Synopsis
Our gang used the Human Machine to follow Isaac Newton and the Celestial Star Child into 3 versions of the future 2060. Last issue they fought and now in each timeline there only remains Newton, his estranged son Leonid and Michelangelo the Forever Man in his multiple golden bodies from different times and/or timelines. Forever Man has rebuilt the Human Machine for Leonid, merged from all 3 futures, to ride to where he needs to be.
Now as Leonid departs in the Human Machine, Michelangelo (now reduced to 3 bodies) can no longer see the future(s). Leonid considers the 3 futures (the Height Of Modernity, the Rebirth Of Man and the End Of The World) and all the possibilities in between them and he wants the conflict to end. He generates his forcefield and there's a big explosion.
We see the universe created out of nothing, evolving to contain stars. And in 1 of the stars is a pregnant female Celestial (ie a version of the 1 in v1#4 that gave birth to the Star Child). But this time she produces a different creature that looks like Leonid in his forcefield.
Next we see Newton and the 3 Forever Men facing a very different Star Child (looking more like a version of a Nimrod Sentinel from X-Men, but with the Human Machine diagram etched on its face). Then it opens up and Leonid steps out, evolved into a humanoid with the universe as his body (like Eternity) but still with 3 overlapping bodies (like the end of last issue).
Leonid greets his father and asks him to abandon his fixation on humanity ending in 2060 so that they can discuss things rationally. Newton still insists it is fated and blasts his son. The blast passes through the body which then reforms unharmed. Leonid says he's trying to save everything including his father, and Michelangelo asks Isaac to listen. Newton is adamant so his son takes a drastic measure to compel his attention - he splits 1 side of Isaac's body into anatomical components.
The FM asks Leonid what the Human Machine did to him. Newton joins in, possibly hoping that if understands what his son has become it might show him how to fight back. Leonid says the HM is designed to explore potential, but then so is life itself. Cue a montage of the history of life on (Marvel) Earth.
We see simple cells, then amoeboid life, then fish and amphibians. At least the latter stages are watched by Celestials and possibly helped along. The space-gods certainly seem to affect the evolution of humanoids as do the Kree and their Sentry robots. And the Watcher watches super-powers emerge early on.
Leonid says that now that man has conquered land, sea, air and space he inevitably asks "What now?" Newton states his position that all things, including species, have a finite span within which to do what they are meant to do. (And his Quiet Math proved to him that humanity's span ends in 2060.) Michelangelo on the other hand believes mankind has the free will to choose its own destiny.
Leonid believes he can give both of them what they desire. He collapses all of time into an instant and shows them a god's-eye view of the universe. From this POV people are continually making free choices but the result is the foregone conclusion of all those choices. He asks if such a universe would satisfy them both, and they both agree.
We see a montage of elements from the preceding issues of this 2 volumes plus 1 issue series (as Leonid rebuilds history?). Forever Man comments that time loops back on itself producing an evolving unified history. (This could be a description of the Marvel comics universe where retcons continually change the past and the sliding timescale keeps moving the dates but the whole still hangs together.) This is definitely a universe that *he* approves of.
And now we see the moment in that universe (in v2#4) when the assembled characters set off from 1960 in the Human Machine to follow Isaac Newton and the Star Child into the future. But instead of going to 2060 they find themselves underground, and they step out into a tunnel dug by an excavation machine and Leonardo da Vinci welcomes them to a busy street in Rome (in our present or only a few years later?).
Da Vinci asks Leonid what took so long, and he says he had a little problem to solve. (So all the chars who died last issue are alive in this version.) Nikola Tesla/Night Machine asks what happened to Newton? Leonid says he's given him and the Star Child another Earth where mankind has died as he wanted. (We see an image of Abu Musa in v1#3 trying to do a similar thing. He failed, but we know from the same issue that Galileo successfully used the same technique to save Earth from Galactus by creating another world for him to eat.)
We finish with an epilogue of Howard Stark using his clunky voice-controlled typewriter to leave a message for his son Tony. He has already entered the history of these events (and of the Brotherhood Of The Shield) as we have seen in previous issues. He gives him advise on how to solve problems, and hence help the world. Visualise the problem and its solution in your mind's eye until you can see it clearly. "Everything begins with an idea. Everything begins with an image." And we see images from v1#1 where we 1st heard those words. Panels of the battle in 2620 BC against the Brood that kickstarted the Brotherhood Of The Shield. And the image on a shield that became the symbol of the Brotherhood. An image that resembles that of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s emblem to be.
Characters:
Brotherhood Of The Shield, Forever Man (
Michelangelo), Howard Stark, Isaac Newton, Last Caliphate, Leonardo da Vinci, Leonid, Nathaniel Richards, Night Machine (
Nikola Tesla), Nostradamus, Star Child.