Avengers Forever #1

Kurt Busiek has more goals in this series than just telling a story. One aim is to prepare the ground for Peter David's Captain Marvel series. He also wants to sort out the confusing histories of Immortus, Kang and the Vision, and to a lesser extent that of the Time-Keepers. The story itself changes the status of Kang and Immortus, and simplifies things for future stories. In Avengers #97 I believe the WWII heroes Rick Jones manifested were not the real people. But this time the Avengers he calls upon are actually plucked from time. Hulk only appears here in flashbacks. The notes in #4 say that the present-day events of this issue fit between Avengers vol 3 #9 and #10. It has to be before #10 because Giant-Man changes his costume then. It can't be much before this because Justice and Firestar haven't been Avengers for many issues. Beta Centauri IV is the home of Yondu of the original Guardians of the Galaxy. The Time-Keepers are beings from the end of time, first seen as the Time-Twisters in Thor #243. More on these later.

The Blue Area of the Moon is the ruins of an arena created by the Skrulls 100,000 years ago to house a contest between the Kree and the Cotati. Uatu the Watcher lives there. It is sometimes the home of the Inhumans, but not at this time. The Kree Supremor was captured in the Live Kree or Die crossover terminating in Avengers vol 3 #7. It was hinted that he had arranged for the Kree to lose that encounter, resulting in his capture in the Blue Area. It is unclear whether Supremor could foresee how the conclusion in #12 will benefit his plans. The Supremor has often done seemingly bad things to his own race, to force them to evolve out of their stagnation. Triggering Rick's Human Evolutionary Potential to end the Kree-Skrull War was one of them. The monk will be revealed next issue to be Libra. Limbo is a place outside of time, and independent of alternate timelines, ruled by Immortus. It is also the place Rom banished Dire Wraiths to. It isn't the place ruled by the X-Men's foe Belasco. Tempus is a servant of Immortus created from the fabric of Limbo. He was first seen in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2. As we will see later, he can't be killed this easily.