Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Now that Infinity is over, the previously page takes us all the way back to #2 to re-establish the central problem the Illuminati are tackling in this series, that Mr Fantastic learned about from Black Swan. Every now and then an alternate Earth will appear in the sky, visible only from a small incursion area. Then there is 8 hours in which 1 of the 2 Earth's must be destroyed to save both alternate universes. The team have so far succeeded in saving their Earth without actually being the ones to destroy a living alternate world. But by #6 they'd built the 1st of many anti-matter bombs with which to destroy worlds if necessary.
It also shows some things from the series not directly connected to the incursions. In #7 Sub-Mariner came to Black Panther to try to broker peace between Atlantis and Wakanda. And in #7-10 Maximus built the Terrigen Bomb which Black Bolt detonated in Infinity #3.
Now the reigning Black Panther of Wakanda, Shuri, comes with her Hatut Zeraze troops to see her brother T'Challa, Black Panther of the Wakandan Necropolis. She wants to know why he didn't come to their aid when Thanos' forces invaded the capital during Infinity. T'Challa replies that he was defending the Necropolis. Shuri doesn't buy this, and wants to know what her brother is doing in his City of the Dead that's so important. T'Challa evades the question, because he is sworn not to reveal that the Illuminati are using it as their base.
But his previously-loyal female bodyguards, the Dora Milaje, come out and their leader says they can no longer keep quiet about T'Challa's lies. He has been meeting with Sub-Mariner here, since Namor attacked Wakanda during Avengers vs X-Men, and even while Wakanda was at war with Atlantis in #7-8. T'Challa can't explain that Namor is a fellow Illuminatus, and their work is vital to the safety of Wakanda, the world and the universe. So Shuri exiles him from the city of the living.
When they've all gone, Sub-Mariner comes out of the Necropolis and sarcastically applauds Panther for protecting the Illuminati's vital secrets. Atlantis was destroyed in the war with Wakanda. And now Panther too knows what it is to lose everything.
Elsewhere Maximus is helping his brother Black Bolt recover from what he went through in Infinity.
And in his Sanctum Sanctorum Dr Strange plans to use the dreaded Blood Bible against the incursion threat. He locks himself in a room and leaves instructions with his manservant Wong to contact Mr Fantastic if he hasn't emerged in 3 days time. Reed Richards must then move the whole building out of this universe.
Back in the Necropolis Beast, Iron Man and Reed have been defusing boobytraps Supergiant left in all the antimatter world killer bombs the Illuminati have stockpiled (when she availed herself of 1 in Infinity #6). Now they talk to their captive Black Swan. The alternate Terrax is also still a prisoner there. And they have now been joined by the immobile forms of Thanos and Proxima Midnight, from Inf#6.
They tell Swan that in the latest incursion (last issue) the alternate Earth was destroyed by that universe's Builders. The Builders of this universe were of course a threat to the whole galaxy in Infinity. But Black Swan is contemptuous of them. Without the Superflow, that enabled them to move between universes as well as rapidly within a universe, they are crippled. (We learned about the failure of the Superflow in Avengers #7) And even before that they occupied fewer than 5000 realities.
Black Swan predicts the Illuminati will face much worse adversaries. They have already heard of the Mapmakers, whose minions the Sidera Maris attacked Earth in #6, and the Black Priests, who she told them in #5 destroyed her world. She now mentions the Sinnu Sarrum and the Ivory Kings, beside whom Thanos was nothing.