Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Where are the U.S. Avengers? Cannonball's lost in space. Enigma and Squirrel Girl have gone to join the European Resistance. Citizen V has been shot in the head with an energy blaster. Red Hulk and Iron Patriot have been captured by Hydra, and IP has been put in the same cell as CV.
But we start with a flashback for Toni Ho to the day, when she was 11 years old, that she heard that her father Prof Ho Yinsen died saving Tony Stark's life (as part of Iron Man's origin in Tales of Suspense #39). She thought Stark could have done more to save her father, and vowed that when she grew up she would do better. (She was already learning about basic electric circuits in school - possibly a school for high achievers - and was following in her scientist father's footsteps.)
Now Toni finds herself in a similar situation to her father's. He was held captive with Tony Stark who was in danger of dying from shrapnel near his heart. Now her cellmate Roberto Da Costa is also slowly dying. The damage to his head has made him lose the ability to suppress his old Sunspot power, which in turn is boosting his M-Pox infection which will kill him. And he's also been reduced to a mumbling, confused and passive state.
She now knows that Prof Yinsen cannibalised equipment in the cave cell to help Tony Stark create the 1st Iron Man armour, which also kept the shrapnel out of his heart. Toni wonders what she can find here to help Roberto.
1st she tries an experiment. She figures that the propaganda-spewing TV screen doubles as a spy camera, so she drapes Bobby's jacket over it to see how vigilant the guards are. It takes 16 minutes before someone comes to remove it. Meanwhile Toni examines the sparse contents of the room - noting protein bars wrapped in foil, and chewing gum.
Meanwhile in Paris Le Peregrine leads the freedom fighters that Enigma and Squirrel Girl have joined - Ares, Captain Britain, Excalibur and Guillotine. Their other member Outlaw is scouting and has located the Hydra armoury. The group attack.
Excalibur uses her painless dissection power to temporarily open up a Hydra guard's chest, which also automatically paralyses him. She stops Ares from killing him, and instead uses the sword Excalibur to make the guard experience empathy for his previous victims. Guillotine comments that *her* sword is more destructive, and Faiza Hussein notes that their magic weapons don't like each other.
Outlaw joins them and Captain Britain kicks the door down. (Brian Braddock mentions it's been a hard time for him lately. Presumably referring to losing an eye and the rest of the Captain Britain Corps in New Avengers (2013) #30.) Inside they find 8 'giant nuclear-armed Hydra death robots' and lots of Hydra troops. Squirrel Girl leads the charge with the rallying cry "Euro-US Avengers E.U.-nite".
And in another sidebar Cannonball has been sold to alien slavers. His muttered complaints in English are noticed by a pipe-smoking old human gent named Howard Mason.
Back in the internment camp Toni Ho is taking part in the daily exercise regime - walking in a circle for 2 hours in the midday sun. If she says "Hail Hydra" she can go to a proper gym/spa instead. But when their guard isn't looking she takes the glasses off a fellow prisoner and breaks 1 of the arms off to use as a screwdriver. (He is Philip Voght who readers of Ultimates will know as the leader of the Troubleshooters. He complains that his team lost their powers when Psi-Hawk left to help Eternity in the Eternity War.)
Back in her cell she hopes that she'll have 16 minutes before a guard come to investigate what she's doing. She took some capacitors from the TV, and used chewing gum to attach them and foil 'wires' to a belt which she now fastens round Roberto's head. She hopes this will help him control his Sunspot power.
But the guards arrive in much less than 16 minutes. Toni remembers how her father was shot while providing a distraction giving Stark's armour time to power up. So she stands up to the guards, claiming to be more dangerous to them than Da Costa. She says that her father turned weapons-manufacturing plutocrat Tony Stark into Iron Man who created the Avengers. It's the power of ideology.
By the time the guards realise it's all bluster Sunspot is up and running.