A
couple resembling Thor and Zephyr are having a picnic in New York’s Central
Park. She’s a bit annoyed that he keeps checking his phone, searching for info
on predatory creatures: this is all a hallucination induced in them by Alter Ego
so they are unaware they are being digested. Instinctively, Thor leads her
into making love on a blanket and, as happened the last time, lightning strikes
and Alter Ego spits them out. They see the Collector waiting with a
dodecahedron but not to recapture the rogue planet; he has just realized that
Zephyr used the seduction ruby to keep him under he power. And now this
dodecahedron contains a black hole and she is drawn inside to fall though space
for eternity. Collector also informs Alter Ego that he will not be recaptured
as it would remind Collector of the shameful incident so he will be
free…assuming he survives his encounter with his brother, Ego the Living Planet….
The
brother planets come into contact and Alter attacks Ego, biting him and forcing
him to fight back. The crew of a space station tries to contact the Avengers or
Fantastic Four but they are busy dealing with the upheavals two new planets are
causing on Earth. The station is facing destruction when Thor comes to its
rescue, deflecting debris breaking off from the dueling planets. Thor speaks in
Alter Ego’s head, an aftereffect of eating him; Thor persuades AE not to be
hostile, to make nice with his brother. But Ego is still miffed and blasts
Alter Ego, tearing huge chunks from him. Ego is almost immediately remorseful
and Zephyr arrives, having emerged from the black hole six centuries in the
past and having just made her way back to this time and place. She tells Thor
she has learned how to be magnificent. She offers to stay with Ego to help him
to heal from this trauma while making the now smaller Alter Ego his moon. The
Stranger arrives, annoyed at Thor’s interference; Thor tells him off and
departs. Stranger shrugs it all off, deciding that the best results of
experiments are often the unexpected. Like this one which ended not in
destruction but a family….