Avengers (2012 series) #17

Strangely misleading cover. The central figure is presumably supposed to be Ex Nihilo, but the horns are wrong and it's obviously female. The flanking figures are like the one that received the transmission in #15. The Previews blurb for this issue said that the Builders, the race that sent Ex Nihilo and others like him on their mission, would appear. So I assumed the flanking figures were Builders, and the yellow figure was a female counterpart of Ex Nihilo. Maybe that's what they were supposed to be. But no such people turn up here. Is Tony Stark really present? In #12-13 he was operating an Iron Man suit in the Savage Land remotely from deep space with the Guardians of the Galaxy. In New Avengers #10, which is set at the start of the Infinity invasion we haven't got to yet, he says he just got back from space. In this issue and #14 (he wasn't in #15-16) we only see the Iron Man suit. So maybe he's still running it on remote. But on the other hand he wears his space armour to visit the Dyson sphere. Manifold says CU mentioned a red planet and a yellow sun. The 1st is taken as an obvious reference to Mars. The 2nd I presume is taken as a hint to the partial Dyson sphere near the sun. I presume the 4 new additions will occupy the 4 vacant small slots in the Avengers roster diagram, leaving the 2 larger outlying slots still to be filled. This raises the interesting question of how Tony Stark and Steve Rogers knew to leave these empty slots in #1. Possibly this is expressed in one of the cryptic comments this issue, when Steve says "But our system predates her [CU's] involvement." Captain Universe said last issue the Avengers need the power to destroy worlds. They could do with the Godkiller from current Iron Man issues. I don't expect this to happen, but that could fill one of the still-empty oversized slots. The issue ends with a reprise of the predictions at the beginning of #1, and says that this issue is after the light (the White Event in #

I've tried to fit too much in 1 Comment box again. The last sentence should read:- The issue ends with a reprise of the predictions at the beginning of #1, and says that this issue is after the light (the White Event in #7), before the War (the upcoming Infinity event - the spaceships shown in #1 match the one over Galador last issue) and before the Fall.