Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue Mentor, leader of the Eternals of Titan, decided that they had to intervene in Thanos' attack on the Celestial Messiah. Now he gathers his son Eros (Starfox) and the other remaining Eternals and sends them to fight his other son Thanos, even though he may be sending them to their deaths. And when they are gone he heads off on a mission of his own.
Meanwhile Thanos' huge starship Sanctuary comes across a spaceship crewed by Plasmagenians, humanoids made of fire. The starship distracts them with a torpedo while Reptyl, who Thanos turned into a god last issue, sneaks in with a cloak of invisibility, defeats the leader called Primo and takes him unconscious back to Thanos. When he wakes the mad Titan offers Primo the chance to become a god too.
On the Cotati planet Tamal, Mantis and some Avengers have come to protect her half-Cotati son Quoi, the Celestial Messiah, from Thanos. But he blames her for leaving him for years with the plant-beings, even though he now knows she was discorporated most of the time. The mother now tries to restore the bond with her son, but the teen lashes out. But we can see that he's frightened by the responsibility of being the Messiah to the Universe.
Elsewhere on Tamal Scarlet Witch approaches Thor and demands a fight. The Thunder God is worried about harming his old friend, but Wanda Maximoff hits him with hexes. Irritated he throws his hammer Mjolnir to slam into the ground at her feet, knocking her over. As he bends to help her up she magics some dirt to rise up and hit him in the face, and counts it as a win. Along the way she explains that she just wanted to vent her irritation at the relationship between Mantis and her ex-husband Vision, and her anger with herself for feeling that way.
Otherelsewhere Silverclaw and the non-Avenger Haywire (the only member of the alternate-universe Squadron Supreme left in *this* universe) are sparring physically and verbally. Lupe is still trying to talk Harold Danforth out of his obsession with his dead girlfriend Edith Freiberg (Inertia of the Squadron). She wants him to move on and someone else (hopefully her), but Harold is determined to find the Goddess of Death and get her to bring Edith back to life.
But we leave them all to follow the Eternals to Sanctuary. Eros rallies them by reminding them that his brother nearly destroyed all the Eternals once, and many of those here now may not survive this. (You call that rallying?!) But they're all up for it. And watching them is Death (who *was* on Tamal briefly last issue but Haywire doesn't know it).
Back with Mantis and her son, where Quoi's speech has completed a transition to normal speech. It turns out he didn't have his own teenage patois, it's just that he didn't have any non-telepaths to learn spoken language off. He still doesn't really believe he's the perfect humanoid/plant hybrid who will change the Universe. But she says that *she* didn't believe she was the Celestial Madonna either. But the bright star that started this series is the Universe's way of announcing his arrival.
Apparently Reptyl brought another Plasmagen called Secco along alive to Sanctuary too, because Thanos uses Secco's lifeforce to upgrade Primo to god-status. And Primo now swears fealty. At this point the Eternals decide to try to breach the starship. Thanos hears his brother's voice and tells Primo and Reptyl to go kill them all except Eros, and also gets his crew to fire Sanctuary's guns. Only 8 Eternals survive. Eros tells the others to scatter, but he himself completes the break-in ...
... and attacks his brother. The battle is evenly-matched, Starfox's speed vs Thanos' might, because they have fought each other since children. But Eros' emotion-manipulation is useless against the emotionless Thanos, except he says that his brother's overwhelming lust for power can be used against him. Eros taunts Thanos about killing most of the other Eternals, including their mother, but the mad god owns his sins. Killing is what he does, but he won't kill Eros now. Primo and Reptyl return from killing 4 of the remaining Eternals and maiming the other 3. All 3 'gods' pound Starfox into deep unconsciousness. He won't wake till it's all over. Thanos wants him and Mentor to continue to live with the knowledge that they couldn't stop his murder spree.
Last issue Thanos offered godhood to Reptyl's companion Saurian Raptra but she refused. He intends to give her the choice again or death. But the female has slipped away with the cloak of invisibility and stolen a small ship. She intends to beat him to the Celestial Messiah.