Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Monica Rambeau steers the charter boat she runs with her father Frank who comes up from inside to tell her that the passengers are happy. She asks him if he misses being a firefighter. He has mixed feelings, but opines that her question was more about *her* missing being an Avenger as Captain Marvel. Cue a brief resumé of her career as a superhero.
She accidentally gained the power to convert her body into electromagnetic energy (Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16). She immediately joined the Avengers as a trainee (#227), but by #279 she was leading the team. However in #293-294 she expended so much energy in a fight that she had to quit the team and stop super-heroing for a while. She returned but eventually (Av Unplugged #5) handed over the Captain Marvel title to Genis-Vell, son of the original, and took the new name Photon. As Photon she was in the mighty assembly in #1-3 of the 1998 Avengers series and dragged into conflict with the Wrecking Crew in Arkon's dimension in #16-18.
She turned down an offer to rejoin the team because she was needed in the charter business because of Frank Rambeau's heart condition. Now her dad tells her his doctor says he's fine so she shouldn't worry.
Way (and I mean a *long* way) out in space Quasar is sitting on 1 of the thousands of listening stations he's got scattered across the universe (or whatever small part of the probably infinite universe he means by that) in his role as Protector Of The Universe. It's a lonely job:- His 'god-daughter' Epoch left to study the Crab Nebula. His last team Star Masters (with Beta Ray Bill and Silver Surfer) disbanded. And he hasn't been back to Earth since that assembly in Av#1-4.
He gets a signal from listening post #1287 and his quantum bands teleport him to the edge of the Galaxy and a devastated and lifeless planet that was part of the Rigellian Empire as Rimworld R-76. But then he detects 1 lifesign beneath some rubble. But we leave him there and switch to ...
... the vacation-world Deneb-7 where we find Tigra being propositioned by an alien. She brushes him off but he won't take no for an answer so she dissuades him more forcefully. Starfox (Eros of Titan) notices and leaves the company of 2 female aliens to join her. (Eros promised to take Tigra here at the end of Av#4 but 1st he stopped off on Titan for Warlock (1998) #3) Greer Grant says she's finally tired of partying so Starfox suggests they leave the planet seeking adventure.
Back on Earth a small glowing ball from space passes through the walls of Avengers Mansion and surprises their butler Edwin Jarvis with a quantum video call from Quasar, who explains he's on the other side of the Galaxy but would like some Avengers help. Jarvis explains that the team is away on a mission so Wendell Vaughn asks permission to contact some Reservists.
Thor is having a reflective moment on a mountaintop in Colorado. In the latest issues of his series (up to #29) Odin is again in the Odin-Sleep and Sif is ruling in his stead, and meanwhile Hogun of the Warriors Three has been fatally injured. But now his Avengers communicard beeps. The Thunder God quit the team after getting angry with the Press (Av#25) and he's still not minded to give an apology. But since it's Quasar and he owes his Rigellian friends after failing to save their homeworld (not the planet Quasar's on) from Thanos and Mangog (in his 2000 Annual) he's glad to help.
In New Orleans Photon's beeper also goes off, but Maria Rambeau tries to stifle it so her daughter won't hear it. She's unsuccessful and Monica answers Quasar's call and suits up. Maria says she's only just got her husband to give up firefighting and she doesn't want her daughter returning to another dangerous profession. But Monica promises to be careful and zooms into the sky to the designated rendezvous point ...
... where she finds a cloud-hidden spaceship containing Thor and its owner Moondragon. Photon resumes human form as Heather Douglas prepares to warp to Quasar's cosmic location. She detects a frostiness between Thor and the Titanian priestess which she recalls dates back to before her time on the team. (#219-220 where Moondragon was mentally controlling an alien population 'for their own good' and mentally turned Thor against his fellow Avengers when they found out.)
When they get to Rimworld R-76 they find another Titanian spacecraft already there, and Eros and Tigra already with Quasar in a dome that is the only structure on the planet not in ruins. The comrades greet each other, and Moonie and Tigra exchange catty remarks. (They fell out in Av #211 when Moondragon mentally 'persuaded' Tigra and many other heroes to try out for Avengers membership. This despite the fact that Tigra actually got the job.)
Quasar leads them to the survivor he found and it's Earth hero Jack Of Hearts. His armour is cracked releasing the forces within so Wendell has him in a quantum containment tube. Moondragon reads his mind to find out what happened.
She learns Jack was wandering through space when he came across this world under attack. They also attacked him and he fought back, but when he touched 1 of the attackers he got a massive data download which blew his mind. Then a blast breached his armour releasing an explosive force that probably destroyed the enemy. But Heather detects that the downloaded data named the invaders as servants of the Infinites.
Thor recalls that Wasp's report on the future Destiny War (to which she time-travelled in the Avengers Forever limited series) mentioned the Infinites as some foe the Avengers faced between that present and that future. (If he'd remembered that Wasp reported Immortus as saying the team defeated this enemy, then maybe they'd be more hopeful during this encounter. But then, alternate futures and all that.) Moondragon says the attackers weren't Infinites, merely their Servitors. The Infinites are *much* bigger.
And then a thing she calls a Servitor bursts up through the floor of the dome. Photon springs to the attack with a multi-gigawatt electric blast. But Quasar gets there 1st and contains the foe in a Q-Sphere. Wendell asks Eros to use his mood-control power to sedate the Servitor, but it breaks out of the unbreakable Q-Sphere still warlike. Now it's Thor's turn up to bat. Monica tell Tigra and groggy Quasar to help Moondragon and Starfox get Jack Of Hearts into Moonie's ship before the Servitor cracks his containment tube. Meanwhile Photon goes to help Thor who throws his hammer Mjolnir at the enemy. The hammer splits the being in 2. But then the halves co-opt matter from the floor and rise up as 2 complete Servitors.
And outside as the others reach the starship more Servitors erupt from the ground around them.