Steve Rogers is in Chicago,
calling Sharon Carter to say he’ll be back as soon as they’ve found the people
Lyra sent him to find, followed by some romantic banter. Steve recalls how, as
Captain America, he met with Lyra at the Front Door Cabaret and she told him
she can’t clearly see the third and final change agent they seek, which puzzles
Cap as Lyra knows everything. She revealed that this person’s contribution would
be his dying at the right time. Cap questioned this and she responded that
everyone dies, she’s just giving him a chance to make a difference—similar to
the offer made to Cap by Professor Erskine all those years ago. She assured him
the person would contact him. Then the landline rings and he is given an
address….
Steve and his companions, Becca
and Skinz, find themselves trudging through a forest alongside a river until
they come to a huge conduit. Entering, they find a crowd of people in a waiting
area with a receptionist. Steve approaches her and she recognizes them as
having an appointment. She explains that everyone else desires an audience with
“him,” some to learn their futures, other to understand their pasts, and a few
to heal. Skinz says that sounds like a conman so Julie turns on him, mocking
his superpower of being able to manipulate his shed skin. They are ushered into
a dark room which suddenly fills with light and they are confronted by an
armored woman floating in the air. She introduces herself as the Guardian,
sister to Malik, warning them against harming him or mocking him or else she’ll
kill them. Skinz makes a snide skeptical comment so she demonstrates by filling
his cells with the power cosmic to burn him out. Steve steps in front to protect
him but Malik interrupts, calling his sister (by choice not by birth, he makes
clear) protective of him and suggesting they work together against the common
enemy. He is a thin, tired looking person on a chair carved from the stone
wall. Skinz asks his power; Malik explains that he walks in people’s dreams,
feeling what they feel and removing their pain. Guardian adds that anyone who
lies to him will die, the greater evil intent, the greater the penalty
(starting with an upset stomach and moving upward from there). And he can also
see people’s pasts and futures, asking if they would like to know theirs. Skinz
agrees and Malik speaks a cryptic speech about dust, blood, and a woman in
white, which upsets Skinz so that he refuses to say anything about it. Lyra has
already told Steve his future so he passes along to Becca; she is afraid that
he will reveal her secret: that she’s working against them for Death, but Malik,
aware of this, merely says he doesn’t see anything. She then assumes he’s a
fraud. After Steve and company leave, Guardian asks Malik what he saw in Becca’s
future; he replies that it was not her future he saw but his own. He then asks that
the next visitor be sent in….
Steve recalls his earlier meeting with
Lyra in the ruins of the Pale City. Captain America had referred to Lyra’s
followers as her army but she corrected him: she is collecting all the beauty,
art, and purpose in the world at the Front Door, preparing everything needed to
create a better world after the war. And once the war is over, she will give it
all to Cap. He asked, “Why me?” She answered that the defeat of Asmoday altered
the chessboard which changed Cap’s destiny. Cap had found his place in the
world during WW2 but was frozen for decades, awakening in a world he did not
recognize. Ever since, he has been trying to find a home, reflected in his project
to renovate the building he once lived in. She is not offering him a mission,
she is giving him a chance to come home….
In the Pale City, Death speaks to
his fallen followers, praising their faithfulness and promising their deaths
will not have been in vain and so, after two millennia, Death walks the Earth,
to achieve his goals….
“Deadpool and
Wolverine: Weapon X-Traction Part Two”
Writer: Ryan
North. Art: Javier Garron. Colors: Edgar Delgado. Letters: Joe Sabino.
Synopsis: Story
continued from INCREDIBLE HULK #14.
Deadpool and
Wolverine have been sucked through a portal into the Multiverse, where they are
drifting helplessly. As ‘Pool discourses on the various alternate realities
they might find themselves in (2099, 3099, 4099, and one where they are anthropomorphized
foxes), Logan demands to be taken back where they came from. They land in a
ruined cityscape where they find a horde of zombies coming after them. As
Deadpool comments on a zombie world being both a cliché and a classic, one approaches
from behind, sinking its teeth into ‘Pool’s shoulder, interrupting his
commentary….
Story continues
in FANTASTIC FOUR #22.