Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue after dealing with a Vridai nest in Java the team took refuge in Dr Doom's house there. But Spectrum (Monica Rambeau) had a seizure which she related to 'the moment of death'.
Now their recovered sorcerers Daimon Hellstrom and Wiccan (Billy Kaplan) have teleported them to Blade's base in Detroit. Blade reports in to his Avengers boss Black Panther but only to tell him he still needs the Avengers to keep out of this secret mission. (He can't tell him *anything* about it because even knowledge of the existence of the Vridai from Svartalfheim is dangerous. The team he's recruited all already knew about them.)
Monica has another fit (apparently her 5th). She says they feel like dying of heart attack. Asgardian Goddess Angela's touch causes the effect to fade. Spectrum has created a monitoring device to tell her more about what's happening to her. She says she's detecting the energy that leaves a person when they die. But she's feeling that energy returning!
She appears to be having another attack but instead the villain named Ghost emerges from her body and compliments her on detecting "our experiment". He thanks her for the data she's collected and leaves with it. Angela, Blade, Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) and Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) go after him leaving Hellstrom and Wiccan to look after stricken Spectrum.
Blade leads them outside, for the 1st time calling them by the name Strikeforce (which is news to the rest of them). There they are beset by multiple projections of Ghost, but all of them capable of firing electric blasts. Bucky heads to the top of a building from where he can disrupt the projections with sniper fire. But the real Ghost sneaks up behind him.
Inside the 2 sorcerers are also looking after the comatose body of Count Ophidian. (The team thought they killed the Vridai leader in #3 but then found he was a fake and discovered the real Count bricked up in a wall where his 'aide' Birgit had been keeping him asleep since his youth.) Billy tells Daimon he knows he's been magically stopping Ophidian from waking up even though Angela wants to interrogate him. Hellstrom denies it but Kaplan can't trust him because he hasn't explained how he came to be helping the Vridai (when they met him in #1). So Daimon tells him the story.
He was in his sister Satana's Las Vegas club Second Circle when he was approached by Birgit to perform a ritual for her (rituals are needed only for very large spells). He went along with it to find out what the Vridai wanted, so that he could then help them or stop them if he disapproved of their aim. He learned that their bridge back home to Svartalfheim had been destroyed (during War Of The Realms) and he agreed to help them find a new home. But he wouldn't let them have part of Hell so things got antagonistic. But the Vridai 'forced' him to help.
When the Vridai capture someone they can shapechange into their captive. This is what happened to Wiccan, Angela, Spectrum, Spider-Woman and Winter Soldier before #1. They did the same to Daimon (but it *was* the real Hellstrom who was helping the enemy in #1). Billy and the others don't remember being captured and he's astonished that Daimon *does*.
But now Wiccan has a suggestion. Wake Ophidian up and find out where other Vridai are based on Earth. Then Billy and Daimon can go to them and offer to *both* act as ritualists for them. Daimon is intrigued by the idea.
Meanwhile Ghost electrocutes Winter Soldier but Angela attacks him with the other 2 close behind. Ghost evades her and calls up surveillance footage of some of the team's activities, threatening to let the Avengers know where to find them. He says he needs Spectrum but not the rest of them, so he wants them to tell Monica to come alone to the source of the energy she detected. Angela's response as usual is with a blade but Ghost vanishes.
The 4 have a conference. Blade wants to stop the Avengers learning anything about the Vridai, and also wants to stop what sounds like resurrections. When Monica recovers he'll get Wiccan and Hellstrom to teleport the 5 to wherever she says. They'll leave the sorcerous 2 with the Count again.
So the next scene is Lakeside County, Michigan outside the St Isidore Health Centre. It's the middle of the night and Spectrum detects a skeleton staff looking after the sleeping patients. They are all patients on life support. The main power is off and everything's running on a backup generator. The ex-team leader of the Avengers immediately takes charge. She leads Angela and Blade round the back while Bucky and Jessica go in the front door.
Monica avoids the alarmed rear exit by ghosting through a wall, but that means she leaves the other 2 outside on watch. Just as she does so the generator goes down, and Spider-Woman and Winter Soldier have to persuade a frightened reception nurse that they're the covert branch of the Avengers and she should evacuate the staff while they take care of the patients. Meanwhile Spectrum is providing power to the life support machines.
Unfortunately for our heroes Ghost had spread nanites in Reception and now he has SpW and WS under his control, so much so that he has them floating along behind him through the air and then he dumps them unconscious. He unplugs the machine Spectrum is working on and tells her the patients must die so they can be resurrected in what he calls the AARU Project. They both see a pink spirit rise from the patient which Monica's energy form can touch, distressing the guy.
Meanwhile Angela and Blade have found a way in, and the Goddess senses the restless dead. The new ghost shows up closely followed by Spectrum who stops Angela from sending it to (the Asgardian) Hel. Monica wants to try to put the spirit back in its body. Blade The Vampire Slayer is *not* happy about creating Undead but Spectrum claims this is not a dead ghost, it's consciousness as an energy being. The other 2 can't see the difference. And there are more of them in a ward.
The villainous Ghost tells them that the Doctor has finished her dinner break and will explain all about AARU. His partner enters the room and it's Dr Karla Sofen, better known as Moonstone. She starts, in a long-winded way, to persuade Monica to help her. She needs Spectrum's power to maintain the stability of the energy 'ghosts'. But Monica still wants to return the spirits to their bodies and Angela still wants to send them on their way.
Spectrum unleashes a mighty EMF blast which succeeds. The patients sit up in their beds. But Moonstone warns her that "Nothing comes back from the dead unchanged".