Iron Man arrives at the landing site of the flying city and
is filled in on the backstory (last issue). He inspects the largely intact
Stark freighter and has a word with Thor. A chained-up Bi-Beast is brought by,
carried by a number of police officers. Suddenly, a huge device drops from the
ceiling and fires a beam at the Bi-Beast, reviving him to break free but also tuning
the nearest cops into violent maniacs. Iron Man takes on the monsters while
Thor uses Mjolnir to create a vortex, trapping the violent cops. The device (a
small spaceship) uses a tractor beam to pull the monster into the craft and
then it melts a hole in the dome and flies off, with Shellhead in hot pursuit. The
hero shoots down the craft which fires back at Iron Man, destroying his
circuitry. IM plummets toward the ground, jerry-rigging his boot jets and
repulsors to give him a (semi-)soft landing. Thor arrives and they set out to
search for the mystery ship and its unknown pilot….
Meanwhile, in the swamp by the wrecked spacecraft, Bi-Beast’s
rescuer is revealed to be his former partner the Man-Beast, motivated by pure
hate, persuading BB that he will help him destroy Earth when Man-Beast’s only
goal is to destroy Counter-Earth. Searching for materials with which to repair
the broken craft, Bi-Beast encounters Man-Thing and hurls him aside as
harmless; the curious Man-Thing follows BB on his mission. Bi-Beast comes upon
a trailer camp and with a demonstration of violence scares the people into driving
their campers back to the crash site with their tools and spare parts. A few
hours later, after dark, Thor and Iron Man discover the villains and their hostages;
Thor brings down lightning to strike terror into the baddies’ hearts and the battle
is on with the matchups changing minute by minute and Man-Thing watches
silently from a distance. Finally, Thor overcomes Bi-Beast and Man-Beast panics
and takes off in the newly repaired ship; the two heroes shoot the ship down
and it crashes into a quicksand bog. They assume Man-Beast is dead and take
Bi-Beast back to civilization…unaware that Man-Beast is still alive and
Man-Thing is watching him carefully….