Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The Young Avengers are staying out of New York to avoid being captured by the extradimensional parasite Mother who has cast a spell over the city which makes all adults her allies against them. She wants to consume the power of Wiccan (Billy Kaplan) who is destined to become the Demiurge. Hulkling (Teddy Altman) has left them to take time out from his relationship with Billy.
We join the rest of the team as they've finished taking out some mystical baddies Lord Eldritch The Pretheist and the Merciless Sisters, Kid Loki suggests they leave before some mystic cops called the Militant Angels Of The Infinite Embassy turn up. Then 1 of Loki's fingers starts to bleed which he says is 1 of his alarms going off. He tries to contact Hulkling because he's detected that Mother has become active. But his ex Leah answers, who's angry at him for stranding her in deep time. She uses Teddy's phone to show him that Hulkling is now a prisoner in Mother's dimension.
Last issue we saw that Leah, who was Teddy's therapist, tricked him into returning to New York and into Mother's clutches. We also now see some other chars with Teddy and Mother who were in a group therapy with Teddy. And they all have issues with 1 or another YAers (mainly Noh-Varr). Last issue Mother also captured loads of weird alternates of YA members that our YA had sicced on her. Now Leah informs Loki that Mother will unleash them all on Earth unless Wiccan surrenders to her. They have 2 hours.
Loki persuades everybody back into Noh-Varr's spaceship and explains the situation to them. Billy heads straight for the armoury and grabs a spacegun intending to kill himself to solve the problem. But Loki now admits that he lied (#5) when he suggested Wiccan's death was a viable option. He was only trying to persuade Billy to loan him his power.
So now Loki and Billy unveil an alternative plan they've been cooking up. Wiccan put so much of his power into the spell that summoned Mother that he doesn't have enough power left or learned enough skill from Loki to undo it himself. Loki has the skill but not the power in his current young body. So Wiccan is going to use a variant of the Mother spell to search the multiverse for a better body for Loki. The spell worked changing Loki from early teen to late teen or early 20's. Unfortunately this body has *no* power. But he finds it difficult to make the others believe him. His conscience, the previous good Kid Loki, sarcastically wonders why.
Loki stops Wiccan from going on a suicide mission. He offers 2 alternate plans. But they've already tried Plan A where Wiccan gives Loki his power. Loki betrayed them then (but then his conscience made him come back to save them), and they trust him even less now. We'll learn the details of Plan B in a short while.
But 1st Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) visits David Alleyne (Prodigy) because she figures it's time for the brains of the team to solve the problem. But he's busy on his laptop. So she looks in on her boyfriend Noh-Varr who's looking at a hologram equivalent. He claims he was checking news and saying goodbyes in case they don't survive. But really he's exchanging messages with his exes in Leah's therapy group. Oubliette persuades him to shave his beard off (I never mentioned he'd grown it in #8), and unwitting Kate approves when she sees it.
It turns out Loki can still do simple magic, and his new body is better at it. Plan B is for Wiccan to temporarily access his future power as Demiurge which should be enough to hold off Mother while they rescue Teddy. If they're lucky he'll completely destroy Mother and her spell. If they're unlucky he becomes too much Demiurge and then *he* becomes the problem. Kate wonders how they're going to get past all their evil alternates. David says he has the answer to that. He's been on social media recruiting nearly all the teen heroes in existence. He also suggests they wait until Mother's time limit is up and she sends the alternates to Earth. The extra teens can fight them *here* while the YA sneak into Mother's lightly-defended home.
We have a last little scene where Mother, Leah and the therapy group (minus Patriot) are waiting in the white dimension.