Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Avengers Scarlet Witch, Silverclaw, Thor and Vision along with ex-Squadron Supreme member Haywire are off on a space mission to find Mantis' son Quoi and protect him from Thanos.
This issue opens with the very strong suggestion that Mantis and Vision have just slept together, and his ex-wife Wanda Maximoff is well aware of it. The 2 have an awkward conversation where Wanda protests (possibly too much) that she's happy he's moved on, as he's OK with *her* relationship with his 'brother' Simon Williams (Wonder Man), and she has to stop him telling her details about the 'night'. Silverclaw overhears and teen Lupe is envious of their adult attitudes to sex.
As usual human interactions get interrupted by an attack. The quinjet is fired on by 3 pirate spacecraft striking out of the glare of a nova. Current pilot Thor calls on Silverclaw to take over, even though she's inexperienced in quinjet control. Haywire offers to stay and help her while the other 4 take the fight outside in space.
The pirates are the saurian Reptyl, Raptra and Kid Syn who we met last issue. Mantis, Thor and the synthezoid Vision can survive in a vacuum, and the Witch dons a spacesuit. Thor's hammer Mjolnir damages Raptra's ship. The other 2 veer away but SW's hex makes them bump into each other. Angry Reptyl aims his ship at her but Mantis draws power from the stars to blast it away. Vision goes immaterial to fly through other blasts and phase into Syn's ship where he materialises inside its power source causing a massive explosion. Syn and his crew flee in escape pods. Raptra refuses to help their Captain Reptyl while she picks the pods up, and then the 2 remaining ships depart.
The Avengers return to the ship where Harold Danforth and Lupe are arguing. Haywire claimed his old girlfriend Inertia would have gone after the baddies. Lupe, who has developed a crush on him, pointed out that Inertia died fighting so she couldn't have been all that, which of course didn't go down well. Harold blurts out that he's going to get the Goddess Of Death (who he heard last issue that Thanos is thick with) to bring her back. Lupe consoles him because she hadn't realised he loved his girl *that* much. She watches Mantis and Wanda being 'civil' to each other, but we know Wanda doesn't like it when the other woman calls Vision 'Viz'.
The 3 saurian pirates in their 2 ships bicker until the Sanctuary ship of Thanos suddenly appears before them.
The Avengers approach the Cotati planet, Tamal. Mantis is apprehensive about meeting the son she hasn't seen for years. Vision breaks the tension by cracking a joke! Silverclaw tells Thor she hopes to be in a relationship as good as theirs sometime. Thor suggests she tell Haywire how she feels, and Lupe denies it all.
As they land we get a potted history of the Cotati. They used to be mobile plants who shared a world with the Kree but the Kree tried to exterminate them. The Cotati survived in hiding and evolved greater mental abilities even as they gave up their mobility. A Kree pacifist sect, the Priests Of Pama, smuggled them to other worlds like Tamal (and Earth and the moon Titan) where the combination set up monasteries.
The team are greeted by nearby immobile Cotati and then by Mantis' very mobile Cotati mate in the spectral form of her previous and dead lover Swordsman. He explains the above history to Haywire and Silverclaw who don't know it already. Lupe, child of the Amazon, is impressed by the bond between the humanoid and plant life. Harold hears of people who fled their own world because they could no longer bear to live there. Mantis just wants to see her son ...
... who is also mobile and arrives full of teen attitude (he's effectively 18 due to fast plant growth) and his own teen language, claiming the name Q now instead of Sequioa or Quoi. He no longer listens to his dad and is angry at his mom for abandoning him for years. He won't listen to her explanation that she has only returned to full life 4 days ago, and dismisses the idea that he needs protecting from Thanos. He's the Celestial Messiah, which he figures outranks Thor, and he can look after himself. So mom can go back where she came from.
Meanwhile on Titan Mentor, father of Thanos, has seen the sign heralding the Celestial Messiah coming into his power and knows that he and the Eternals of Titan must act even though it means their doom.
In another meanwhile the 3 saurians are all somehow on the same ship when it is boarded by Thanos and his goblins teleporting in. The rest of the crew die immediately leaving the 3 alone to face him. The mad god says he's not here to kill them but to raise them to godhood if they'll serve him in his mission to kill the Celestial Messiah. 2 of them don't trust him but Reptyl is as ever hungry for power. Thanos drags the life-force out of Kid Syn and and transfers it to Reptyl, who bulks up and declares himself Reptyl the God. Thanos offers the life of 1 of his minions to enGoden Raptra but she refuses, so he says he'll keep her around to use in turning someone else into a god.
On Tamal Mantis apologises for Swordsman having to bring up Quoi mostly alone. He says that Quoi singly caused enough of a disruption to the communal telepathic plants. Having 2 individuals might have been more than they could bear (and I think he means it). They agree that they had their destined moment in birthing Quoi but they are too dissimilar for their relationship to have lasted. They are sharing a last embrace ...
... when Vision interrupts and demands to fight the Cotati for her favours. Mantis persuades him with a kiss that *he*'s the 1 for her. Swordsman leaves them alone. But we see that Lady Death is watching.