Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Ye olde previously page this time only refers back to #5:- The Illuminati returned to Wakanda and learned that Thanos' forces had overrun the capital city and discovered the world-killer antimatter bombs in their secret HQ the Necropolis. Supergiant told Thanos she'd figured out how to activate the Illuminati's bombs and found the trigger mechanism. Thanos confronted his last surviving offspring Thane, captured by Ebony Maw in Orollan. The Avengers and the Galactic Council's forces prepared to liberate Earth from Thanos.
The following pages repeat some of the events from Avengers #23, as the Council fleet fought Thanos' ships and the captured SWORD Peak satellite. Inside the satellite Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon of the Guardians of the Galaxy helped Abigail Brand and some other agents of SWORD in trying to take the Peak back. But the decisive blow was dealt by the leaders of the Council (Annihilus, Gladiator, Ronan and Super-Skrull) personally taking down Thanos' disgraced general Black Dwarf.
Captain America, Captain Marvel, Hulk, Hyperion and Thor ran the blockade around Earth, and Carol Danvers just manages to crash their spaceship near where Iron Man told them in Av#23 Thanos would be. Hyperion scans the hidden Inhuman city of Orollan and finds only 5 surviving lifeforms. (The rest were killed when the Terrigen Bomb converted Thane into an Inhuman. CA sends Hulk in to announce their presence.
The Illuminati (Beast, Black Panther, Dr Strange, Iron Man, Mr Fantastic and Sub-Mariner) have defeated the troops Thanos left in the Necropolis. They find Supergiant with 1 partially-activated antimatter bomb. She is also mind-controlling Black Bolt, still recovering from destroying Attilan and setting off the Terrigen Bomb in #3, not to mention losing a fight to Thanos in #4. She gets the Inhuman king to use his voice against his fellow Illuminati. Dr Strange retaliates.
Thanos is with his other 3 generals in Orollan, where Thane is held in a containment field by Ebony Maw. Corvus Glaive reports that they've lost contact with Black Dwarf on the Peak. Then Hulk lands. Thanos bats him away, and sends Corvus and Proxima Midnight to keep him busy while the Titan attends to the business of killing his son.
The husband and wife team are well-practised at acting together. Proxima pins Hulk with her energy lance. It was made from the heart of a super-nova, and holds him down with the weight of a star, while Corvus tears at his throat with the glaive weapon that gives him is name. A weapon that can cut atoms. But Corvus Glaive's attack is interrupted by Captain America's shield, followed by Cap and the other 3 Avengers.
Back in the Necropolis Dr Strange has sent an eldritch tentacled monster against Black Bolt and Supergiant. But BB's voice is enough to shatter even that. Until Mr Fantastic gags him with a hand while entwining both foes in his malleable body. Black Panther uses the only weapon he's managed to get hold of - a Rumbler which causes a localised earthquake.
But this affects friends as well as foes. Supergiant is free to finish activating the bomb (although it still must be triggered). Panther warns her that once it's set off she'll only have a few seconds in which to fail to escape. She'll die along with the rest of Earth. But the villain doesn't care.
She explains how her early orphaned and abused life led her to desire death. Thanos found her when he killed his 1st offspring, and she asked him for death too. But he took her to help him find and kill the rest of his children, and promised her death when they were done. The quest has taken years, but now Thane is the last to fall. With this bomb she will kill Thane for Thanos, gain her own death, and kill Thanos too to punish him for making her wait so long for it.
Back in Orollan Ebony Maw and his captive Thane watch as Proxima Midnight pulls her lance out of Hulk, causing him to revert to Bruce Banner. Captain America holds off Corvus Glaive while Thanos beats back Captain Marvel and uses his eye-blasts to repel Thor. A blast from Proxima's energy-lance scatters the Captains and Hyperion. All the while Ebony Maw's insidious words are worming their way into Thane's mind.
In the Necropolis the bomb is ready to be triggered. But sneaky Maximus has got hold of the trigger mechanism. The mad Inhuman sets the bomb off! But he has a plan. Lockjaw the teleporting Inhuman dog appears, and takes Supergiant and the bomb to (presumably) a deserted alien planet far, far away. And leaves her there as the bomb explodes.
Somewhere in the middle of all that we've seen Cannonball and Smasher fighting Thanos' ships in space near the Peak. Inside the Peak Black Widow, Manifold and Shang-Chi are another infiltration group despatched in Av#23. They've gained control of the station. And on an outside monitor they see Nightmask supporting Starbrand as he single-handedly destroys many enemy warships. And the team of Hawkeye and Spider-Woman see the remainder of Thanos' fleet in full retreat.
Black Widow contacts Iron Man in the Necropolis as the Illuminati pick themselves up amidst the debris. He tells her to coordinate things from the Peak, sending reinforcements to places like Wakanda and New York. He himself is heading after Thanos in Orollan.
There Corvus Glaive is starting to decapitate Hyperion with his glaive. Proxima Midnight hurls her energy lance at the Captains. It splits into 3. CA manages to deflect 2, but 1 wounds him. However 1 of his deflections was aimed to strike Corvus, allowing Hyperion to burn him to ashes with his eye-beams. Proxima rushes to where her husband fell, retrieving his undamaged weapon and saying that the glaive is the man.
CM attacks her but is sent reeling by a blow from Thanos. The staggered Proxima supports herself on the glaive-staff to stand beside her master. As Thor returns to hit Thanos with lightning bolts and Mjolnir. But the mad Titan survives even that, and sends all his opponents flying.
Ebony Maw has continued whispering in the ear of Thane. Thane has spent his life trying to ignore his legacy as a son of Thanos. But now Ebony frees him from the containment field, and urges him to use his new-born Inhuman power against his father. We have seen Thane's blackened left-hand dispense destruction. Now he uses his blazing right hand for the 1st time. And then Ebony Maw spirits Thane away.
Iron Man arrives to find it's all over. Thanos and Proxima Midnight suffer a living death, encased as statues in a cube of force.
In the days that follow many things happen:-
In #3 Black Bolt sent the other Inhumans away before the fall of Attilan - scattering them across the world, maybe across the galaxy. Maximus expects them to believe that he and Black Bolt are dead. Now they are at an old site of Attilan in the Himalayas, where the recovered BB will leave the Codex database of Inhuman lore to be found by his successor as ruler. Maximus realises that his brother's actions were not actually in response to Thanos. He had always intended to scatter the existing Inhumans, and use the Terrigen Bomb to start a new Inhuman age.
The Avengers help repair the devastation caused by Thanos' invasion of Earth. And across the galaxy people pick up the pieces after the war against the Builders. On Whaan Prime, where an Ex Nihilus killed himself and a world in #3 on the orders of the Builders, the Ex Nihili mourn their brother and repair the world. They will return to their role as cosmic Gardeners, restoring other worlds and enlivening new ones for refugees. On Chandilar Gladiator, with Mentor and Oracle, starts to refill the gaps in the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. Ronan and the Accusers return to Hala and the Supreme Intelligence, as the Kree prepare once more for war. On Tarnax II Super-Skrull is crowned emperor of the Skrulls. On Praxis-2 the stargates that were used to bring the Annihilation Wave from the Negative Zone against the Builders in Av#21 are still active. Annihilus is using them to turn Praxis-2 into Annihilation World. And somewhere Ebony Maw is turning Thane into something worse than his father.
And on Earth Iron Man has taken charge of the frozen Thanos and Proxima Midnight. He has brought them to the Illuminati base in Wakanda's Necropolis.