Avengers (2013 series) #4

This issue begins with the now usual 1-page mash-up of images from the preceding issues and words usually taken from other panels. The gist of the recap is that the aliens on Mars sent 'origin bombs' to various places on Earth. Each place was genetically evolved in different ways.

SHIELD has sealed 5 of the areas off, in Australia, Canada, Croatia, India and Japan. But they think there may have been a 6th bomb. All the zones appear to be almost lifeless. We hear that the criminal Hand have infiltrated the zone around Kobe in Japan, Canada has sent Omega Flight to investigate their area, and Australia won't let SHIELD into the Perth area because it is miffed about a previously-secret SHIELD facility there called Project: Perseus.

Captain America and Maria Hill are on a SHIELD helicarrier, with Falcon and Wolverine, communicating with Ms Marvel and Black Widow in Avengers Tower. Hawkeye, Hyperion, Spider-Woman and Thor are with the 2 women, and the group is trying to establish where the 6th bomb landed. Hyperion uses his superior intellect to massage a computer into tracking it to the Savage Land.

Scattered through the rest of the tale are sections of Hyperion's origin, which I will collect together here.

Hyperion comes from an alternate timeline. In it he was sent as a baby from his dying world, and his spacecraft wound up on the parallel Earth. He was given the name Marcus, and brought up by a man just called Father to be believe in Truth and Justice (and the Way of whatever country he was in).

Marcus had super-powers and became Hyperion. He joined other 'children' of Father in a super-team who turned their Earth into a marvellous place (and who looked like the Squadron Supreme).

The public Hyperion was an honoured and loved hero who followed Father's ideals. But he could see so much more than others. He could see electrons orbiting nuclei. He could see the individuals within society. This produced a cynical(?) inner Hyperion he kept hidden.

Came the day when the skies turned red and a 2nd Earth from another timeline appeared, threatening to collide with Hyperion's home. The other heroes died, and Hyperion was left trying to hold the worlds apart. But then the 2 timelines mutually destructed, and Hyperion was left alone in a void.

Until AIM extracted him to the main Marvel Earth. They held him prisoner for study. Until he was rescued by the Avengers, specifically Cap, Iron Man and Thor.

Now back to the plot.

The 6 Avengers in the Tower take a quinjet to the affected zone in the Savage Land. They detect no movement, but plenty of heartbeats.

Thor tries to bond with Hyperion by offering him some Asgardian booze. But Hyperion only consumes sunlight. And anyway he thinks alcohol is bad.

Hyperion's super-vision detects AIM at work 6 miles away. They inject one of their interns with a virus extracted from a zone cocoon, but he drops dead.

The Avengers turn up to investigate, in time to see tentacles burst from the intern's body and attack the AIM members. A lightning strike from Thor's hammer and a heat-blast from Hyperion's eyes destroy the attacker.

Hyperion sees a cocoon opening, giving birth to zebra-striped humanoid children. They speak the Builder machine code we saw last issue. But a bond forms between them and Hyperion.

The Avengers arrest the AIM troops, even though they have diplomatic immunity from AIM's island state. But one of them, Dr Jema, is obscurely pleased that the Avengers think this is the last 'origin bomb' site they have to worry about.

That's because AIM have found a 7th site in Norway, with a figure encased in ice.