves to fight the Goddess, but before she goes she tells him that when the Goddess is dead the Dark Ones will return to reclaim the Earth. Manikin knows she's only letting him live because he's powerless now that his alternate selves have gone (they sacrificed themselves for him in #119).
Witchfire arrives on the Paradise Omega planet where Sasquatch and Talisman are communing with nature. She makes them both remember their mothers. Elizabeth Twoyoungmen was 10 when her father Shaman failed to cure his fatally ill wife (as 1st told in #5) and Elizabeth stopped believing in an afterlife. But Walter Langkowski doesn't actually think of his mother, rather how at 20 he dedicated his life to science and put aside superstition. Whatever, Witchfire has opened cracks in their Goddess-granted certainty.
Wildheart recovers himself and the 3 Alphans start retreating, and Guardian sends Northstar ahead to scout the way. But he hasn't gone far when he's blasted by the returned Witchfire.
Meanwhile Wyre has survived being thrown by Witchfire burning and barely conscious out of the top of the building last issue. But we learn that the wires bonded to him automatically reached out to slow his descent. As he's said before, he's very hard to kill.
Story 2: Brothers in arms, part 2 (starring Puck)
Barry Kitson pencils. John Stokes inks.
Last issue Puck went with Northstar and Wildheart to arrest an unregistered superchar who Puck had recognised as an old comrade Cleft. Then Cleft was joined by Depth Charge and Flagstone, the rest of the 4-some who used to call themselves the Outcasts.
Now as the fight commences Puck recalls his origin for us. He was born with painful dwarfism but he learned to control the pain using methods taught him by Asian mystics. They also taught him how to tap his body's full potential.
Meanwhile back in reality he's getting beaten up by Depth Charge while trying to talk him into coming peacefully. Northstar is running rings round Cleft. And Wildheart is leaping on Flagstone who seems to suggest that the 3 have learned to channel their full potential too, trained by Puck. However Wildheart responds by unleashing the Wild Child within. Cleft is able to move fast enough to hit even the super-speedster, and he targets an injury he noticed (that Northstar got in #119).
Puck has been holding back from hitting his old friend Depth Charge. But now he remembers that he gave up their mercenary life to do something meaningful with Alpha Flight. So he flips his foe with a judo move and then stomps on his head. Then he somersaults to kick Cleft off Northstar, and does the same to him as to Depth Charge. And we hear that Wildheart slashed Flagstone up.
Puck hopes he's made the right choice.