Synopsis
The individual panels of the 1st page summarise where we left everybody last issue and what they're going to do next. The young In-Betweener is hanging out in space watching the plot unfold. Miss America Chavez of the Teen Brigade is with Daimon Hellstrom and She-Hulk of the Last Defenders in the 6th Dimension where they've just defeated Tiboro, discussing how to get home. Executioner is about to lead what's left of the Young Masters to Latveria while Dr Doom is away in the Future Foundation being, as he puts it, Reed Richards' butler. Jack Truman (in Larry Young's body) has revealed himself to the Teen Brigade as their source of covert info, and agrees to accompany them to Latveria as well. They travel in what seems to be an X-Men aircraft piloted by the team's ex-mutants Angel Salvadore and Barnell Bohusk. (Barnell tries to take America's advice to tell Angel he loves her, but this isn't the time.) Truman has also told the half-strength Last Defenders team to join in. The last panel shows Kristoff Vernard is ruling the country in his adoptive father Doom's place ...
... which segues into a celebration of his rule by the populace with abundant fireworks. He knows that previously the people would pretend to celebrate because they feared what Dr Doom would do to them if they didn't. And he doesn't believe his courtiers' assurances that this time it's different. But he intends to prove his good intentions by making the country better than it is now before his father returns from his stay with the Fantastic Four.
Meanwhile the Teen Brigade have arrived in their cloaked plane and Angel & Barnell have dropped off Truman & Ultimate Nullifier to sneak into the Latverian capital Doomstadt. Less sneaky is the Young Masters (the android Egghead, Executioner and Radioactive Kid) entering via the sewers and 'killing' Doombots along the way. They've also planted explosives all over, which go off ruining the party. Executioner emerges on the surface with guns blazing. RK removes 1 glove of his hazmat suit and starts infecting people until Jack runs over him with a truck. Egghead imitates Vision to emerge on Vernard's hovering platform, but Nighthawk (Joaquin Pennysworth) of the Last Defenders swings down from somewhere to floor him with a kick. Exec makes the platform rather crowded and tells Doom Junior they've been told to kill him. But UN squeezes in to threaten Executioner with a (special) gun. And there's still room for the In-Betweener to materialise in the open attracting the attention of ...
... the Braak'nhud horde who are after him and rain down out of a spacetime hole in the sky. And everyone, including Kristoff, has to fight *them*. Atlantean Warlord Krang joins Nighthawk and slices Radioactive Kid's hazmat suit open. But this means he starts leaking his infectious radiation so Pennysworth flies him away from civilians. Still in the X-plane Angel and Barnell see another wormhole opening ...
... and out flies the chariot pulled by 3 demon horses driven by Daimon Hellstrom, and carrying America Chavez and She-Hulk from the 6th Dimension to join in the melee. Daniel DuBois thinks his Young Masters need to make an unignorable statement and prepares to shoot the black & white kid. But now it's his turn to get run over, this time by Hellstrom's chariot. Nighthawk returns with RK wrapped up in something (presumably lead) to block his radiation, to join Agent Truman shooting Braak'nhud. Krang is fighting side-by-side with Doom-lite. The gangs are all here and and continuing the battle, including Egghead but not Exec and RK. (It seems like Angel and Barnell might be shooting aliens from the X-plane too.)
UN finds battered Executioner and threatens him with his Nullifier guns. But In-Betweener tells him that killing Danny isn't the answer. Good and evil need each other to survive. The Braak'nhud are overwhelming the defending forces. Barnell tells Mayne that the In-Betweener's energy is going critical. Ultimate Nullifier pistol-whips Exec instead of killing him. And then fires both his guns at the strange kid, the 2 Nullifier bullets hitting the black and white sides of his chest. There's a blinding eruption of energy ...
... and we follow IB's psychedelic thoughts. Created as a balance by Lord Chaos and Master Order he was also the balance between other dichotomies such as life and death, good and evil. But he got tired of being a pawn in cosmic games (but I would say he has also played some games of his own). In #2 he told us that he created a psychic space to hide out in but this in turn spawned the Braak'nhud who want to destroy the balance of the universe. He absorbed them into himself but they broke free and he was reduced to this amnesiac young boy form and held in Area 51 until Chavez released him (#1), and the Braak'nhud sought revenge on him. Now his 2 sides gradually reconcile and he reabsorbs the horde.
When the energy recedes (and IB is gone) the other combatants recover. Kristoff Vernard confronts the Last Defenders and somehow deduces that Executioner is to blame for all this and takes him into custody. The Defenders accept that and Doom lets them leave. But Jack Truman and the Teen Brigade have already slipped away in the X-craft. Egghead has also escaped and makes it back to the YM's base in a derelict Hydra helicarrier where he's contacted by their benefactor/info source who turns out to be the hooded villain Zodiac (who once used the same base). He tells the android that he set the Masters up to see who would survive, and now offers Egghead a place in his *real* army. Egghead accepts.
And Mayne wakes from a dream where the In-Betweener commends his actions.