Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The Guardians Of The Galaxy have settled into their new role as the official super-hero team of the Galaxy.
Throneworld II is the capital planet of the Kree/Skrull Alliance. It has been built within the shattered Hala, once the homeworld of the Kree, but named after the Skrulls' old Throneworld (Tarnax IV). But now it's being invaded by 4 Progenitors who seem to be here to try out a new mutagen on the Kree populace. Emperor Hulkling is organising an evacuation and has sent a message asking for help from the Galactic Council's Proscenium station.
Super-Skrull has received the message and has added it to his situation board. (We also see the Snarkwar on the Utopian Kree border (current SWORD series), X-Men handling political unrest on Chandilar (????), Iron Man dealing with Korvac's attempted apotheosis (current IM series), and a missing survey team on a newly-discovered world on the Galactic Rim (see below).) He in turn contacts Nova telling him to make it the Guardians' priority. Nova says they don't take orders from him, they're independent like the Avengers. But he was on the way to Hala now anyway and Peter Quill and others will join him there. However he also asks to be kept posted on the Rimworld situation ...
... and we catch up with some Guardians already there on Cauldron, Rimworld #360-3715. Captain Marvel (Phyla-Vell), Drax, Marvel Boy (Noh-Varr) and new addition to the team Quasar (Wendell Vaughn) are searching for the Galactic Rim Collective survey team on this newly-discovered habitable world. Drax finds them impaled on stakes and burned. And Noh spots Skrull writing on the stakes. They report back to Kl'rt who translates the Ancient Skrullian as "Believe in the flame", a sign of an ancient Skrull cult of the Secret Fire. Super-Skrull calls on Wiccan, the Alliance's Court Wizard, for magic insight ...
... but Billy Kaplan is busy with his husband Teddy Altman fighting the Progenitors. Hulkling has just killed 1 of the android-seeming aliens with floating heads. He used his magic sword Ekz'el-Zorr, the Sword Of Space, which disrupts other magic, so he guesses these guys are a mixture of science and sorcery. Another 1 sprays him with mutagen with affects his Kree half. Wiccan creates a protective forcefield and casts a healing spell.
Then Nova and his contingent of Guardians (Gamora, Groot, Moondragon, Rocket Raccoon and Star-Lord) arrive. A 3rd Progenitor evaluates their threat-level and sprays them with napalm, which Gamora and Rocket take as an insult. Rocket responds with his latest big gun which blows the foe up and impresses Gamora. The Raccoon says he's getting too old to mess around. Large Groot tackles the 1 that mutated Hulkling but the even-larger alien has him at a disadvantage. Star-Lord shoots his ally with his Element Gun and the essence of sunlight, soil, water and fresh air causes the plant-being to grow and bloom and send roots/branches to destroy the android from inside. Now Moondragon mindscans the remaining Progenitor and declares it afraid. Nova grabs its floating head and takes it out of range of its body which disintegrates. He then takes the head into space and sends it on its way home with a message that this Galaxy is off-limits.
Nova reports back to Super-Skrull that the crisis is over, and Wiccan has cured the Emperor. Gamora has a quiet word with Peter Quill. She still hasn't forgiven her lover for running off and getting seemingly-killed (#1-2). And now he's returned (#9) having spent over 100 years in another dimension, but he's changed and distant from her. Peter admits that he still feels that Morinus is his home, and drops the bombshell that he has a son back there. And Nova gets an update from Phyla-Vell on Cauldron ...
... where they've tracked the prehistoric fire-cult which murdered the survey team. She says they need a spy rather than a super-hero. Quasar takes the hint and clangs his quantum wrist-bands together to be replaced by the female Quasar, Avril Kincaid. She explains for the benefit of Marvel Boy and us readers that she and Wendell worked out how to do a quantum swap like Mar-Vell and Rick Jones of old. As an ex-SHIELD Agent she fits the spy-bill.
They are looking down on a meeting of the Brethren Of The Forgotten Flame before a huge statue of a Skrull. They could all be Skrulls in different shapes but they seem rather to be a mixture of alien races (but no Kree as far as I can see). Skrull Sister Talionis welcomes all those who want the Alliance gone and their own Empires back. But they seem also to all worship the Secret Fire and the same Elder God known as He-Who-Waits. Soon there will be signs and it will be time for the sacrifice. Captain Marvel reports all this to Nova on Throneworld II ...
... where Moondragon is probing the mind of a dead Progenitor. She discovers that they came to study the Kree again because of the new Alliance. But she wonders how they heard about it because they'd ignored the Kree for millennia. Someone must have told them. Hulkling considers this an act of war. Then a loud voice from within a magical lightning storm declares "Then let it be war." He strikes Hulkling and Wiccan with bolts of lightning, dismissing the former as the so-called King Of Space, and also Nova and Star-Lord who now claims to be Master Of The Sun. More lightning strikes Gamora, Groot and Rocket and he scrambles Moondragon's mind. An armoured hand picks up Hulkling's Star-Sword and the holder is revealed as Dr Doom.