Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The Avengers team are with Thanos on his Sanctuary starship, and Death arrived last issue to inform them that they're all trapped here by the Rot, a blackness slowly consuming the Universe. Thanos couldn't even teleport away.
Mantis creates an energy bubble to surround the ship but it soon buckles and tendrils of darkness invade. Previously Thanos the Titan 'god' upgraded 2 beings to 'godling' status - Primo the firebeing and the saurian pirate Reptyl. Now a tendril disintegrates Primo. But now Mantis' son Quoi, the plant/human hybrid Celestial Messiah, joins his power to hers and they succeed in erecting the protective sphere.
Haywire, the only member of the alternate-Earth Squadron Supreme left in this universe, attached himself to this mission with 1 purpose. And now he knows that he's in the presence of Death he can implement it. He asks her to return his dead love Inertia to him. But Death just ignores him.
Then Death's ex-lover Thanos addresses her, reminding her that he no longer serves her. But she ignores him too. Scarlet Witch tries too (but I don't know why she thinks Death wants to speak to *her*).
Because he can't teleport out, and the Rot can kill Eternals (as his father Mentor found out last issue), Thanos proposes a truce so they can work on an escape plan together. Quoi adds that he absorbed half of Thanos' power (last issue), so the Big T needs them even more. The saurian Raptra claims (sort of) that's why she tried to give him to Thanos. The Celestial Messiah needed to learn how bad the universe could be so he'd learn how to survive. But Quoi doesn't know whether to believe her.
Reptyl goes with Scarlet Witch, Thor and Vision out into the protected space around the ship. Wanda Maximoff senses the Rot is magic, but also something else. Thor throws his hammer out into the Rot. Mjolnir returns to him unharmed but without affecting the Rot. The 4 combine their powers but only manage to damage the Rot slightly and temporarily. Vision has to talk Thor out of flying out into the darkness.
They re-enter the ship to get Quoi's help. Mantis says that she's got the measure of the Rot now so she can hold it back without him. The Messiah says he knows what he has to do, but before he goes he tells his mother he loves her ... and also Raptra.
He flies out into the Rot. Within the darkness he tries to use his power to absorb and transmute it. At 1st he fails and the Rot starts to break him apart. But then he rallies and manages to literally pull himself together. And then he sends a blast of his/Thanos' power into the darkness. But the darkness absorbs it and seems to like it.
He returns to the ship to report his failure. He only made the Rot stronger, and Mantis senses that too. Thanos says it's because the boy doesn't know how to *use* power, because he worships life while the Titan worships nothingness. Mantis retorts that Thanos grew up loving to kill, and life meant nothing to him. So he worshipped Death herself, but later abandoned even her. Now he claims to love nothingness, but in truth he loves nothing. The mad god agrees that he loves nothing but himself.
Now Death speaks again (after surprising them at the end of last issue) to tell Thanos that the Rot is their child. She had always kept him at arms length. But when he died (Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2) they merged and at that moment birthed a horror. It grew from a tiny dot for a long time without Death sensing it. But eventually it grew too large to be ignored, and she realised she hadn't sensed it because it was alive (because of its father) but not life (because of its mother).
She then says that only she and Thanos together can end what they began. Despite others' reservations Quoi gives Thanos his power back. Revelling in his full power he accompanies Death to invade their offspring. Thanos fires his power cosmic into the darkness, and Death tries to let the Rot flow into her as all things must in the end. But both fail and are already rapidly breaking apart. Death says they need to go against their natures to succeed. She repels the darkness and sends it towards Thanos who takes it all in. And then he lets it all out again in 1 explosion ...
... which results in everything the Rot consumed being recreated, including Mentor.
Death approaches Thanos and suggests that having offspring has changed their relationship, and she accepts his suit. But he turns her down, as he had offered her his love not a relationship. And "If you will *have* me, you are not *worthy*". (Shades of Groucho Marx "I refuse to join any club that would have *me* as a member".) And he teleports away.
Haywire asks Death again to return Edith Freiberg (Inertia) to life - she means everything to him and nothing to Death. She responds that everyone is special to her. But as she turns to leave he leaps into her body, hoping to be reunited with his love. Silverclaw suggests it was obsession not love, like Thanos and Death.
Quoi decides to stay in the ex-Rot to oversee the healing process. Raptra offers to be his pilot, and more. Reptyl is a dino-separatist and angrily disapproves of the Quoi/Raptra relationship, but leaves them to it. Mantis gives them her blessing as she lets her son fly the coop. She and the Avengers will use Thanos' ship Sanctuary to return to Earth. (Their quinjet was lost to the Rot last issue and for some reason doesn't seem to have returned with everything else.)
Vision has a private word with Mantis. The synthezoid knows that Mantis would love to have more children, but as an android he can't give her any. So he says that their love can't work. She reluctantly agrees, but they part with the hope that the future might be more conducive to their love. His ex-wife Wanda lays a consoling hand on his shoulder.