Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The Avengers have just defeated both the Kree and the Skrulls in the Kree/Skrull War saga in Av#89-97. The Skrull Emperor is holding an inquest aboard his flagship into why they lost, especially why the human teen Rick Jones was able to mentally paralyse them all. All this despite a prophecy that Skrulls would take the planet Earth (and also that the Skrull throneworld would be destroyed). A trembling military leader offers the excuse that Earth has a rising population of super-heroes, some of them mutants which would be killed at birth if they were Skrulls.
He's saved from further grovelling by the arrival via mystic spell of the Illuminati (Black Bolt, Dr Strange, Iron Man, Mr Fantastic, Prof X and Sub-Mariner). They have come to warn the Skrulls never to try to invade Earth again, or they will bring the war back to the Skrulls. As a sample Black Bolt uses his voice to destroy the flagship and some surrounding buildings, while Dr Strange brings the Illuminati back to their own small spaceship.
Namor exults in their vengeance, but the others are not so happy. And as they fly off their success is short-lived. They are attacked by multiple Skrull ships, their own ship destroyed and they are left floating unconscious in space.
They awake to find themselves trapped in individually-designed restraints, and being studied to destruction by their captors. Tony Stark is left alone because the Skrulls know his only power is the armour they have removed. But they do send Skrulls imitating other Avengers to pretend to rescue him, hoping to lull him into giving away secrets. However Stark sees through this ploy straight away. Unfortunately this allows the Skrulls to deduce that he knew the Avengers wouldn't come for him because they don't know he's here. And they correctly guess that nobody else knows about the mission.
But Tony uses the combat training that Captain America gave him to defeat all the fake Avengers. He grabs a gun and finds where Prof X is being held. Shooting his way in he frees Xavier, who uses his mind to subdue his captors/torturers. Next they release Sub-Mariner from his hot dry cell, and Dr Strange and Black Bolt. Stark at last collapses because his damaged heart isn't protected by his armour. But Strange uses a spell to keep him going. And somewhere along the way the sorcerer retrieves his Cloak of Levitation and Eye of Agamotto. Lastly they rescue Reed Richards, who is being test-stretched to find his limits.
The assembled Illuminati steal a Skrull spaceship and flee from the Skrull armada. Black Bolt wants to shout at the chasing fleet, but Dr Strange creates an image of Galactus, while Prof X bolsters the fear this induces.
The Illuminati make it back to the Solar System, trying to tell themselves that they've given the Skrulls reason to pick on somebody weaker. But they know that in reality the aliens will be back. Meanwhile on the Skrull throneworld the Emperor (who somehow survived his exploding spaceship) gloats that they've got the DNA of the various super-heroes, and his scientists will get to work on it.