Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue Quasar called on fellow reserve Avengers Moondragon, Photon, Starfox, Thor and Tigra to help investigate a razed Rigellian planet whose only survivor was a comatose fellow Earth hero Jack Of Hearts. Moondragon read his mind and learned that the place had been wrecked by the Servitors of the Infinites. And they were attacked by android Servitors rising out of the ground.
Moondragon, Starfox and Tigra are trying to get unconscious Quasar and JOH into Moonie's starship but they're surrounded by Servitors. Jack is in a containment tube created by Quasar to stop his dangerous energy exploding out of his breached armour. Starfox (Eros of Titan) lays into them. Tigra hands Quasar over to Titanian priestess Moondragon and tells her to use her psychic powers to wake him up, and joins in the 'fun'. They seem to be doing OK until they notice that every android they break apart regenerates into 2 or more.
Inside a dome Photon and Thor already discovered the splitting problem last issue. But only now do they find that more Servitors can rise from the ground as well. Photon in her energy form dives into the ground to see if she can find where they're coming from.
Moondragon is irritated at being told what to do by inferior Tigra, and also by her inability to get through Quasar's psi-blocks despite the inferiority of his mind. (To Heather Douglas *everyone* else is inferior to her.) But eventually she rouses him and he generates a quantum wall to keep the Servitors at bay. Followed by 1 of his favourites - ram's head battering rams. And after that a load of quantum anvils to drop on their heads - which does seem to work.
But inside the dome Thor is getting swamped by a plethora of Servitors. This gets him really frustrated so he unleashes a mighty lightning(?) blast. And he emerges from the wrecked dome to say that the foe has been vanquished and the Rigellians avenged.
But then Photon erupts from the ground to tell them that there are millions of Servitors underground and they're all multiplying. They seem to be converting the mass of the planet. And they're following her here. The Avengers ex-leader orders them to retreat to Moondragon's ship with JOH while she holds the Servitors off. Heather again doesn't like being told what to do, especially when it was what she was trying to do in the 1st place. But she bites her tongue and obeys with Starfox, Tigra and Jack's tube.
But Quasar (with a quantum shield) and Thor stay to fight - they won before and retreat isn't an option. Monica Rambeau has a hard time trying to convince them that their previous victories were illusory. But then a Servitor unleashes a new kind of force blast which downs all 3 of them. Photon is 1st to recover and dives inside that android. She emerges to report that their power source is extra-dimensional, and warns her allies to shield their eyes as she expends a lot of energy to wipe out many of the foes.
Thor reluctantly allows Quasar to generate a quantum bubble to protect them from further blasts while it carries them up to Moondragon's Titanian ship. The Thunder God claims that if he'd been allowed to fight on he would have prevailed as he always does. Angry Photon says further fighting would be useless. There are no lives to save and the enemy is unstoppable. Thor says that his Rigellian friends still need avenging. (Not that he necessarily knew anyone on *this* planet personally.)
Once on Moony's ship Starfox directs Monica Rambeau to a med-unit that will heal her fairly serious wounds. Tigra accompanies her. Eros also points Quasar in the direction of an analysis chamber where Heather is studying Jack Of Hearts. She tells Wendell Vaughn to remove his quantum tube so that she can get at her patient. Then she cuts off his armour which worries Wendell but she reminds him that she studied Jack before (Quasar #27) and her own dampening field can contain his energy (Q#29) without getting in the way.
Meanwhile Photon gets fixed up in a healing bath while Tigra feeds her equally-damaged costume into a device which makes that good as new too. Monica has to explain that she's no longer Captain Marvel because Mar-Vell's son Genis-Vell claimed dibs on the name. And she has to explain to Greer Grant that Photon is an appropriate new name because a photon is a wave-packet of electromagnetic energy. Tigra thinks this Avengers ex-leader should take charge of *this* team.
Thor is bemoaning the fact that he's failed his Rigellian allies twice recently by turning up too late to protect them. 1st Thanos (and Mangog) killed everyone on the Rigellian homeworld (Thor Annual 2000) and now this slaughter. Eros points out that if not for Quasar's listening posts they wouldn't have even known it had happened. Thor still wants revenge, and Photon promises him that as she enters with Tigra. But 1st they need more info ...
... which is what Moondragon promises when *she* enters with Quasar. She's decoded more of the data in Jack's mind that he got from the Servitors, and she now knows what's going on. The mindless drone Servitors are burrowing into the planet, converting its mass into more of themselves. When they breach the molten core it will explode and consume them, but the end-result will be a molten planet ready for their masters the Infinites to reshape. And we see Moondragon's spaceship fleeing from exactly that. But Heather hasn't been able to discover *what* the Infinites intend to do with the planet now.
Suddenly she senses JOH awakening and they all rush to his side to find him muttering over and over "They're coming". Outside the ship a hole opens in space and a giant hand pokes through, followed by the rest of the being - a variation on the Servitors as big as the planet.