New Avengers, The (2025 series) #5

Black Widow and Winter Soldier's latest team of Thunderbolts/Avengers are hunting down evil clones of the Illuminati calling themselves the Killuminati created by the Jackal working for an unknown other.

Currently they're in Banos, Ecuador where Mr Ouroboros, clone of Mr Fantastic, is bathing the place with cosmic rays. He already caused a very, very large mound to rise in the centre of the city with devastating effect. Now multiple duplicates of the flying Fantasti-Car are turning citizens into versions of members of the Fantastic Four. A flaming woman runs up searching for her young son, and Clea detects him nearby invisible.

But now we pop back 10 minutes to Bucky Barnes' safe house in the New Mexico desert. Bucky's voiceover reminds us that the clone of the genius Reed Richards is the most dangerous of the Killuminati, and they need to get him before he destroys the world. They located him at the end of last issue but now he wonders if he can keep this ragtag team together.

Natasha Romanoff tries to raise morale with a little tale of when the Avengers (including herself and Hercules) were fighting Michael Korvac on the Collector's spaceship. Korvac killed the Collector and now the team were stuck on Collector's ship with no way off (Avengers #175, well before Wolverine (Laura Kinney)'s time). Hercules mentioned to her that he needed to relief himself. He thought he found a toilet but then an electronic scream let them know it was a robot. Everyone ran up and saw semi-naked Herc. Anyway with tension relieved and mood lightened Bucky, Nat, Laura, Sub-Mariner, Carnage (Eddie Brock) and Clea head for Banos through 1 of the sorceress' magic portals.

Now the team are surrounded by the mutated people but they're not being attacked. The crowd tell them that *he* predicted they'd come and he wants to see them. They lead the heroes into a giant cave inside the mound filled with fantastic machinery. Of course the mastermind is Ouroboros who greets them with psychobabble about deformity being the natural state but at the same time blaming humanity for it. And of course 1st this city will be transformed, then the whole Earth. Bucky tells Clea they need their big brain to match the foe's, so she summons ...

... Hulk! Bucky asks Clea to put him in mental contact with the inner Bruce Banner. But Hulk's mind is resistant and a punch probably cracks some of Barnes' ribs. Even the Crimson Bands Of Cyttorak don't stop Big Green. But trapped in Hulkspace Banner hears the call until a vision of Hulk breaks the connection. However Bruce can still remind his captor how much he'd like to beat up Reed Richards. Hulk ignores Wolverine's invitation to a scrap and indicates that he'll join their attack.

But it may be too late because Mr O has just launched a rocket which Widow says has a cosmic ray generator on it. Banner calls to Hulk to say that a concentrated dose of cosmic rays might overload the foe's physiology. But Mr O presses another button to initiate 'unstable molecule dissolve' and his victims start to break down so he can absorb them into himself. The place is suddenly full of elastic Mr O arms attacking our heroes. Widow tells Subby to do the fastball special manoeuvre to send Wolvie  after the rocket. She also tells Clea to stop the victims being absorbed. She considers turning them to stone but BW vetoes that. So instead she freezes them in time. Meanwhile Hulk's trying to relay Banner's message to Bucky.

Nat tries to get Namor angry by reminding him that the real Reed tried to steal his girlfriend. He says that's not correct (in fact it was the other way round) but he still starts stabbing at Mr O's (singular) throat with his trident. Bucky's got Bruce's message and kisses Nat before leaving to implement it. Carnage attacks the foe's eyes. Clea tries a reversal spell which turns the citizens back to normal humans. Laura's claws are wreaking havoc on the rocket but nearness to outerspace is starting to get to her. She falls and starts to burn up but a Clea portal saves her. Bucky's reached 1 of the Fantasti-Cars and aims all it's cosmic ray beams at Ouroboros. Hulk dives on the giant (orange) mound shouting "Hulk smash Thing".

Mr O turns to a puddle of blue goo with a head. Everyone gathers round him. Bucky asks him how Jackal made the Killuminati. He replies that he and the Tony Stark clone discovered that their creator used a mixture of gamma and cosmic rays, vibranium, mutant growth hormone, synthetic crimson cyttorak, black symbiote compounds and trace molecules of terrigen - but he can't explain how Jackal got hold of all that. He also pleads that the Killuminati are victims of the villain just as they are. But nobody believes that and they all take their shots to finish him off. And Hulk demands to be sent back to where they got him from, and never call on him again.

Later they're back at the safe house having a barbecue, except Bucky and Nat are indoors making out again. Laura and Namor agree that they could take on Silver Surfer because he's too moral to risk harming anything. Eddie Brock's symbiote still wants to kill all the others, starting with Subby and then Clea. The 2 lovebirds join them and Bucky suggests they follow Bruce's suggestion (in #3) and call themselves the New Avengers. Eddie doesn't think they'd accept a Carnage symbiote. Clea and Laura continue to dislike the idea. Barnes says the main Avengers fight fires but he wants to proactively take baddies down permanently. And he thinks Black Widow is the best leader. *Now* Clea and Laura are enthusiastic and Namor too, but not so Carnage.

Much later Natasha is sleeping in Bucky's bed but he's awake and answers a message notification on his tablet. It's a video message from Iron Apex (the Stark clone) threatening to gather all the remaining Killuminati to attack them en masse. But he also shows him a video of Jackal meeting his secret backer who provides him with vials of all the stuff mentioned above. And the backer seems to be Black Widow, and she has an even higher up boss.