Synopsis / Summary / Plot
At the end of last issue a desperate man in South America sent a message to someone in the US but was then killed by spear-men riding giant hawks.
Now we see a seemingly-ancient but vibrant city in the jungle. An old man rises from his opulent bed and is attended by servants. He surveys his kingdom from an age long-gone, but his thoughts are broken by the sound of a passenger jet flying high overhead.
In New York the Avengers are demolishing some condemned buildings watched by the assembled press. They all follow Wasp's plan until newbie Triathlon gets cocky and nearly doesn't make it to safety. This gig was arranged by Iron Man to make the new team look good to the public, after the bad press the previous team had been getting. Happy Hogan of Stark Solutions steps forward to unveil a model of the Civic Centre that the Maria Stark Foundation will be building here. The Avengers will also be attending a $5000-a-plate fundraising dinner later (but Tony Stark personally paid for their tickets).
In Avengers Mansion Edwin Jarvis notes that the protesters outside have dwindled to a hardy few, and the press aren't covering them. Then his teenage ward Lupe runs in to show him a telegram she's just received saying 'The time has come'. She tells him what it means, but we don't hear it. The she says she'll have to go, but Jarvis contacts the Avengers to go with her. They'll be busy at the fundraiser that night, but they leave with her in a quinjet next morning.
They're all costumed-up, including Lupe as Silverclaw. She tells them of an ancient prophecy of her Kamekeri people. They used to believe in many gods until they were converted to Christianity. Supposedly their old gods retired (possibly to Terry Pratchett's DunManifestin) except for Peliali, the volcano goddess, who stayed to watch over her flock. But the years passed and the Kamekeri forgot even her. But 1 villager studied the old legends and went up the mountains in search of the goddess and came down with a baby daughter, Lupe, who was a shapeshifter. Her father taught her to control her power and made a ceremonial costume for her. And he told her of the prophecy that 1 day a menace would come out of the past and a child of the gods would have to fight it. But then he died and she was put in an orphanage.
The rest of the story we already know from #8. How Jarvis replied to an ad and sponsored her. How they exchanged letters, and he promised to look after her when she enrolled in college in NY. And the battle at the airport where he and the Avengers learned of her Silverclaw identity.
The team reassure her as they enter Costa Verde airspace. She-Hulk contacts the authorities and tells them why they are there. But they are told that there is no such village as Kamekeri. They continue flying to the spot Lupe directs them to and find the old-timey city there instead, with architecture more reminiscent of Arabia than ancient South America.
Then the hawk-riders attack. Iron Man and Warbird fly out to meet them and discover that these guys throw lightning bolts. And they spout threats in the name of Kulan Gath. Carol Danvers is astonished that they speak English, but Tony Stark credits it more to magical translation (or Douglas Adams' Babel Fish). The quinjet leaves them to keep the aerial cavalry busy, and the others look for a place to land. But suddenly Scarlet Witch warns them to pull up because she sensed a powerful magic field around the city.
They land the quinjet in the jungle and are joined by IM and WB. Wanda Maximoff tells them she thinks the field will change them if they pass through it. Goliath, She-Hulk and Warbird enter through a gate to test the theory, and are immediately transformed. Jennifer Walters finds herself wearing Red Sonja's chain mail bikini. And with that Conan reference in mind Carol would make a passable Valeria of the Red Brotherhood (more so in next issue's flashback). And Henry Pym has a piratical outfit with more than a hint of his old identity Yellowjacket about it. Moreover Warbird now believes she's 1 of the hawk-riders, called Falconers, and the other 2 believe themselves in the service of Gath as well.
But then Iron Man lassos them with a vine and yanks them back out into the real world, and their real costumes and identities. They're all dazed but Hank seems affected more than the other 2.
Then a giant image of KG's face appears to warn them off. He rants about ruling this area and its people completely, and soon to have mastered the power of the Earth itself.
Janet Van Dyne suggest they retreat back to the quinjet and set up camp. Goliath reveals that he has a use for all the pockets on his costume (so it's not just a holdover from the 90's). He can only shrink and grow specially-(Pym-particle-)treated items, but he keep a stock of pre-shrunk stuff in the pockets. And produces and enlarges some metallic 'tents', and promises other stuff to follow. Wasp sends Iron Man and Warbird to collect firewood and Triathlon to fetch some water. African-American Triathlon bitches about being given slave-work, as he did about the earlier deconstruction job.
The Golden Avenger joins him mid-task for a 'chat'. IM repeats his suspicions about the Triune Understanding church to which Triathlon belongs, but apologises for opposing his joining the team because of that. But he's willing to accept the man on his own merits, and so offers a truce. Bit Triathlon won't hear anything bad said about the Triunes, and still believes Iron Man didn't want a black man on the team.
And a mysterious person in the shadows watches Warbird watching them.
That night in camp Hank confesses to his lover (and ex-wife) Jan that he's been feeling a little weak since passing through the spell-field. She's worried because of his previous mental problems, and because he turned into *Yellowjacket* of all his identities! But then they hear Silverclaw's scream, and she tells them that she's been mentally contacted by her mother Peliali. The volcano goddess is the 'power of the Earth' that Kulan Gath is after.