Synopsis
Avengers (2023 series) #20 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
Last issue Black Panther entered Meridian Diadem, the living prison now a prisoner of the Avengers, to see what's happening to the captive inhabitants. As such he missed out on the team's encounter with Dr Doom, but this issue tells us what he's been doing.
In Zone 14-Green 2 diverse aliens named Hanno and Ruatu are being chased by 3 armoured soldiers with bladed weapons. They've stolen food from Loyalist territory. Hanno trips and Ruatu goes back to help him as the soldiers close in. But Black Panther leaps down to save them and kills the 3 guards.
Later round a campfire the 2 tell T'Challa their story. Meridian Diadem abducted them all from various worlds to this pocket dimension. She ruled them all but some of them became her warders who kept the others in their cells. Then over 2 years ago they stopped hearing from MD, and the prisoners rose up against their captors. BP comments that it was only a few months since the Avengers defeated MD (and the rest of the Ashen Combine in #6) and put her in stasis, but they deduce that time runs differently inside. The trustees and others who worship MD became the Loyalists. But their opposition scattered into the many Free Gangs, which spend more time fighting between themselves rather than combining against the Loyalist minority. This gave time for them to fortify and take control of critical infrastructure like the food dispensers.
T'Challa suggests that the Avengers could evacuate them and get them back to their homes, but the pair tell him that they have been biologically altered so they can only survive *here*. So he tells them that he will unite the Free Gangs and lead them to victory.
They reach the camp of the Ward 3 Gang and Panther enters alone. He announces his identity and tells 2 guards that this is now the Panther Gang. He defeats them non-fatally and challenges their leader. He insults them as not being true warriors but he will teach them how to defeat the Loyalists. Their lumbering leader attacks of course but BP dances around him making him look unfit to lead. And then he kills him. And the crowd cheers Panther's name.
Hanno and Ruatu don't know why he's taking this long route to victory. Why doesn't he just call in his Avengers and they'll take down the Loyalists. T'Challa replies that the Loyalists aren't the problem, it's the gang rivalry. If they can't return to their home worlds then they must accept that they are now 1 people whose home is here. So uniting them is more important than defeating the Loyalists.
Much later the original 2 return to Zone 14-Green and get chased away again. But this time it's into the hands of Black Panther's Gang who charge through the now-unguarded gateway to take the Fortress. BP raises a new flag over a statue of Meridian Diadem. But he wonders if he's really doing this for the prisoners, or to create a kingdom to replace the Wakanda that rejected him?