Synopsis
A voiceover reminds us how the Omniverse ended before the Secret Wars event and was recreated at the end (SW#9) by Franklin Richards, Mr Fantastic and the Molecule Man. And how the new Omniverse continued sort-of where the old 1 ended, but with many who died returned to life. However we learn that 1 being who made it alive into SW's Battleworld was cast out of the Omniverse and now exists in the unnamed 'outside'. This outcast remembers fighting against an enemy of ultimate power (Dr Doom, ruler of Battleworld), failing and dying (SW#8). Now in this limbo he sees the Ultimates' space craft Abeona crashing through 1 of Ms America Chavez' star-shaped portals from the Neutral Zone (inside the Omniverse).
Inside Blue Marvel's readings tell him the specially-reinforced quinjet is beginning to fall apart, and Black Panther tells Captain Marvel that the Exploration Armour they used in the Neutral Zone last issue won't save them here so they need to go back to the Omniverse immediately. Chavez is slumped with a nosebleed after the effort of the multiple 'star jumps' she generated to get them here. Spectrum tries to revive her but gets no response.
In her head America is remembering a recent date with her girlfriend Lisa Halloran in a diner. Lisa accuses her of veering erratically between cute & funny and distant & prickly. She sullenly replies "I'm fine" which proves Lisa's point. And then tries to hide a laugh which proves it more. A bit later at the Tisch Fountain in Washington Square Park she admits that she isn't always fine. She's been alone since her parents died when she was 6 and she left the Utopian Parallel to travel the multiverse helping people in need. But that means she's reluctant to let people in and accept help from *them* because it would mean she's 'not doing it right'. Lisa says that everyone needs the help of friends, and reminds America she's got her, and Kate Bishop and the other Young Avengers.
As the integrity of the Abeona continues to degrade Monica Rambeau detects America going into arrhythmia and uses her energy powers as a defibrillator. She comes back to consciousness and Carol Danvers urges MAC to pull it together and get them out of here. Meanwhile Anti-Man (Conner Sims) who they rescued from the Neutral Zone last issue continues to claim that there's a cage around the universe. And then the spaceship finally breaks apart and spills them out into the nothingness around them.
But just in time the golden Galactus The Lifebringer surrounds them with a force field. He says he's here because he owes them for transforming him from Galactus The Devourer (#1-2). But he claims that even he risks trauma being here and asks what madness compelled them to come here. BP gives the official answer that time is broken and getting worse, and BM continues by saying they came outside the Omniverse to measure the extent of the problem. Big G dismisses that as rationalisation and asserts that they did it just because it was possible and no-one had done it before them. He likens it to the scientific curiosity which drove Galan to go beyond the death of his own multiverse to become Galactus in the next 1. Carol hotly denies that they did this just for kicks and that the danger to the timeflow is real.
So G shows them what the flow of time is really like. We see picture bubbles with Two-Gun Kid in the Old West and Dum Dum Dugan in WWII linked together and to others by straight blue struts. The other 4 bubbles are all in the Marvel Age and have trailing spirals of yellow. They picture the Fantastic Four making their original pledge, the original Captain Marvel, the Silver Centurion Iron Man and Onslaught. And there's a large blue tangle with a straight yellow tail plunging ahead of the bubbles. Galactus describes that as the Now. The bubbles are events with different 'weights'. Some events with great weight get dragged along with the Now and remain just a few years behind it. (He's describing Marvel's sliding timescale where FF#1 is always about 15 years ago and therefore its absolute date keeps changing, whereas the Old West and WWII always happened when they did.)
The Ultimates must accept that the past is mutable, as is the future. Galan shows them a selection of possible futures (those of Deathlok, Bishop, Old Man Logan, Cable and 20XX) and explains that as each becomes more probable it can be reached from the present and can even reach back. Changes can result in alternate timelines. But ripples can alter the present. Adam Brashear repeats that this is what they have to prevent. Galactus admits that too much change might wipe them out of existence but it doesn't mean time is broken. Time is fluid and history is never fixed. He claims that Adam should know that more than most, which befuddles Blue Marvel. (Presumably he refers to the fact that an early part of Adam's life is fixed in the Korean War so that he's been getting older while other superheroes remain about the same age.)
Conner Sims breaks in by demanding to know why Galactus doesn't tell them about the cage around everything. Adam tries to dismiss it as the delusion Conner's had for decades but Anti-Man blasts at Big G through the force field. Galan retaliates by sending them all to sleep. He apologises to someone that 1 of them (Conner) achieved hyper-cosmic awareness but fortunately the others don't believe him. And he himself only showed the Ultimates a simplified view of timespace because the full truth would have blown their minds. We and G then see that he's talking to Eternity, viewed from the outside. And Eternity is in chains. The Big G asks who's done this to the Big E, and he's told it's his task to find out.
The mystery voiceover returns for an epilogue as Galactus tears a hole back into the Omniverse and steps through it with the Ultimates. The 'outcast' watches this. Part of him wants to stay her where his new-found love of Nothing is even stronger than his previous love of Death. But he knows that he has an obligation to prove that love. So Thanos the Titan steps through into the Neutral Zone as well.