Synopsis
In the Avengers' orbiting Impossible City HQ Captain America (Sam Wilson) is asking Black Panther if he's sure about his plan to rescue all the beings trapped in the tesseract space inside Meridian Diadem, currently imprisoned in 'amber' in the City with the rest of the Ashen Combine (since #6). T'Challa deems it a worthy cause but has to admit after some questioning that he's also avoiding his ex-wife Storm who's just joined the team (to replace busy Thor). He doesn't like losing, and losing Ororo Munroe was his biggest failure. In another room Captain Marvel officially welcomes Storm to the team, and the City's AI adds a greeting. The women share opinions of T'Challa. Tony Stark initiates a portal and BP steps through. Then he and Sam join the other 2 to await Panther's signal for extraction. But then the City alerts them to a priority transmission they were expecting to happen. It's Dr Doom wearing the Cloak Of Levitation and the Eye Of Agamotto as the new Sorcerer Supreme (as of the end of the Blood Hunt event).
They go to meet him along with Scarlet Witch and Vision in the Registan Desert in Afghanistan, and Stark is clad in his mysterium armour (as of the end of the Fall Of X event). Doom turns up in astral form. Wanda Maximoff asks if he's here to justify his stealing of the mantle of SS (actually not returning it after it was lent to him)? On the contrary he asks them to justify *themselves*. With all their power why have they allowed the world to be in a state of war and hate with injustice rife? Cap pours scorn on him but Doom dismisses his opinion. He's brought them to this area which has seen the rise and fall of many empires to ask why they haven't used their power to set the world to rights. No armies or nations could stand against them. As if to prove his point he raises an army of the dead (made of sand) which they easily hold off.
He asks them if they hold back due to the cowardice they call morality, or is it because they don't have the imagination to conceive of a better world. He decides to magically show them what they could aspire to. Sam Wilson becomes Captain of a unified world rather than the decrepit ex-empire that is the USA. Captain Marvel takes that unified world onto the galactic stage as a major player. Ex weapons maker Tony Stark frees the world of weapons and war. Storm secures the future of mutants. Vision is freed from human morality and destroys all versions of Ultron. Scarlet Witch takes from rich companies to feed the starving poor of the world. Except she's now the Green Witch because all their costumes have turned green like Doom's astral body. Doom names it truly an Avengers World and tells them this is what they should have done already.
Storm leads the team in rejecting his vision as her winds blow the sand warriors away. Stark says that if they tried to take control of the world it would entail a war that would kill millions. Storm says they may have the power to take the world but not the right. Wanda and Vision remind Doom that they are protectors of the world, not tyrants, and to impose their will would betray what they are. And Vizh adds that the world can't be fixed like a machine. CM summarises that no 1 person or 7 people can rule the world without making it worse than it is. They will always *save* the world, but also leave it the choice of saving itself.
Doom claims to see now that he was wrong. It *wasn't* their failure of imagination, it *was* their cowardice that holds them back. He claims that they are afraid of their power and they let the fear make them small. But Doom is *never* small and there is nothing that can hold *him* back. And he leaves them.
The team return to their City in the sky for pizza. Vision sums up the situation. Doom wasn't holding a discussion where his mind could be changed. He was using them as devil's advocates to test his argument for weaknesses that he could repair to ensure that his plan is *right*. He intends to do what they won't do, and he now has the power to succeed.