At
Avengers Mansion, Diablo has used the Ichor of Ish’izog to seize control of the
minds of Avengers Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and Scarlet Witch and had
them subdue the Defenders. But Thor is fighting the mind control and deliberately
left Valkyrie free. The villain has Hulk fight Thor and Val while he brings the
other Defenders (Doctor Strange, Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner) under his control
along with Val and Thor. With all the heroes his slaves, he desires coffee and
sends Surfer to fetch his favorite from a café in Punta Secca, Sicily….
Spider-Man
and Daredevil see the Surfer zoom by and suspect something is wrong at Avengers
Mansion….
Meanwhile,
Hulk has reverted to Bruce Banner who is not under Diablo’s control and he
seeks out Vision whose android brain is immune to the villain’s magic. The
damaged Vision asks Bruce to take him to Pym’s lab….
Silver
Surfer returns with the coffee, passing the Baxter Building where the Fantastic Four
notice. Invisible Woman is curious but Reed Richards claims they are busy,
with Thing and Human Torch trying to contain the Negative Zone, and besides,
the Avengers can handle whatever’s going on….
It
turns out the coffee is cold so Diablo orders Hulk to punch SS in the face—but he
can’t detect Hulk under his control. He sends out a mental signal which starts
to force the change on Bruce but the villain is interrupted by the arrival of
Kang the Conqueror, warning them that Diablo’s action will result in the end of
reality. Diablo has the captive heroes fight Kang, who shrugs and departs. And
then Diablo notices the Watcher watching him before he leaves too. Then
Yellowjacket arrives to fight the heroes while a six-foot Ant-Man smashes the
villain’s mirror, breaking his control. The heroes realize that Yellowjacket is
Vision and Ant-Man is Bruce Banner and when Diablo forces Banner to become
Hulk, Hulk is very angry with him, scaring Diablo into opening a portal and
fleeing. Doctor Strange sees that the portal has ruptured the Beyond and destroys
it, trapping himself on the other side. The Avengers and Defenders then notice
that things are different: there is no sign of damage to any of the heroes or
to the Mansion. Cap now remembers the strange Hulk incident from the War (see
issue #1) and it is in their database. And they don’t know what to make of it….
Meanwhile,
Strange is hurtling into another dimension, hitting his head on an object and
clinging to it for safety: a Silver Surfboard in the farthest reaches of the
galaxy….