Synopsis
Fellow Champions member and teen female scientist Wasp (Nadia van Dyne) has come to Chicago to see Riri Williams' new lab. (At least I think they're still Champions though neither of them have been in the comic lately.) Riri's friend Xavier King drops in with pizza. The NATALIE AI wants to know what flavour so she can enjoy it in her mind. But enjoyment is delayed by a proximity alarm.
A monitor shows a vacant-eyed shuffling character outside. Social media and TV report more of them in the city, with activity varying between terrifying and just weird. Nadia wonders if it's a terrorist attack, NATALIE suggests current recurring opponent Midnight's Fire might be behind it, Riri thinks it's mass hypnosis. But Xavier cuts straight to the obvious - zombies! Sceptical Riri and NATALIE scoff, but Nadia is more open-minded. Riri seeks more data, but they begin to look more and more like the walking dead.
Riri seeks comfort in a chocolate dessert while she gets her scientific mind round this. Xavier points out that their families and friends might be in danger so Riri rings her mom. But Mrs. Williams says she secured all the doors and windows as if it was a tornado. Ironheart and Wasp suit up to go out to fight the menace. Xavier wants to join them with a baseball bat and some protective clothing. Riri doesn't want to let him come with them, but Nadia points out he *was* the 1 who knew what was happening.
Ironheart flies up into the air above the city and tracks the zombie invasion. It doesn't seem to be the contagious spread that fiction would predict. Instead they are all coming from the airport. She returns to the ground in time to see Xavier swat a zombie. Wasp is worried about such drastic action - this was a civilian who could be cured.
Wasp miniaturises herself and Xavier, and Ironheart takes them to the airport inside her helmet. Riri has narrowed the source down to a particular terminal so they fight their way through the zombies to get to it. (I don't know why Ironheart didn't just fly them there - writer's choice.) They're not making much headway so she tells her companions to jump in the air, and then she sends a shock through the floor which knocks all the zombies down.
Outside on the tarmac they see near a plane a writhing blackness from which the zombies emerge. Xavier finally admits he's not a superhero, and the 2 heroines fly to the source. When they get there the darkness coalesces into a female who names herself Eclipse. She says she's here practising before leaving to perform a magic rite which requires lots of bodies. A tendril of darkness grabs Wasp and zombifies her. Riri recognises a symbol on Eclipse's forehead as 1 of the insignia of the Ten Rings (the group that Midnight's Fire belongs to). She hits the woman with sustained repulsor beams and Eclipse complains that it burns and teleports away.
All the zombies recover. Riri tells Nadia what she learned from Eclipse. She needs to consult someone who might know what the villain was doing. (Hence next issue's guest star Dr Strange.) Xavier binged on cinnamon rolls while he was waiting and now he feels sick, so Ironheart won't let him ride home in her helmet.