Synopsis / Summary / Plot
This issue contains 4 stories from the history of the Brotherhood Of The Shield.
Chapter 1:- Colossus
Pencils/inks by Nick Pitarra. Colours by Rachelle Rosenberg.
It's Florence in 1497 and Leonardo da Vinci's assistants report that they have failed to convince Michelangelo to join the Brotherhood. Leonardo says maybe he should approach the young man himself. But for now he has students to teach.
He goes down a spiral stone stairway and then enters a large chamber with statues ranged along the wall. He sits in lotus position in front of many similarly-posed young people and says he's going to tell them a story about Archimedes (holding up a small Archimedes' Screw enclosed in a clear block/case).
But 1st he asks them what they know of the man. 1 boy recites his birth and death and his breadth of genius. Another says he was a leader of the Brotherhood Of The Shield like da Vinci. But Leonardo says his story will reveal more of the man.
Rhodes in 226 BC is under attack by a giant-size Kree Sentry. Archimedes prepares to confront it by climbing inside the head of the equally-large Colossus Of Rhodes statue. He inserts the Screw/block from the previous paragraph into a mechanism and the Colossus steps down from his post at the harbour entrance.
The 2 colossi battle it out in the water. The mechanism transmits Archimedes' movements into blows from his 'robot/armour'. However the Colossus quickly loses stone limbs and other chunks. But then with a supreme effort Archimedes punches the remaining stone fist through the chest of the mechanical Sentry. Both bodies fall into the Mediterranean, and Archimedes swims ashore.
Leonardo now asks his class who Archimedes *was*. They reply (individually) "Who he had to be", "Who we needed him to be", "He held everything together", ending with a sentence that has become a Brotherhood mantra "He stood in the gap".
Chapter 2:- The hidden message
All art by Zachary Baldus
It's Rome in 1806 and 3 hooded men have decoded the works of Nostradamus to reveal a plan which appears to include their own names:- a data and time, a route into the Immortal City of the Brotherhood beneath Rome, a reason to go there, a way out, and a place to go afterwards.
They stealthily make their way in and down to the dungeon below the Immortal City where they find Nostradamus chained to the wall (by Isaac Newton, see v1#2). He gives them a message. They leave but 2 of them are killed on the way out and the 3rd mortally wounded. However he manages to ride his horse to where the glowing golden Forever Man (who we know from the end of v1#6 is Michelangelo) waits. The message from Nostradamus is that "he perseveres".
Chapter 3:- Life, the end of the world, and the key
Pencils/inks by Kevin Mellon. Colours by Dan Brown.
The Forever Man is using advanced tech to restore the life of Nikola Tesla/Night Machine (after he was blasted into 2 halves by Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark in a flashback in v1#6). He inserts the power source in Tesla's middle that we saw in v1#1-2. Michelangelo now tells Nikola that he and the Night Machine suit are now bonded together, and he/it is more powerful than before. He also tells Tesla that his 'son' Leonid will be the focal point of a coming conflict that will decide the fate of mankind. And Leonid needs his help.
Later in Rome Nikola confides in his companion, the pale ethereal woman who can transform into a white pigeon. He says the Forever Man gave him 2 tasks. He has done the 1st, which was to discover something long-hidden in a chamber within a chamber at the end of the world. Now he tells her what he found there.
It was in the Zargos (or Zagros) Mountains in Iran where he found the secret cavern containing ranks of empty cylindrical containers. Then he triggered the opening of a hole in the floor through which rose 3 more containers holding 3 Arabic men (previously seen in a Nostradamus prophecy in v1#4). Tesla now tells his friend cryptically that he found what is, what has come before, and what will be - those who mark the way and slowly wake from centuries of sleep. We will later know them as the Last Caliphate. (And the top chamber of cylinders was located again in Hickman's Secret Wars #25 in the previous month.)
The 2nd task the Forever Man said was a secret that *she* knew about. The bird-woman hands him a hovering key to unlock a door that cannot be opened in the Immortal City. He must give it to their son Leonid to put him on the 1st step of his path. (And in v1#1 we saw Tesla give Leonid this key to Iter, the 'door' that would lead him to meet Leonardo da Vinci.)
Chapter 4:- The apple
All art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta
In the Immortal City Isaac Newton studies a diagram of the Solar System and looks at a red apple on his desk.
In Hannover (or Hanover) in 1707 (probably a slight flashback) Gottfried Leibnitz finds a similar apple on *his* desk and deduces that Newton is here, so Isaac comes out from behind a curtained doorway. Leibnitz says he knows what Newton has been up to.
We see:- John Flamsteed poisoned at his own dinner party, with the other guests unaffected. Robert Hooke stabbed to death in an alleyway. Blaise Pascal drowned in formalin. John Locke strangled. And at the death scene of each of these rivals to Newton's mathematical/scientific pre-eminence was found a red apple.
Gottfried is ready to die but 1st wants to know if it is true that Isaac heads a secret scientific Brotherhood. (v1#3 showed him killing Galileo to take over the Brotherhood.) He wants to know if Newton's justification for the murders is anything more than professional jealousy.
Angry Newton batters Leibnitz to death with his copy of Isaac's own Principia Mathematica, and leaves the apple behind.
Now back to the original scene where Newton contemplates the other apple.