Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue Legacy (Genis-Vell) came to Monster Isle, home of the Infinity Watch, to learn more about his dead father, the 1st Captain Marvel. Only Adam Warlock, Gamora and Pip the Troll were in residence. But Warlock's energy was being sapped by a cocoon, similar to the type he uses to get reborn in, that had just appeared. Then it opened to disgorge Eve Warlock, a female counterpart of himself, who stole his Soul Gem and disappeared leaving Adam seemingly dead.
But we see him seemingly waking up on a little rock floating through space. He recalls what happened and swears to get his Soul Gem back. But then something like water starts to gush out from his forehead where the Gem used to reside. He says that his self is draining away, and the waters rise to drown him.
Back on Monster Isle Gamora pronounces him not dead but in a coma. She and Pip tell Legacy that they're as in the dark as he is about who Eve is and where her cocoon came from, or how she was able to take the Soul Gem and where she's taken it. Pip suggests Gamora use her Time Gem to go back and prevent it happening, but she says she guards the Gem but she won't *use* it. Pip opines that even if Genis had his father's cosmic awareness he wouldn't be able to locate Eve. But he rummages about in his loin cloth to pull out his Space Gem and says he knows just where to go for help. And he transports them all to Dr Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum where they find that the Doctor is in.
Meanwhile Eve Warlock has gone to meet her maker who turns out to be the High Evolutionary. He says he created her to be the perfect specimen of humanity that Adam fell short of. Through her humankind will evolve to become a boon to the entire universe. Via 1 of his machines he transforms her costume from a simple equivalent to that of Him (Adam's 1st incarnation) to an amalgam of several Adam Warlock togs. And she flies into space from HE's base on an asteroid.
Back in Greenwich Village we get a gratuitous shot of Spider-Man web-swinging past the Sanctum. Inside Stephen Strange scans Adam with the Eye Of Agamotto and declares that his soul has left his body. He believes he can track such a unique being but it needs to be done quickly (before the body dies?). DrS's astral form leaves *his* body and enters Warlock's forehead.
He follows a path through the Dark Dimension (where we see Mindless Ones fighting each other) until he sees the green Soul Gem. He flies into *that* and finds himself (and Adam Warlock) in Soul World that exists within it, where his astral form becomes a physical body. He approaches Adam and tells him that Pip and Gamora are worried about him. But Adam says he's content to be here (again - he, Gamora and Pip resided here between Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2 and Silver Surfer vol 3 #46). Eve is his successor and will do a better job. Stephen assures him that his friends and the universe need him and he must return. But Adam's other friends here object, led by Kray-Tor.