Synopsis / Summary / Plot
This series has been mainly following the adventures of Nick Fury's White team of Caterpillars (super-powered youngsters the world didn't know about) led by Daisy Johnson (Quake). But last issue that team suffered losses and was retired by Fury. This issue describes the career of the Grey team led by Fury's son Mikel.
The issue begins with Nick standing in the rain contemplating some gravestones.
But then it immediately switches to a flashback a year ago where Nick has gone to see Mikel Fury at his desk in Moldova. It appears he's a politician there. They go outside to a balcony because the office is bugged. Nick asks Mikel to come work for him and the son jumps at the chance.
1 week later Mikel recruits his 1st Caterpillar in Miami. He finds old college friend and would-be revolutionary Carlos Ayala using his TK to pick pockets. Carlos too is eager to do something more interesting.
Next day Lynn Richards comes home to discover Carlos waiting for her in her Manhattan apartment. She pulls a telescoping double-ended sword out of her shoulder bag. Carlos tries to telekinetically take it off her but his power fails. Mikel is also there and tells Lynn he knows all about her. She was enrolled as a teen into a rogue SHIELD operation led by Mentallo to create superpowers, and she was the only success - she can inhibit other people's superpowers. Nick Fury told her to lay low until he needed her. And now he does.
The following day in Bethesda, Maryland Mikel and Carlos confront a would-be Fox Mulder who calls himself Red Webo, who is concerned that they were able to find him and his secret base. Mikel establishes his bona fides by quoting from a letter written by Galileo. Red starts spouting about the truth of conspiracy theories concerning secret societies and hidden knowledge - but he doesn't know anything about alien abductions. He shows them a diagram by Galileo which he said he modified. While Red goes to get something Mikel tells Carlos that father Nick released this diagram on the Internet and Red was the only person who was able to decipher it. Now Red returns wearing something he calls his Portable Creation Engine, which certainly does *something*.
The next section starts with a mythological warrior-king Arda Ulhaf standing alone against an army led by the demon Aeshma (a figure from Zoroastrian mythology). He challenges Aeshma to single combat and wins, taking Aeshma's Mace as a trophy. It has been passed down through generations and is now in the hands of Sandra Murphy in Winthrop, Massachusetts. And she stands ready to emulate her ancestor.
We don't see the recruitment of cyborg Bryan Cole or 'organic builder' Robert Martin.
A week later our duo make their last stop in Calgary, Canada to see rich twins Jenny and Malcolm Monroe, who are accompanied by multiple duplicates of themselves. They initially turn them down Mikel's 'offer' of a job until he suggests that his father can get the slate wiped clean of their previous crimes. Jenny protests that they aren't responsible for their father's misdemeanours, but is told that Malcolm has been supporting their lifestyle by committing bank robberies. So they're in.
We learned in #12 that Mikel Fury's Grey team concentrated on Leviathan, but we've seen no actual evidence of this in action.
1 week ago Nick Fury called Mikel and his team together. He tells them that the White team has gone, and that Hydra and Leviathan have nearly destroyed each other. Hydra has split into 2 factions led by Gorgon and Kraken (as we saw in #22). Gorgon's only base is Hive's facility beneath the Indian Ocean, and that's where they're going to attack.
2 days later the mission is underway. The Grey team is in the base and they've planted explosives. But now they've been overrun by Hydra forces controlled by Hive via the parasites on their heads. If Hive gets control of *them* then he can stop them blowing the place up. So Mikel triggers the detonation, killing himself and his team (some of whom looked dead already) along with the base and the Hydra troops within.
Now back in the present Nick Fury is facing the graves (presumably empty) of his son and the Grey team. Suddenly he's surrounded by Hydra troops led by Kraken. And he surrenders to them.