Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Captain America and Havok are preparing to fight their way through more crab-mounted Pale Riders when Havok disappears in a cloud of pink bubbles - mutants are being transported to the Ark.
Back in #13 we learned that Scarlet Witch wasn't really going to use
Wonder Man's energy to bring all mutants here to be taken in the Ark
to a new homeworld, as the Apocalypse Twins planned. Instead she was going to bring them here to *fight* the Twins. But Rogue didn't
realise that, and fatally wounded Wanda during the spell last issue.
Grim Reaper then killed Rogue. However the Witch used her dying
breaths to complete the spell and begin the rapture of the mutants.
But it used all of Wonder Man's energy, and he dissipated into the
air.
Now Reaper and Daken, 2 of the Twins' resurrected Horsemen, battle the severely wounded Wolverine as we witness other mutants being taken from all over the world. And then Wolverine (and Daken?) join them. (A later panel shows Sunfire in the Ark's sarcophagi too, so all the mutant members of the team are dead or raptured.)
Eimin and Uriel gloat over the success of their plan. Eimin had
foreseen Wanda's betrayal. But once the mutants were brought here and the Witch was dead, the Twins could easily park their guests in the
sarcophagi.
In #13 we left Wasp preparing to destroy the Tachyon Dam which keeps time-travellers from interfering, to let Immortus send troops in. But another Horseman Sentry was there to stop- her. Now she dodges his superior speed, but the Ark with the Dam aboard leaves before she can complete her mission.
Sentry catches her at wasp-size. But Jan turns the tables by becoming
extremely giant-size and stomping him with her foot. However Sentry
mentally sends giant sand monsters against her, as he tries to
persuade her that separating mutants from humans will be good for the
humans. She blasts him, but he doesn't care about damage to his
corporeal form. After Thor threw him in the sun at the end of Siege he
learned to recreate his body from scratch (over and over again, as he
told us in #11).
But now Thor has made it back from the far planet that Sentry left him
on in that issue. He shatters the sand monsters. But even the Thunder
God can't overcome Sentry's might and his new regenerative
capabilities. Until Wasp summons 1 of the giant sandworms we saw in
#10, which plunges back into the earth taking Sentry with it.
That battle took place on a world in the miniaturised Akkaba Nebula.
But the Ark has now left the nebula and re-entered normal space near
the Earth. Cap overhears the Twins say that Scarlet Witch and Wonder
Man are dead. He blames himself for causing the team to split in #9,
and is driven to try to kill Uriel (because in #13 he figured that
splitting the Twins would cripple them). But they beat him down, and
show him through a portal a giant figure hovering before the globe.
Eimin echoes Scarlet Witch (at the end of House of M) by declaring "No
more humans".
Thor takes Wasp up towards the giant. He says it's 1 of the
Celestials, Exitar the Executioner. They bypass him to go see the
Watcher on the Moon. Watcher confirms that Exitar has come to destroy the Earth. He says it's Thor's fault. In #6, set 100's of years ago,
Thor created the axe Jarnbjorn with the power to kill Celestials, but
it fell into the hands of Kang the Conqueror. The Apocalypse Twins
stole it from him and used it to kill Celestials in recent issues. And
1 of their reasons was so that the Celestials would take revenge on
Earth.