Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue Avengers Quicksilver, Silverclaw, Warbird and Yellowjacket were infiltrating the self-styled Master Of The World's extensive underground base in nearly-Arctic Canada when the Master retaliated by blowing that part of the base up.
Now Carol Danvers is floating out of unconsciousness into a recurring dream/memory. She was flying a quinjet alone when she was transported elsewhere, where she met a man named Marcus, the son of Immortus (who at that time was still the future incarnation of Kang The Conqueror). He told her his father had vanished and he'd been living alone in Limbo. And he seduced her (with the aid of Immortus' trickery). Then she was returned to the quinjet with no memory of all that. But she grew 6 month's pregnant in a day and very soon gave birth to a reincarnation of Marcus who rapidly grew to manhood. He did this to escape Limbo, but his presence caused chaos in the real world. He had to return to Limbo but Carol willingly went with him. But once there he rapidly aged and died, leaving *her* alone. She realised that he'd manipulated her all along and gradually mastered enough Immortus-tech to return to Earth. Only to immediately have her powers and memories stolen by Rogue. Eventually she got new powers and regained her memories, but without much emotional connection to any but this 1.
Meanwhile outside her dream state Warbird is lying in freezing snow and wind and menaced by the Master's Plodex wolves. Luckily she wakes in time and blasts them away, but weakly because her power is almost drained keeping her from freezing to death. So she flies shakily away, but they start to follow.
But then Scarlet Centurion shows up. However she now believes that Kang the Conqueror's son is Marcus, Immortus' son, who effectively raped her (after all Kang is Immortus, obviously forgetting that Avengers Forever severed them). So she finds the energy to attack him in a blind rage, destroying his 'aero-skiff', shattering his armour's helmet and chestplate and damaging his comms. Until he strikes with his staff to hold her off.
He claims not to have come to fight her. He's been enchanted by her since they 1st met (#41) and has been watching her from Kang's orbiting Damocles Base. When he saw the deadly peril she was in now he came to save her. He offers to let her power up from his halberd, but Carol is suspicious. She calls him Marcus and asks him if his staff contains mind-control tech like he used on her last time. Marcus is taken aback because he doesn't know anything about mind-control in an earlier encounter.
He settles for making a fire to keep them warm. He tells Carol that he has read of the other Marcus in his father's files. Kang and Immortus are 'temporal doubles' (in the post-AvF universe). The 2 Marcus's have different origins but he claims that it's not impossible that their similar genes produced similar offspring, nor that a shared past wouldn't lead both fathers to name their sons Marcus for some reason (nor it seems that the sons would be attracted to the same woman). But Kang taught him to be a noble warrior. Warbird finds it hard to equate Kang with nobility.
Marcus settles for helping her reach her goal. They trek through the snow to a place he spotted where the Master's base projects above the ice and then he blasts a way in with his halberd. They pass through a genetic engineering lab with various Plodex creatures floating in tubes of liquid. Carol remembers Alpha Flight's files saying that the Master wanted to create varieties of Plodex creatures but he needed DNA from the only living example, Marrina. But the Avengers files say she died. (However we see that Marrina is indeed in 1 of the tubes.)
Then they are accosted by Plodex creatures of a different kind carrying guns. Carol still can't bring herself to trust Marcus' staff to restore her power level. So he leaps in front of her to take blasts aimed at them both. Warbird is stung into action, just using her fighting skill to KO the foes. And then she powers up from 1 of the power packs of their weapons.
She still can't bring herself to touch the injured Marcus until a Plodex revives slightly and fires his weapon at them. Then Warbird pulls the Centurion out of the way. The weapon's beam hits a steel door and shatters it, and they are sucked towards the vacuum beyond accompanied by a scream of rage and pain both physical and psychic. Warbird grabs a stanchion but Centurion falls lower until his halberd wedges in the doorway. He is suspended over a giant Plodex mass with tentacles that reach out towards him. Carol sees the injured man struggling to haul himself up. And she lets go and dives down to stand on the doorway and halberd and haul he man up.
Grateful Marcus uses his weapon to reseal the door. Carol remembers that the AF files mentioned another surviving Plodex besides Marrina, this 1 monstrous. It was supposedly killed but she wonders if the Master got hold of it and there it is, presumably the DNA source for all his Plodex creatures. Marcus asks if her decision to save him means that she no longer considers him a threat to her. But she still doesn't know *what* she feels.
She's rescued by a call from the other 3 on her team who have also survived and got back together. Marcus says his comms are working again now and he's summoned transport back to his Base. He knows he can't prove that he's not influencing her like the other Marcus did. So he'll leave her now, but he'll respond if she ever calls for help.
And in an unrelated epilogue we turn to the Avengers Deep Space Monitor Station in the Asteroid Belt. Living Lightning and Quasar detect a huge pyramidal craft zooming into the Solar System.