Avengers (2023 series) #30

Myrddin has given up waiting for the Avengers to deal with the necessary predicted Tribulation Events to access the Missing Moment and arranged (in #24) for a triple flaw in space-time to take him there. Last issue the Avengers, who Kang recruited in his war against that wizard, used the info they got in #24 to work out what and where the Missing Moment is.

Now they invite most of the Alaskan team of X-Men (Beast, Cyclops, Juggernaut, Magic, Psylocke, Quentin Quire and Temper (Idie Okonkwo)) to their orbiting Impossible City base to look after the Earth while they go on their cosmic treasure hunt.

Scarlet Witch magically creates a life support bubble and teleports them many light years to the triple rupture in space. Leader Captain Marvel asks if any of her team want to back out of the mission but of course the others all say no. Storm gathers solar wind, CapM does the same for cosmic energy, Iron Man forms electromagnetic shielding based on Vision's calculations, Captain America (Sam Wilson)'s shield is at the apex of their thrust, with Black Panther's spear beside him. They pass through the rift ...

... and find themselves in a shattered place which only T'Challa can know is the ruins of Battleworld (but a giant broken statue of Dr Doom is a clue), the world Doom created (in the Secret Wars Event) from fragments of Earths from the dead timelines of the 7th Cosmos. This is the place, hidden behind the Missing Moment of time, that holds the Grail that Myrddin sought. And then they discover that he's got there before them and already got the Grail which turns out to be a glowing cubist sculpture. They attack him. But even though the Grail device is still initialising itself it still gives him the power to repel them all (with what look like giant strings of orange pearls). He says it's also given him control of the place's inhabitants - zombie superheroes.

We take a breather to see Cyclops and Temper telling us that Juggernaut and Magik are dealing with a mudslide in Peru, and Psylocke and Quentin Quire have stopped AIM stealing a nuclear reactor in Australia. But the City is worried about the Avengers so he's called in someone to help them. Someone scary who says he's here to repay a debt to the City.

The Avengers are fighting off the zombies. BP explains that there was a forbidden zone of Battleworld called the Deadlands which housed these zombies. They still have their superpowers, including a Dr Strange wielding magic. The team is being overwhelmed, but more importantly Myrddin is being given time to get the Grail fully operational. The someone enters through the rift to join them, and it's Hyperion.

Suddenly the zombie threat seems to be over and the team can confront Myrddin. Carol Danvers says they won't let him play games like he did with Kang. The foe agrees that he deliberately tormented Kang as part of his plan. But he *did* give him a clue by wearing a mirror mask so Kang would always see his own face reflected. And then he takes off the mask to reveal that he too is Kang.