Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Avengers Scarlet Witch, Silverclaw, Thor and Vision came to the Cotati planet Tamal, with ex-Squadron Supreme Haywire tagging along, to help Mantis protect her son Quoi, the Celestial Messiah, from Thanos. But then someone else managed to sneak Quoi away from under their noses. The Avengers quinjet followed that spaceship, guided by Mantis' psychic link with her son, and last issue they saw it enter a strange black area of space.
Now pilot Vision detects Thanos' massive starship Sanctuary approaching the dark area too, but from the opposite side. Thor suggests that while the others follow Quoi into the dark, he and Mantis should seek an audience with Eternity and ask for his help against his sister Death and her 'champion' Thanos. Thor is a god and Mantis has been raised to godhood as the Celestial Madonna, so they have the best chance of being heard. But Vision insists on taking the Thunder God's place alongside his beloved, and Thor gives way.
The lovers leap out into space, hands entwined. (Synthezoid Vision doesn't need to breathe. Presumably Mantis' plant/human hybrid goddess nature enables her to survive somehow.) Mantis tells Vizh that Silver Surfer taught her the joys of space travel (back in SS(1987)#3-9). The unjealous android just says now she can teach him. And they head into the stars.
Quoi was taken by saurian Raptra. In #3-4 Thanos created godlings out of another saurian Reptyl and the firebeing Primo who are now quizzing an informant about where Raptra might have gone. He tells them about the Rot, the recently-developed dark area in space. It's dangerous to go inside but there are plenty of places to hide around the edges. He claims not to know exactly where Raptra said she was going, but a handful of gems improves his memory and he says she enquired about the left side of the area. Afterwards Reptyl, who knows her well, smells a double-bluff. She asked about the left to make them think she was heading right, but then she will have gone left after all.
And Raptra and Quoi *have* taken their ship left. Raptra knows they can't hide forever because Thanos is inescapable. Quoi believes the Avengers and his mom will defeat the bad guy. The conversation turns to the powers being the plant/animal Celestial Messiah might have given him, but quickly degenerates into playful sparring which ends with a kiss. But Raptra remembers that she tried to 'sell' Quoi to Thanos in return for her own safety (last issue).
Last issue left Thanos wondering if the attack of his Titanian brethren had been a distraction to stop him wondering what his father Mentor was doing. He's now tracked him down inside the Rot where as we saw last issue the strange area of space is dissolving Mentor bit by bit. Thanos has always foreborne to kill his father so that Mentor would have to continue to live with the knowledge that his wife died by the hands of his son. However now he senses that Mentor is truly preparing to die here. But if death is to come to Mentor it must be by *his* doing, so he strikes his father shattering him into pieces which fall into the Rot. And Thanos now declares himself All-Father of Titan.
On the quinjet Haywire has a 'firefly' he caught on Tamal. Now he kills it hoping that Death will come to claim it. (He intends to petition Death for the return of his dead girlfriend Inertia.) But nothing happens. However in the cargo hold where Silverclaw and Scarlet Witch are sparring it's another matter. Wanda Maximoff tells Lupe not to give up on trying to win the affections of Harold Danforth away from dead Edith Freiberg. After all *she* originally beat Mantis for the love of Vision (and their later break up was nothing to do with the other woman). Death then *does* appear to these 2. They both face her down, and then she fades away without speaking.
Meanwhile Mantis and Vision have found Eternity floating in space (that was easy!). Mantis petitions the personification of the Universe for help against Thanos and Death. He surely knows how important the Celestial Messiah. But Eternity refuses, so Mantis escalates her contact by entering his 'body'. Vision sees her appearing to dance her way in. But inside her attention is drawn to the area of darkness which she now senses as a growing cancer that will eventually consume Eternity's body, ie the Universe. Now it's *her* turn to offer help, but Eternity says he has accepted his fate.
Mantis doesn't intend to let *this* kill Quoi either, and she leaves to pass this news on to Vision. But she finds Thanos has captured the synthezoid in a force bubble. And he blasts her unconscious and takes them both away from Eternity.
Raptra is flying her ship between lumps of darkness (like flying through an asteroid belt is popularly imagined) when another spaceship appears nearby. Reptyl and Primo leave their craft to invade Raptra's ship manually. She fights back with a hand blaster. Quoi reveals his power by sucking the flames out of Primo. ('Scientific' explanation - humans breathe in oxygen and transmute it to carbon dioxide, plants do the reverse, and he can absorb and transmute anything.) Reptyl knocks Quoi down so enraged Raptra keeps peppering him with blasts. But then Thanos teleports in and ends the fight.
'Generously' he offers to take up Raptra's previous offer, Quoi in return for her safety. Desperate Raptra accepts, and Thanos makes sure Quoi hears her. Then he says he lied, he won't let her go.
And the quinjet approaches their location.