Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue the newly-official Guardians Of The Galaxy split into 2 teams to handle 2 separate problems, with Super-Skrull coordinating from the Galactic Council's Proscenium station. Captain Marvel (Phyla-Vell) led Drax, Marvel Boy (Noh-Varr) and Quasar (currently the female Avril Kincaid version) to investigate a missing science team on newly-discovered Rimworld #360-3715. They found them dead and an ancient Skrull fire-cult preparing for the coming of their deity. Nova led Gamora, Groot, Moondragon, Rocket Raccoon and Star-Lord to the Kree/Skrull Alliance's capital Throneworld II. There they helped Emperor Hulkling and his husband Court Wizard Wiccan to fight off an invasion by Progenitors. But then Dr Doom turned up and laid waste to the team before taking Hulkling's Sword Of Space.
He claims to need it to defend the universe against a menace that is coming. But Teddy Altman revives and punches Doom in the armoured jaw before summoning his sword back into his hand. The others recover too, but only to see Victor von Doom use an old mind-swap trick (that he learned from Ovoids way back in his 3rd app in Fantastic Four #10) to swap bodies with Hulking. Doom's body evince's Teddy's confusion while Doom uses Hulkling's shape-shifting to give his green face the appearance of a metal mask.
His 1st action is to stab Wiccan through the chest. But he had correctly realised that the magic sword wouldn't physically harm a friend but its magic-disrupting power would remove Billy Kaplan's superpower. He then uses the sword to deflect a blast from Star-Lord's Element Gun to destroy Rocket's latest big gun, only to be hit by Gamora's equally-large weapon. But she hadn't aimed to kill Hulkling's body, and the AI in Doom's armour overrides Teddy's control to stop an attack by Nova. Doom and his armour stand back-to-back to face all foes.
Meanwhile on the other planet Skrull Sister Talionis tells her followers (who seem to be a mixture of alien races, not just Skrulls) to expect the prophesied coming of He-Who-Waits which will be signalled by the conjunction of 3 stars and a sacrifice. The team contact Super-Skrull who informs them that Talionis is using very-old Skrullian names for 3 stars which had supposedly magical properties. And the planet they are on is uniquely situated to see the stars in conjunction. The team wonder at the coincidence of a perfectly-habitable world being newly-discovered in just the right place. They consider possibilities, 1 of which is that the planet is mobile. At which point it announces itself as such a world, Ego The Living Planet. And it starts to attack them.
Back on Throneworld the battle continues. While holding off Nova's blasts with a force-shield the Doom armour (continually shouting slogans like "I am an extension of Doom's will. Doom's will be done.") fights Groot (continually of course saying "I am Groot."). Weaponless Rocket watches in frustration as Doomling breaks Gamora's weapon with an extending arm while parrying more Star-Lord blasts with the sword.
Moondragon appears to be still unconscious but in reality she's playing possum to avoid being hit again by Doom's telepathic scrambler. Instead she offers mental advice to her team-mates to play on Victor's pride. They suggest that Doom switched bodies because his own isn't very good in a fight. And that he chose shapeshifting Hulkling because it enabled him to emulate the stretching ability of his arch-enemy Mr Fantastic. V von D prepares to prove them wrong by switching minds back ...
... which is when Moondragon strikes. Teddy's mind and body are indeed reunited but Doom ends up switching bodies with Rocket. Doom is indignant (and for some reason can't do another swap), but he soon regains his composure and accepts the situation for now. Everyone knows that he'll find a way out eventually, and maybe use Rocket's body to kill them all on the way, but for now they need to work together against the coming foe.
The other team are fighting tentacles of Ego, who claims to be the herald of the menace. Noh-Varr uses his Nega-Gauntlets to quantum-swap the 4 onto their space ship Almond, the successor to the Bowie (destroyed by the Olympian Gods in #11). He says that he had a spare pair of Gauntlets here (and the other Gauntlets are now left behind on the planet). Avril asks if she should use *her* Quantum Bands to trade places with the other Quasar, Wendell Vaughn, but Phyla doesn't think it would do any good.
Down on the planet Talionis exhorts her followers to slash their wrists (presumably not fatally) to offer up blood to their god. But as the ceremony proceeds the minions are wracked with pain. Talionis tells them that their agonised deaths will bring the god into this universe. (And like many cult leaders she claims that she would love to join them but unfortunately someone has to stay alive to welcome the god.) And our team see the planet turn black, and they liken it to an egg about to hatch.
Moondragon is now in mental contact with them and explains the situation to *her* team. Doom-Raccoon claims that he didn't know exactly what would happen but this is obviously the menace he expected after he detected a shift in the balance of reality. The others want to throw him in jail for sending the Progenitors to attack Throneworld. Doom denies that and Moondragon says he speaking the truth. Peter Quill suggests, with Emperor Hulkling's permission, a cunning plan. Everyone knows that Victor von Doom is a man of his word, so he offers Doom his body back if he swears to become a temporary Guardian for the duration of the emergency. And it looks like Victor is going to accept.