Synopsis
In his previous mini-series Thanos trapped Death inside a gem. In his Annual he revealed it to be a new Infinity Stone called the Death Stone but it refused to kill for him. So he sought out other Infinity Stones because their powers amplified each other. He found the Space Stone and the Reality Stone but discovered they had merged with humans and given them powers as Quantum and Star. And the Time Stone Bearer Overtime came back from the future to help. After the obligatory battle the Death Stone *was* roused to action but it abandoned Thanos.
Before going back to the future Overtime suggested the duo go find the current Overtime in Queens. Which leads to this issue.
Spider-Man (Peter Parker)'s guilt-complex makes him return to the site where he was involved in a man's death the previous day. And now he sees someone holding up an armoured car. The villain seems solicitous of the 2 guards he has in cuffs, and when Spidey accosts him he introduces himself as Hector or Overtime and and demonstrates his time-jumping ability. SM jokingly asks if he was bitten by a radioactive clock, but OT claims he has an Infinity Stone inside him. Peter's immediate response is "Like Star?" but Hector's never heard of her.
Overtime then starts time-jumping around, sometimes appearing in 2 places at once, and trying to attack Spidey whose Spider-Sense always alerts him in time. But on the other hand SM can't lay a hand or web on OT either. But eventually he gets lucky and a punch connects, and he follows it up with more. But he realises that without his power Overtime is just a regular Joe so he has to pull the punches. Which is a pity because he was in the mood to take out his frustrations on a punchbag. And he explains while hitting about the newbie villain who died here yesterday when he confronted him.
Now we see Hector's thoughts. He could just freeze time and escape, but Spider-Man's story strikes a chord. He too wishes he could go back 3 years, 2 months and 8 days and stop himself from pulling a trigger and save the lives of an elderly couple. He's been practising with the Time Stone but he's never managed to go back more than 24 hours. But that might be enough to relieve Spidey's guilt. So he does that ...
... and sees SM talking in the heavy rain to an armoured man wrapped up and suspended in webbing. He's desperately trying to persuade him to power his suit down because it's going to explode, but the enraged villain is too busy threatening the hero. And then he blows up.
Overtime was too late to help so he pops back to the present to reorient himself and try to go back a bit further. Spidey notes that he's wet before he time-jumps away again.
This time he's a little bit earlier but the villain, who calls himself Fission, is still already trussed up. He's complaining that it's not fair because he wasn't ready. And his attempts to break out of the webbing are overloading his suit. And all too soon he explodes again.
Overtime pops back to the present again and then further back in the past. But SM managed to tag him with a webline, causing him to fall on his back as he time-jumps and arrive winded. This time he sees jetbooted Fission crashing out through a window but landing chin-1st on the pavement. Passing Spider-Man stops to help but the bad guy thinks he's making fun of him and fires blasts at him from his gauntlets. He claims to be Fission with a nuclear reactor for a heart. Overtime is still struggling to get up as Spidey webs up his foe, but he manages to get out a warning ... too late.
He's blown back by the blast as he jumps again and winds up in the present hurtling through a restaurant window. Spidey follows him to see if anyone's hurt. Hector asks him how he would have stopped Fission's suit blowing up, and Peter tells him the coolant system was loose and he'd have have just pushed it back into place. SM realises that he's going to go back to change history and warns him it's a risky thing to do. But OT just asks him what quip he would have used if he'd managed to KO him, and Spidey thinks up "Gone fission". Then Hector pops off.
But the blast had supercharged him and he finds himself 3 months in the past. He panics and jumps forward to the fight before Fission gets webbed up. He shouts to Spidey about the loose coolant system and Peter strategically webs it securely in place. And then OT punches the bad guy in the face, shouting "Gone fission". And the foe turns out to have a glass jaw. But Spidey doesn't get the joke because the villain was defeated before he had a chance to say who he was. Now OT returns to the present. But before he goes he asks Spidey to meet him here the next day. And it's still raining.
Peter makes the date and finds the new guy sitting in a pool of rainwater. He deduces that the fellow's a time-traveller, and Overtime introduces himself. Spidey's about to use the 'bitten by a radioactive clock' joke but OT beats him to it. Peter guesses that this is a Groundhog Day scenario and OT admits that Spidey used the joke on the previous go round. SM claims that it's his sacred duty to use all the good jokes in the universe. OT says previous-Spidey gave him the 'gone fission' line and Spidey responds that they can't all be zingers.
Hector explains more about the original scenario. Spidey thinks he's a superhero but last time they met he was robbing an armoured car. He went back to save Fission to stop SM feeling guilty, because *he* wants to undo something he's guilty of and he wanted the money to finance his experiments in going far enough back to do that. Peter of course tells him that *he* has something he let happen in his past that he wishes he could change (the death of Uncle Ben). But that mistake also made him who he is. But Spidey then swings off because it's a decision only OT can make for himself.
2 people approach Overtime and he senses that they are like him. They reveal themselves as Star and Quantum. Their presence boosts his power and he can 'see' time rippling around them, and deduces that they met a future version of him who sent them here. Star claims that getting all the Stone Bearers together will give them immense power to meet their destiny. Hector reads that as he'll be able to change his past and so he agrees to join them.
Story 2: The Death Stone Saga chapter 2
Writer Derek Landy as above. Artist Sara Pichelli. Colours Mattia Iacono, letters Travis Lanham.
Nick Fury Jr is in bed (with a wife/girlfriend I don't think we knew existed) when he wakes from a recurring nightmare of his SHIELD partner Phil Coulson dying on various of their old missions, but this time he dreamt that the actually-dead Coulson is alive.
In a Wisconsin cemetery Nighthawk has just seen (in part 1 in the Thanos Annual) the Death Stone resurrect Coulson and merge with him. This version of Kyle Richmond was part of the simulacrum Squadron Supreme created by Mephisto and led by a previously-resurrected Coulson. Mephisto changed the world into a parallel version where they were the equivalent of the Avengers and Coulson was President. Richmond expects Coulson and the Death Stone to help him bring that world back.
But Coulson claims not to have met Nighthawk before, and doesn't remember anything about Mephisto and his world. The last thing he remembers is being killed by Deadpool during the Secret Empire event. (Which of course suggests that Mephisto's Coulson was just as much his own creation as the Squadron were.) Phil wants to talk to his buddy Fury to sort out what's going on, and asks Kyle for a phone. But single-minded Richmond figures that if Coulson won't help him then he'll just have to 'improvise'. He attacks (maybe intending to rip the Death Stone out of Phil's body).