Synopsis / Summary / Plot
On the planet Ell-N 1 week ago a scavenger hunts through a crashed spaceship (which looks more like a giant robot) and finds a containment device. He cracks it open and a female leaps out swearing vengeance on Sam Alexander, Nova.
In the present Sam Alexander, no longer Nova, watches Ms. Marvel and Snowguard setting the recently-added members of the Champions a training exercise. Snowguard has assumed the form of a dog and they have to catch her. Locust leaps but Amka Aliyak dodges and Fernanda Rodriguez lands on Patriot. Bombshell fires a shockwave but Amka transforms into a hare and bounds away, and the shockwave hits Power Man and the tree Sam is leaning on. Ms Marvel catches Sam with her elastic arms as Falcon soars down to catch that rabbit. Annoyed Victor Alvarez is powering up but the rabbit causes Joaquin Torres to fly into him.
Sam is still despondent about losing his powers (Infinity Countdown: Champions #2) and being saved by Kamala Khan just rubs it in. He leaves them to try again, with Kamala asking for some teamwork this time like in their 1st mission last week (#1). He enters the Champions Mobile Bunker and sees Spider-Man (Miles Morales) brooding as he has been all week. What he can't see is Miles' thought of how he made a deal with Mephisto to turn back time so he could save Ms Marvel and Viv Vision from dying. (They *didn't* die in #1, and last issue we saw the deal that had saved them.)
Sam passes his friend Spidey by but Brawn (Amadeus Cho), the only other person who experienced what happened, shakes Miles out of his introspection. Miles wants to know if he did the right thing. Amadeus can only say it happened and they have to live with it. But he knows that they saved lives.
Later Miles remembers rescuing a local girl in the original timeline, and he doesn't know what happened to her after the reset. He finds Quereshi Gupta (Pinpoint) who creates portals, and asks him for a favour.
Kamala and Amka are discussing the disappointing test. Kamala doesn't know why everyone was trying to show off their powers instead of cooperating. Amka says it's because they want to impress the boss. Viv Vision phases through a wall to tell them about a violent protest at Worthington Industries. They bring Amka up to speed:- Warren Worthington was Angel of the X-Men, but most of the team are missing presumed dead (Uncanny X-Men (2018) #10).
But just then they see Pinpoint returning through a portal. Ms Marvel wants to know why he missed practice. He says he's not comfortable with physically competitive games. But he also lets slip that he's just taken Spidey somewhere.
At Worthington Industries the anti-mutant protesters are trying to get at a statue of the original X-Men. They are confronted only by Dust (Sooriya Qadir), who is feeling survivor's guilt having missed the event that killed her friends. She turns into a sandstorm to drive them away.
Then Brawn literally drops in from the hovering CMB, and Snowguard and Falcon fly down while Viv floats beside them. The crowd mistake them for the Young Avengers (even though they've been gone for a while now) and tell them to arrest the mutant who attacked them. Dust says she was only defending herself and the statue. The crowd accuse Falcon and Snowguard of being mutants because of their wings. (Viv is obviously an android.) They shout various reasons why muties must die. Brawn holds angry Dust back.
Sam as usual is piloting the CMB. He reports that the police are held up in traffic. But then a proximity alarm goes off and the female from the beginning of this issue smashes into the craft. Sam recognises her as Kaldera.
But we leave that situation for next issue and cut away to Dubai where Spider-Man has gone back to the disaster site from #1. He sees a woman praying over a photo of the girl Spidey saved in the other timeline. And all her mother does now is thank him for all the lives he saved in *this* timeline.
Then Pinpoint brings Kamala here. She tells him to go join Viv and the others. And then she asks Miles to tell her what's troubling him.