Synopsis
Iron Man and his friends are following Korvac and his minions through space towards Taa II, the worldship of Galactus, where Korvac intends to regain the godly power he once had. They are now in the middle of a spaceship dogfight while Tony Stark and Hellcat confronted the villain on the mental plane. But in the middle of it all Iron Man was suddenly whisked off to an alien planet, and Korvac wasn't the cause.
Iron Man himself won't appear in this issue. Instead his current co-star Hellcat takes centre-stage.
In the space battle Korvac's ship is now behind the other 1 and shooting at them. Tail-gunners Misty Knight and Scarlet Spider give answering fire. Frog-Man is sitting around feeling helpless. A shot from the foe disables War Machine's flight control system, but co-pilot Halcyon takes them into a tight loop-the-loop and then he fires missiles at the foe. Meanwhile Gargoyle is holding Hellcat's limp body, trying to call her back from mindspace.
But instead Patsy Walker is mentally contacted by her old friend and mentor Moondragon, interested to find that Hellcat has reawoken the mental powers she once gave her but then removed in Defenders #77. Heather Douglas is physically a long way away with the Guardians Of The Galaxy but she has detected the major threat of Korvac and intends to *boost* Patsy's power, not take it away again. Patsy is worried about losing her mind again but Heather says she can make her stronger, and takes her on a magical mystery tour through her life ...
... starting with Centerville High School. She sees her sweetheart Buzz Baxter (who she later married and then divorced before he became super-villain Mad Dog). Then they switch to a classroom where the students are sitting a test. Patsy says hi to her frenemy Hedy Wolfe. (We see Hellcat in costume but everyone else presumably sees her as teenage Patsy. And nobody sees Moondragon.) Patsy can't remember the answers to any of the questions but Heather tells her to read the teacher's mind. And then to telekinetically move the apple on his desk, which then splatters against the blackboard. The teacher later collars Patsy because Hedy told him she threw the apple. He sends her to the Principal who turns out to be ...
... her other ex-husband Daimon Hellstrom, Son Of Satan. But being with him had led to her mental breakdown and suicide which sent her to Hell. Now he says he wants her back but she daren't go back there so she mentally throws chairs at him. And the scene changes again ...
... to an even less real version of the past. She's in a coma which Hedy describes as a psychotic break and being trapped in Hell. Mrs Walker comments that it'll make a great plot for her comic strip. And Buzz or Daimon has brought Patsy a straight razor which Mrs W hopes she'll use to kill herself and put everyone out of her misery.
The next scene is Patsy in a straight jacket in a padded cell. She whimpers that she's better now and calls out for Moondragon or Tony Stark to get her out, and then curls into a foetal ball. But then we see Hellcat and Moondragon in the room with her. Heather says that the other Patsy represents her fear of her own mind. Hellcat embraces the fear, frees it from the straightjacket and accepts it. Moondragon says Korvac is afraid, but now Patsy isn't so she can beat him ...
... and she wakes on the spaceship with alarms going off. Everything's going to Hell and Rhodey plans to complete the mission by ramming the other ship. But Hellcat takes over (by throwing Halcyon out of the co-pilot seat) and tells Jim to do what she says. At the same time Korvac is about to tell Unicorn to destroy our guys when his ship seems to be invaded by several Badoon who call him traitor, coward and slave. He realises they're illusions but not before his crew have seen him cowering in fear, and then lash out at them with his accumulated power. The result disables their ship, and Patsy tells Rhodey to run for it. (Gargoyle has repaired some of the ship's systems.)
Then Patsy realises that Tony Stark isn't around.