Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue the original Avengers suffered another attack by Kang The Conqueror and now they want to take the fight to him in his future era. Thor's hammer can't help them (in Journey Into Mystery #86 it needed a fragment of Zarrko's time-craft to guide it) so they've come to the Baxter Building to ask the Fantastic Four to let them use Dr Doom's time machine (there since Doom's 1st app in FF#5). The entrance is coded to admit their mailman Willie Lumpkin so they follow him in. But he also tells them that the FF have just left in their Fantasti-Car.
He also tells them about the special elevator they'll have to use to get to their HQ on the top floors, but the HQ is booby-trapped to deal with unwelcome guests. However they barge ahead of him (carrying his heavy mailsack) and Iron Man tinkers with the lift controls to call the lift down. Captain America is unhappy being a burglar but the lift takes them safely up. Willie has to wait for the lift to return, but when he gets there he finds the team entangled in security tentacles which remind Thor of Jormungand the Midgard Serpent. Ant-Man grows to Giant-Man but can't snap the tentacles. But Cap's shield slices through some of them enabling IM to reach an off-switch.
They find the time machine which is a platform on the floor. Wasp expects IM and her guy Hank Pym to figure out how to make it work, but GM says he doesn't understand time-travel and IM continues the fiction that he's not Tony Stark, merely his bodyguard. Thor tries summoning lightning but only scorches it. He impatiently leaves and the others follow. Willie dumps his mailsack near the time machine because the mailroom's full then he leaves too.
But we hang around to see a parcel fall out of the sack and land on the TM's control box, turning it on. Possibly influenced by Thor's lightning it fetches Sindri, king of the Asgardian dwarves, from his hall in Nidavellir, a horn of mead in 1 hand and a haunch of meat in the other. He's understandably not happy. He can tell by the smell that he's on Midgard (Earth) and he can also detect a whiff of Thor on a fragment of tentacle. So he leaps out of a window and plummets to the pavement in search of the Thunder God, who he blames for all this.
He has to force his little way through the bustling crowds and then bounds along the tops of cars stalled in the midtown traffic. He doesn't think much of their metalwork and easily dispels metal bullets fired at him by a couple of policemen. A taxi rams into him but he just picks it up and uses it to smash other cars, all the while calling out for Thor. Then the Thunder God turns up and tells him to go home. Sindri accuses the Odinson of bringing him here, which Thor denies so they start fighting. Peter Parker takes photos from an alley, and more as the other Avengers show up. He then runs off to sell the pics to J Jonah Jameson at the Daily Bugle, confidant that the team can handle the problem.
Sindri temporarily gets the better of Thor so Iron Man leaps on him. But the dwarf king's mastery of iron enable him to mangle 1 of IM's gauntlets. Cap throws his shield which isn't made of iron (it's made of vibranium, but it's actually melded with steel). Wasp recognises young Patsy Walker (presumably from the comics her mother wrote about her) in the crowd and they exchange chat about the Beatles. Sindri hurls Cap into Giant-Man and then he picks up a metal bar with a lump of concrete on the end to use as a makeshift hammer against Thor. They again disagree about Thor bringing him here. Thor throws Mjolnir at him but the dwarf just plucks it out of the air, reminding the Thunder God that *he* made it for him. Things don't look good.