Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Hulkling, Marvel Boy and Prodigy of the Young Avengers went to investigate the battle over the Watcher's Eye and found a building full of junkies being kept invisible from SHIELD searchers by the criminal Hood. He explained that their drug-expanded minds had absorbed an extra large dose of the secrets released when the Eye exploded. He said he wanted to extract the secrets (from all over the multiverse) hoping to find within them stuff like cures for diseases. And then he pulled a gun on Prodigy and demanded that he help.
It seems to be a standoff but Marvel Boy says he can reach Hood before he pulls the trigger. Parker Robbins scoffs so Noh-Varr proves it true. Hulkling crushes the villain's 2 guns and Prodigy frisks him to check he has no more. Noh asks Teddy Altman why he doesn't do something like putting guns inside his shapeshifting body so he can make them pop out of his eyes?
They come down inside from the roof of the building to talk things over. Bulked up Hulking shapeshifts smaller buttocks to fit on a human-size chair. MB asks another stupid question? Why doesn't Teddy just turn his butt into a chair? Hulkling replies because it would tear his pants and he'd effectively be sitting with his butt on the dirty floor.
Hood explains that he wants the secrets to save sick people like his mother. (He's not lying about that bit, Eliza Robbins is mentally ill.) He knows that Prodigy contains all the skills and knowledge of all the X-mutants so he wants him to build a copy of Prof X's Cerebro machine to read the junkies' minds. David Alleyne is sceptical if he can do it, and anyway he'd need lots of parts. Hood says he's already scavenged lots of stuff, including high-tech stuff from the SHIELD investigators.
Teddy thinks SHIELD would have a better chance at succeeding but Hood won't accept that. And he lets them know that he's got other things going for him besides his guns by letting them temporarily see his demon-face. But this makes the YA even less likely to help him so he reverts to pleading with them. Let him be a hero for once. Prodigy points out that if the cures are in there it's a good thing to get them out. The other 2 agree but still think SHIELD is the better option. However Prodigy says his X-memories indicate that SHIELD isn't that squeaky-clean. Like they're currently building Sentinels. They finally agree on the grounds that they know they can stop Hood if he double-crosses them.
Later Prodigy has built a cut-down version of Cerebro that can't actually read minds. All it can do is scan a brain and compare it to a normal brain scan then extract and erase the difference. (But surely they'd need pre-Watcher scans of each junkie, and where would they get those from?). Be that as it isn't they bring the 1st subject down and attach a wired-up colander to his head. And they start the process.
Story 1:- Whispers Of War featuring Lineage
Script Charles Soule. Pencils/inks Ryan Browne. Coulurs Edgar Delgado. Editor Nick Lowe.
Lineage is 1 of the many new Inhumans activated by the Terrigenesis Bomb Black Bolt detonated during the Infinity event. He has deceased relatives living in his body and appearing as small talking faces which tell him secrets from the past. The Watcher's Eye event happens and a new relative pops up who died of a heart attack there. And he absorbed 1 of the released secrets which concerns Black Bolt. (This isn't necessarily a big coincidence because the new guy must have Inhuman genes.)
He saw Black Bolt and Lockjaw with 2 other Inhumans teleport to the Carpathian Mountains where Kree (the creators of the Inhuman race) in a spaceship have been experimenting on humans with mists of various colours which cause them to mutate. The Inhumans fight guards to get inside the ship and then fight more when they see what's going on. The 2 Inhuman minions get killed. The Kree leader tells Blackagar Boltagon that the research subjects aren't actually Inhumans but they have inherited some of their genes (like Lineage), and anyway they're all dead now so there's nothing BB can do. (Presumably the mists are variations on the green Terrigen Mist.)
The Kree tells Bolt that if he interferes it will be seen as an act of war. The usually silent Blackie whispers 1 word "War" and his voice destroys the spaceship and all within it.
Now Lineage realises that it was Black Bolt who started the coming conflict with the Kree. And he can us that knowledge as a step to power.
Story 3:- Bury The Lead featuring J. Jonah Jameson
Script Dan Slott. Pencils Mark Bagley. Inks Joe Rubinstein. Colours Paul Mounts.
This tale reveals a secret that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Watcher's Eye. Daily Bugle researcher Ray Rothman (a good alliterative Marvel name) has been asked to dig out all the early pieces written by J Jonah Jameson (even more alliterative) attacking Spider-Man. But he finds that the 1st such article is a rave review of Spider-Man's early apps on TV before he became a hero. JJJ catches him reading it and fires him before burning the evidence.