Synopsis
2 weeks before Blood Hunt something from space slams into the ground in the Ural Mountains.
Now in their orbiting Impossible City HQ the Avengers hold a debriefing meeting about the Blood Hunt event. Captain Marvel thinks they failed in their job to protect Earth but Black Panther disagrees. He says that they won in the end but Carol Danvers says they shouldn't have allowed it to happen at all. Thousands died (but Scarlet Witch points out that billions survived). CM thinks that it may have been the 2nd Tribulation Event that Kang warned them about (#2). The Ashen Combine/Fall Of The Impossible City was the 1st (#3-6). Maybe this was what Kang called Endless Night? So they should have been prepared for it. But now as a result Dr Doom is Sorcerer Supreme, the young Spider-Man is a vampire and vamps are all now Daywalkers. She stalks off in frustration. Captain America (Sam Wilson) thinks she's right, but Iron Man says he'll go talk to her.
1 week before Blood Hunt a man approaches a petrol station and gives the owner a lump of gold in payment and a USB stick asking him to wait 10 days and then hand it in to the local news. The man appears to be Hyperion.
Tony Stark catches up with Danvers atop a New York skyscraper. They are both recovering alcoholics and Tony was Carol's sponsor. She claims that she's stuck on step 4 of the 12 Step Programme, a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. He wonders if she's just traded 1 addiction for another - guilt.
Meanwhile T'Challa asks the City AI how it feels about having been taken over by Varnae and his vampires (in Blood Hunt of course). Cruel of the Bloodcoven compromised its systems, but more importantly it faced its big fear of being once again the servant of monsters like the Ashen Combine. It retreated into just obeying Panther's commands when he was turned into a vampire. But it blames itself now for not fighting back with its plastoid army. T'Challa says he understands. But he mentions the still-extant threat of their (and Kang's) enemies the Twilight Court (#7-8). And now the City mentions something new, that when they attacked it couldn't sense them at all.
Wanda Maximoff is in search of Sam Wilson but runs into her ex-husband Vision in a garden area which he explains that he and the City have created. As synthetic beings they are both fascinated by organic life. She asks him his opinion on Carol's statement and Sam's agreement. Vizh says he agrees too. His striving to become a person rather than a machine has made him realise that the loss of 1 life is too many.
Now we see the mystery man standing amidst ruins on Pluto. He decides it's time to return to Earth and end it.
Sam Wilson has taken an Impossible City portal to Atlanta to visit Storm who he hasn't seen since last year's Annual (when they were on opposite sides in the conflict over Agatha Harkness and the Darkhold in that summer's Annuals event). He invites her to fly with him while they discuss something. He asks her if she thinks the Avengers failed the world during Blood Hunt. After some general questions she assures him that they did the best they could. She mentions her own part in a war (presumably on Arakko (Mars)) in which victory only came with losses (during the Fall Of X event). You can't save everyone but you should always try.
Now Sam gets round to the real reason he came. He apologises that the Avengers didn't act sooner when Orchis threatened the mutant community. They should defend mutants as well as the rest of humanity. As such he thinks there's a need for a mutant on the team, and he thinks it should be her. (And coincidentally(?) lightning strikes nearby.)
The last interlude is in Gainsville, Florida where the USB stick has been handed in to a newsroom.
Thor is roasting a pig on a fire pit that the City has created for him. Then he and the other Avengers see a TV transmission where Hyperion announces that he used to be Earth's greatest hero, but that turned out to be in a fake reality (created by Mephisto in the 2021 Heroes Reborn event). But that would make *him* a lie, and *he* remembers it as true. But if *he* is true then this Earth is a lie. He claims he can't tell which is really a lie, his life or the Earth. So he's chosen to end both by slamming into the planet at the speed of light. He's warning Earth so that its inhabitants can make their peace with their fate.
This issue has a short backup story:- Deadpool and Wolverine: Weapon X-Traction part 6
Writer Ryan North. Artist Javier Garron. Colourist Edgar Delgado. Letterer Joe Sabino. Editor Tom Brevoort.
This is part of a series of backups in recent issues of various titles. The last was Immortal Thor #13.
Deadpool and Wolverine were sucked through a portal to a parallel universe and have since been bouncing through a series of bizarre timelines. Along the way they've noticed that the universes they visit start to disintegrate (and they don't know that it's happening to Earth-616 too). Deadpool has reasoned that they've been chosen to save the multiverse. And in the last chapter he argued that they must have been chosen to do what they do best, kill people. They just have to figure out who they're supposed to kill.
So now this issue they bop quickly through many universes killing as many people as they can before they're moved on (possibly on the assumption that they must be portalling in *near* their target).
We see universes of:- Moustachioed gentleman superheroes. Ape superheroes (been there, done that). Spider-folk (ditto). Hulk-types. Mini-Galactuses. Another Thanos (starting to repeat).
Wolverine despairs of this tactic working so DP suggests they each raise an army to kill even more people faster. Logan doesn't think this'll work either but they give it a go. It doesn't do any good. As another universe disintegrates and another portal sucks them away Wade Wilson suggests they fight *each other*, but Logan points out they started that way.
But this portal takes them to nowhere and Logan suggests there are no more timelines left. They exchange recriminations and try to exchange blows. But they are too far apart, and in the void there's no purchase to move closer.
Then a little girl appears and claims to be regretting giving them the assignment. They've no idea who she is.
To be continued in Spectacular Spider-Men #6.