Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Teenage superheroes have been outlawed after a disaster at Kamala Khan's school. Many have been taken by CRADLE and are now in re-education camps. Champions Ironheart (Riri Williams), Ms Marvel (Kamala), Nova (Sam Alexander) and Spider-Man (Miles Morales) are on the run. And Viv Vision, who they think is dead, betrayed them for their own good and is now travelling across America by bus.
Bombshell (Lana Baumgartner) rebelled at the reform school and was taken away for special treatment last issue. Now we see her making a video with a tearful confession of how wrong she was but now she's seen the light. Speedball commends her for her bravery. It is aired on a TV show to be discussed by Jake Oh of CRADLE and inactive superheroine Silhouette who take predictably opposite positions.
The video is also shown in the camp's canteen. Locust (Fernanda Rodriguez) and Starling (Tiana Toomes) can't believe what they're hearing. Fernanda refuses to eat her lunch because they're probably putting something in it. Snowguard (Amka Aliyak) was also taken away last issue but is here with them. She doesn't appear to have been brainwashed like Lana, but does try to get Fernanda to eat. And Lana echoes her as she joins them. She doesn't understand when her friends say she's acting like a zombie. But she panics when the 'waitress' accuses them all of being disruptive and calls for help.
Fernanda kicks off and guards rush in to subdue her. She says she's descended from a long line of Locusts who've protected the innocent for hundreds of years, and she's not going to sit back and take it now. Lana begs the guards not to hurt her friend. Tiana wades in wielding a serving trolley. Amka and Wasp (Nadia Van Dyne) reluctantly join in, Nadia saying she prefers to calculate the odds before rushing into a fight. But now the SWAT version of the guards arrive and the rebellious 4 are carted off.
On the bus Viv Vision, with her robot features disguised, reaches her destination in the middle of nowhere in Kansas (seemingly inspired by Dorothy from Wizard Of Oz). Her acute senses immediately detect someone crying and she flies to help. An old lady tells her that a storm has broken her power and phone lines. Viv zooms up the utility pole and fixes things with her solar eye-beams. Cora invites her in for soup (the gas was still on). She thinks Viv is running away from a bad family situation, as hers was when she was young. It twisted her for a long time until she learned to trust again. But Viv can stay here for as long as she needs.
Our 4 main characters have been on the run for 4 days, and CRADLE always seems to know how to find them. They haven't been able to contact the Avengers, and CRADLE were waiting for them when they tried to see Brawn (Amadeus Cho). They are chased out of their current hidey-hole by a team led by Dum Dum Dugan and Jake Oh.
Later we see them in a tree-house where a young fan Jesse is hiding them. Kamala takes 1st watch that night but Sam wakes from a nightmare of Viv disintegrating. Leader Kamala is still beating herself up over Viv's death, but Sam tries to boost her ego.
But then CRADLE troops led by Carolina Washington surround the tree. Jesse tries to order them off his family's property but Washington threatens him with an aiding and abetting charge. Ironheart and Nova are ready to fight, but Spidey thinks it may be time to give in, and MsM thinks that might be a way to find the missing teens. Riri and Sam take the decision out of her hands by attacking, and Kamala and Miles can't let them do it alone.
But then help turns up in the shape of Cyclops and Dust of the X-Men who offer them asylum on Krakoa. And Cyke suggests CRADLE not interfere unless they want to start a war with the mutant nation.