Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The split opening page shows 2 similar scenes. In the present day Steve Rogers is leading a small team consisting of Dr Voodoo, Quicksilver and a new character with a green streak in his hair. In the past Captain America is accompanied by the same new character, Whizzer and another guy who we will learn has a connection to DrV.
That past is 1947 and an army Major enters a Manhattan club called The Bar With No Doors that caters strictly to magicians. He used to be known as Dakor the Detective Magician, but now he hunts ex-Nazi mages. He's here to recruit people for a new team, the Department of the Uncanny, for a special mission. The Irish guy with the green streak is Declan Dane, the Emerald Warlock. The other guy from the splash page is Andre Gastrade, the Ghost Dancer, from the Caribbean. And the 3rd person at the bar is Agatha Harkness (much younger than we've ever seen her before).
The mission Alan Dakor wants them for is to capture Hilda Von Hate, a witch who used to be in the SS. Dakor saw her escape through a dimensional fissure in 1945, but Gastrade has located her ruling the Caribbean island of Tani where she's turned the inhabitants into something like zombies.
3 hours later all 4 of them are on a plane with Captain America, Whizzer and some US troops. To his consternation Cap learns that the mages know he's really Jeff Mace, the 3rd man to wear the uniform. And Ghost Dancer gives Robert Frank/Whizzer some hints about his future.
This section ends with a 2-page spread showing the gang fighting Hilda and her zombies.
Now we see a much older Andre Gastrade who's retired from the magic business since Jericho Drumm became Brother/Dr Voodoo. He's now a married fruit farmer. But his visitor Declan Dane hasn't aged a bit (and claims to have lived for centuries). An Avengers quinjet arrives carrying Dr Voodoo, Quicksilver and Steve Rogers. Declan greets Steve as Captain America, but Rogers says someone else has that job now.
We learn that the Dept of the Uncanny killed Von Hate in 1947, and her zombie army was cured. But recently the 'walker sickness' has reappeared in descendants of the originals scattered all over the world, and it's infectious. We see the other members of the Unity Squad (Deadpool, Human Torch, Rogue and Synapse) fighting individual outbreaks. But Ghost Dancer thinks the root of the problem is on Tani.
The combined bunch of heroes fly to Tani, now a holiday resort owned by the St Croix hotel chain, where the inhabitants are now all walkers. Pietro rounds them up, Steve knocks them down and Jericho casts a containment spell. Andre and Declan head into the hotel ballroom where they sense Hilda Von Hate. Their previous experience against her gives them the best chance of defeating her.
But it's not Hilda. It's a bat-like demon called Hatred who has gone by many other names in the past. Von Hate used her power, and now the demon has used the dimensional fissure to reach Earth and reactivate the walkers.
Outside Dr Voodoo's spell is weakening. But inside Ghost Dancer and Emerald Warlock defeat the demon and absorb her energy. They tell the others that their magics are so different that the energy can't recombine to become effective again. Jericho Drumm agrees, and the Avengers leave.
Declan stays for a drink with Andre. But then kills him to absorb all the power of Hatred. Before he dies Ghost Dancer realises that the Warlock was always evil.
And we see that Emerald Warlock intends to use that power against Scarlet Witch.