Synopsis / Summary / Plot
This issue opens with Norman Osborn meeting his Cabal in the psychic plane (courtesy of Emma Frost). Doctor Doom isn't satisfied that Osborn's Dark Avengers helped him reclaim Latveria (DAv#1-4) because now his realm is "overrun with Asgardian refugees" (Thor #600). Loki points out that was the agreement she made with him (story 5 in Dark Reign: The Cabal). Hood complains that NO isn't protecting him from the Punisher (Pu(2009)#2-10), and Mr Negative who is starting to muscle in on his territory (he's been active in Amazing Spider-Man and will face Hood directly in the DR:MN mini-series immediately after this).
They also ask him about closing Camp Hammond (which has already been done), the search for Tony Stark (still ongoing), the mutant horde in San Francisco (the situation will come to a head in DAv/X-Men: Utopia and Exodus), and the new team of Avengers (this 1). Hood says that all these unofficial Avengers teams make it seem like Norman's not in control.
Back in Asgard the female Loki exults because it was *she*, disguised as Scarlet Witch, who bought our team together and she will continue to use them to disrupt Osborn's sanity. (Presumably because a) she's a trickster god(dess) and b) she intends to profit from the chaos when his delicately-balanced psyche breaks.)
Stature and Vision (Jonas) have called the other Young Avengers to a meeting in the HQ in the ruins of Avengers Mansion. They intend to tell Speed and Wiccan (who arrive with Hawkeye (Kate Bishop), Hulkling and Patriot) that they recently (#21-23) met the long-missing Scarlet Witch - the woman who killed Cassie Lang's father Scott (Ant-Man) (in Avengers Disassembled where she also wrecked the Mansion), and who *might* be Tommy Shepherd and Billy Kaplan's mother.
The pair usher the others into the Mansion and follow them ...
... but find themselves instead with the Witch and the other Mighty Avengers in the Pym Pocket. Edwin Jarvis explains that although Henry Pym's extra-dimensional lab has its main door (its anchor) in Chicago it is connected to many other doors including the front door of the Mansion.
Stature worries about what's happened to the other YAv, but she's more concerned about Scarlet Witch who's fading away (or as angry Cassie puts it - *getting* away). U.S. Agent tells her that SW just gave them info on dozens of trouble spots worldwide. (Stature thinks SW may have *caused* the problems - and she might be right.) And Hercules reminds her that it was the Witch who helped their team save the world from Chthon (#21-23 again). Cassie picks up on part of that sentence and reminds them that she and Vision are *Young* Avengers not Mighty Avengers. But Amadeus Cho reminds them that Wolverine is on 3 teams (pick any 3 out of Astonishing X-Men, New Avengers, Uncanny X-Men and X-Force) so they should be able to handle 2.
Jocasta remains behind with Jarvis while Wasp (Hank Pym) leads the rest through a door to the 1st target - Lava Men in Borneo. (Stature still objects to having been doornapped.)
Meanwhile Quicksilver is trying to find the team because he's learnt that his sister Wanda Maximoff is with them. He speed-checks the place that used to be the Avengers West Coast Compound (where his Scarlet Witch and US Agent were once based). As he dashes through he hears a radio report of Dr Pym's Avengers in Indonesia (Borneo), Ireland and now Argentina - so he heads there ...
... where the team are fighting Swarm, an intelligent colony of bees - whose tactic this time is to assemble into duplicates of the team members and fight them 1-on-1. Hercules greets his old enemy Fritz Von Meyer (the intelligence in the swarm belongs to that Nazi scientist, and their 1st app was Champions (1975) #14 - the team that Herc belonged to). Amadeus Cho is using his Ant-Man helmet to try to block the signal that guides the swarm while Wasp and Stature are ant-size searching for the queen bee. They find her and attach an inhibitor collar.
As the swarm breaks up Pietro Maximoff gets there. The impulsive mutant creates tornadoes with his arms which blow the bees away. But the Avengers are worried that he's just blown the shrunken duo away too. However they pop up safe and sound.
Quicksilver wants to join the team (now that he thinks his missing sister is with them). But Pym reminds him that he rudely turned them down last issue. And when the Witch materialises to take the team to their next appointment, she leaves 'brother' Pietro behind.
Back to Norman Osborn, this time in Avengers Tower where he has H.A.M.M.E.R. trying to track the team down. They are having some success when the MAv use Pym's doors but they don't know what's powering their other jumps. (They don't know about 'Wanda' and they possibly can't track magic.) NO arrives as Iron Patriot with something to help them home in on Pym Particles - the giant clavicle of Goliath (Bill Foster) (killed in Secret Invasion) which is suffused with the things.
But then a news report shows the MAv at their 10th crisis. The reporter asks Wasp how they can be Avengers when Norman Osborn has the official team. Henry Pym responds by saying that as the only founding member currently in an Avengers team that makes *his* team the real 1. Norman snaps Goliath's bone in anger, and covers it by telling his techs they'll get better data from *inside* it.
And Quicksilver gets there just too late as the MAv zap off again - to Biarritz in France where a giant undersea monster calling himself Titan is on a rampage. Giant-size Wasp and Stature keep him from getting back to the sea while the others dry him out. Hercules holds a large parabolic mirror to focus Vision's solar beam while Amadeus Cho and US Agent fire salt from special (large) guns. The guns were presumably provided by a duo they are working with who also have them - Blackjack alias Ace and One-Eyed Jacquie.
But to maintain/increase suspense we leave that fight and return to Chicago where HAMMER troops bang on the Pym Pocket's front door - a supposed maintenance room in a mall (as seen in #21). Jocasta tells Jarvis that the door won't hold long and throws an emergency switch ...
... and when HAMMER break in there's no evidence that Henry Pym was ever there apart from a miniature gorilla.
But Jocasta has bad news for Jarvis. That door was the Pocket's anchor to Earth. Without it all the other doors will stop working 1 by 1 until they're all gone within 2 days. Then the Pym Pocket will be adrift in this other dimension.
Back in France Titan breaks past Stature and Wasp before they've weakened him enough. But then Pietro zooms in to run rings round the monster, which somehow makes him collapse.
As the authorities cart Titan away Wasp welcomes Quicksilver onto the team. Stature refers to the group as 'we' which the others take to mean she's on board too. Blackjack offer to keep HAMMER off their backs by enrolling the team in their international group - the Global Reaction Agency for Mysterious Paranormal Activity or GRAMPA. Before they leave France Pietro Maximoff is interviewed about his recent chequered past (starting with the Son of M limited series). He claims it wasn't him, he was replaced by a Skrull (a lie).
They use a Pym Pocket doorway to get home. Jarvis stops Jocasta from giving them the bad news just yet. And Scarlet Witch/Loki who's listening in isn't happy about Pietro's complicating presence.
The Cabal have another meeting in the psychic plane. Osborn gets very angry about the MAv and his face turns into the Green Goblin. He quickly ends the meet and declares that they'll hold no more psychic ones (because they are to revealing).