Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Storm joins her fellow Avengers—Wasp, Captain America, and Hercules—at the Mansion to meet a special visitor. President Ronald Reagan comes out on the lawn after conferring with the team’s newest member, Colossus. Iron Man arrives, and the President thanks him for enabling Colossus to escape from the Soviet Union with his family. Iron Man presents Reagan with a box. As he tries to open it, Tony Stark comes rushing in with a warning but Secret Service agents restrain him. Reagan opens the box, unleashing a nuclear holocaust that levels Manhattan. Only Iron Man is left standing and he reveals himself to be Kang the Conqueror, gloating over his victory—but he is suddenly teleported away. He finds himself in a courtroom before a Council of Kangs who condemn him for his rash actions: in the world he was plucked from, the USA, assuming the Soviet Union was responsible for the destruction of Manhattan, retaliated, laying waste that world. They show him the alternate reality where his scheme failed and he was killed instead of everyone else. The Council is fed up with irresponsible Kangs creating multitudes of alternate timelines and they summarily execute this one. Despairing over the ignorant divergent Kangs they are planning to eliminate, the Council adjourns and the three Kangs teleport away…
…and a Kang returns to the Council chamber almost immediately. Suspecting that something is being hidden, he locates a secret panel which opens to reveal the Council leader, the original Kang the Conqueror (Earth-6311), welcoming him. Kang-Prime gives him a tour of his base of operations with a robotics plant, an armament fabricator, and a device to monitor any of the other Kangs in time and space. Lastly, Kang-Prime shows the visitor a living Ravonna; the Kang is so amazed that Kang-Prime can easily shoot him down. He apologizes to Ravonna for putting her through this but now there is but one more Kang to eliminate….
Wasp arrives at Avengers Mansion to find a crowd of demonstrators protesting Namor’s joining the heroic team. She shrinks to bypass the protestors and enters the Mansion where Jarvis fills her in on the situation. Wasp reads a romantic letter from Paladin and heads downstairs to see how the remodeling is going. Black Knight drives a drilling machine to extend the tunnel while Hercules puts in support beams, knocking them into place with his bare hands. They are connecting the new tunnel to an old A.I.M. tunnel, planning to create an easy access route to the new Hydrobase. Suddenly, the front of the machine starts to glow—and the three Avengers are transported to a land covered with fog. The Hulk appears before them and Hercules knocks him out with one punch which they find suspicious. As they watch, Hulk transforms into Giant-Man; Wasp looks under the mask and sees that he is her ex-husband Hank Pym….
Captain America and Captain Marvel are sailing the Avengers submarine to Hydrobase while Namor, the Sub-Mariner, swims with the porpoises nearby. Cap notes C.M.’s new hairstyle and defends Namor to her, claiming he is a fundamentally decent man and being an Avenger should draw that out. Cap tells her she can call him Steve when no civilians are around; she responds by revealing her name, Monica Rambeau, because who can you trust if not Captain America? Namor returns to the ship bearing lobster for dinner and Cap realizes Monica does not trust Namor….
Back in the foggy land, Giant-Man transforms into Iron Man but in a primitive armor two of them don’t recognize. Wasp, however, realizes that the three Avengers appearing before them were impersonated by the Space Phantom in one of the team’s earliest adventures; this alien could impersonate anyone with the real one being cast into Limbo—and that is where they are. Kang steps out of the fog to welcome them to his domain, having defeated Immortus. And they must defeat him or they will remain there for eternity. Wasp tries to sting him and he covers himself with a force field; Black Knight’s Ebony Sword easily cuts it open and Herc jumps in and smashes Kang—who is revealed to be a robot, his disembodied head floating in the air. The robot head mocks the heroes so Herc crushes it….
Kang-Prime explains his plan to Ravonna: he intends to bring the last Kang, the longest-lived one, to Limbo and have him destroy the three Avengers, weakening him enough for Kang-Prime to destroy him easily and replace him with a robot to rule his domain, leaving Kang-Prime in command of all times….