Synopsis / Summary / Plot
In the last 2 issues Stature and Vision along with the other Young Avengers managed to expose 'Scarlet Witch' as Loki in disguise, so she's no longer on the team. Meanwhile Quicksilver and U.S. Agent are in China with GRAMPA Agent Ban-Luck helping the People's Defence Force against the Inhuman ex-king the Unspoken. Meanwhile meanwhile Wasp (Henry Pym) has expanded himself enormously out of this reality and into the Macroverse ...
... Now Pym passes through other layers of reality until he reaches the Overspace, a blank whiteness where he's greeted by Eternity.
And back in the Infinite Avengers Mansion the robot Jocasta is worried because the subatomic link Hank had set up with her to guide him home has been severed. Edwin Jarvis goes to get help from the other Mighty Avengers but finds instead YAv'ers Hulkling, Patriot and Wiccan fussing over their injured comrades Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) and Speed. And New Avengers Captain America (Bucky Barnes), Ms. Marvel, Ronin and Spider-Woman running in to the IAM through a door to New York. But no MAv'ers in sight.
After Jarvis has a brief reunion with Clint Barton and Carol Danvers the NAv say they've come about the China problem. Last issue Stature got a message for help from Pietro and USA, and she decided to call in as many Avengers as she could. (Ronin was already with YAv last time so he went to get the NAv. Luke Cage, Mockingbird, Spider-Man and Wolverine were presumably not around.)
Jocasta is still worried about Pym but realises the Avengers have to go to China. Jarvis says he'll contact Reed Richards for advice. Wounded Kate and Tommy Shepherd will stay to help. And we learn that the other MAv'ers have gone to get more recruits. Stature and Vision visit the Avengers Resistance (created in Av: Initiative #25) and find Gauntlet, Justice, Rage and Tigra at home. Hercules and Amadeus Cho call on Iron Patriot (Norman Osborn) in Avengers Tower to ask the Dark Avengers for help (Moonstone and Sentry are present). Herc naively believed warriors would leap at the chance for righteous battle, but as Cho expected Osborn turns them down flat.
In the Overspace Henry Pym and Eternity are having a chat. Suddenly Eternity attacks Wasp and keeps on hitting him. He explains that it is because that's how Hank views then rest of the universe, as something that keeps knocking him down. Eternity says that it will continue as long as Pym thinks like that.
Then he helps Wasp up and thanks him for saving his 'life'. The chaos fostered by Chthon (in #21-23) would have eaten away at reality if Pym's new group of Avengers hadn't stopped it. And Eternity names Henry as an equivalent of Dr Strange, Earth's Scientist Supreme to complement the Sorcerer Supreme (he doesn't seem to know Stephen Strange has been replaced by Dr Voodoo in NAv#54).
Things are not going well in Tibet. Last issue the Unspoken used gas from Xerogen Crystals which turned Chinese troops in Alpha Primitives (the Inhuman slave class) to work (and fight) for him. It also affected US Agent plus Collective Man and Lady of Ten Suns of the People's Defence Force.
Now Ban-Luck and Quicksilver with Scientific Beast and Radioactive Man of the PDF try to defeat the opposing forces without harming them. They also need to avoid being changed themselves, so Pietro creates whirlwinds to disperse the gas while Dr Chen Lu uses his radiation to change it to something harmless.
Meanwhile the Unspoken has been working on the Slave Engine which he is going to use to cover the world with Xerogen gas and turn all humanity into Alpha Primitives. (This is a device the Kree gave their creations the Inhumans as a safety measure in case humans got too dangerous. The Unspoken was exiled from the Inhumans because he hid the Slave Engine away so that his race could never use it. But now he has seen the error of his ways and wants to end the humanity problem once and for all.) Now the SE is revealed to be a flying craft which rises into the sky.
At this point the assembled Avengers come through 1 of the IAM's many doors. Quickie (in a typically insulting way) warns them not to breathe the gas. The Unspoken leaps into the fray himself with his multiple/variable Inhuman powers. Justice and Spider-Woman get Alpha'd, but artificial Vision and Kree/Skrull hybrid Hulkling are immune. Amadeus reckons godling Hercules will be immune too, and his Ant-Man helmet's oxygen supply should protect *him*. So he gets Herc to take them into the Slave Engine, where they are faced with a giant robot thing.
Now back to Overspace where Pym plays humble to get Eternity to praise him some more. The big (well he is *everything*) guy explains that Reed Richards is the Explorer, Tony Stark is the Engineer, but Henry is the Scientist. He predicts Hank will be the 'founder of Avengers yet to come', which may refer to him creating the Avengers Academy. (Or it may not refer to anything because in #34 Loki will claim that *he* was impersonating Eternity here.)
Anyway Eternity sends Wasp back, giving him a plan to handle the current situation. And when he gets home he grabs some guns and heads out to 'save everything'.