In this weekly series, we provide a summary, plot synopsis, brief recap, spoilers, and other Google search synonyms for Marvel’s new releases.
Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow is working a breaking and entering mission in Manhattan, attempting to steal a harddrive from a heavily guarded safehouse. With some help from Hawkeye/Clint Barton across the street, she fights her way through the building, blows the safe and gets the harddrive, then escapes through a window via zip-line shot into the wall by Hawkeye. Natasha reveals that Clint is still mad at her for some previous fight they had, and when she lands across the street, only Captain America is there to retrieve the harddrive.
Returning home, Natasha realizes that someone has broken into her apartment. She climbs around the outside of the building to sneak in through the window but is surprised by an unseen assailant and gets shot with three darts in the neck, presumably falling to her death. Flash forward three months, and Natasha is living in San Francisco in a whole new life and seemingly no memory of who she was. She works as an architect on a highrise project, and on a whim buys a motorcycle on her way home to her large home where she’s living with a handsome boyfriend.
Meanwhile, Clint randomly happens to see her in the background of a news broadcast and it turns out she’s been missing and presumed dead for three months, and now Hawkeye knows she’s alive. As Natasha arrives at her home and kisses her boyfriend, it is revealed that the house is being monitored by the sleazy villain who goes by the name Arcade, and he’s just waiting for permission from unknown employers to finally get to “kill the Black Widow.”
Esme telepathically tells Cable that the Galadorians they’re fighting are violent criminals who were experimented on and put inside cyborg bodies. Cable agrees that he can’t let them use the time machine, but isn’t intimidated by them until their reinforcements arrive.
Then we get everyone’s favorite: a time-travel paradox. Young Cable attempts to formulate a plan. He looks at the time machine inside the arm he stole from Old Cable, and it changes into a nuclear bomb. Young Cable realizes that Old Cable didn’t escape via time-travel when Young Cable came to kill Old Cable because Old Cable had replaced the time machine in his arm with a nuclear bomb — knowing that Young Cable would need it in this moment to beat the Galadorians. Young Cable realizes that means Old Cable knew that Young Cable was coming to kill him, and Old Cable let himself die anyway.
There’s a minor scuffle as Cable and Esme set off the nuke and escape through a Krakoan portal. Cable uses his telekinesis to reclaim The Light of Galador, the sword he has grown so fond of. Before they die, one of the Galadorians sends out a warning that the mutants are powerful telepaths who stole The Light of Galador.
Back at the Summer house on the moon, Cable is eager to return to hunting the Order of X, but Cyclops insists that Cable stay and have dinner with his family, including Grandpa Corsair, reminding Cable that he doesn’t need to be in a hurry to grow up.
As seen in the pages of Fantastic Four, the Omni-Wave Projector is making the Kree and Skrull fight each other again. Billy teleports Captain Marvel and Human Torch to the sun, hoping they can use their combined powers to stop it from exploding.
On Earth, Mantis uses her telepathy to override Invisible Woman’s pain inhibitors, allowing Sue to demonstrate more power than her body can normally handle. This, along with a speech from Thing about not giving up, allows She-Hulk to regain control of her body.
At the vibranium mound, Mister Fantastic arrives in an Iron Man armor that emits sonics which disrupt Qoi’s control over plants. Black Panther reveals that he was merely using shadow combat to pretend to be dead and uses the Star-Sword to kill Swordsman and stop the death blossom. The rest of the Avengers finally arrive and take Qoi into custody, but his hatred for the humans remains as strong as ever. All around the globe, the remaining Cotati forces surrender.
At the Omni-Wave Projector, Val reminds Jo-Venn and N’Kalla that even though they were bred to fight each other, they were also the only ones who understood what the other was going through. Their thoughts of hate turn to compassion, and with that being broadcast to all Kree and Skrull soldiers, their millennia long war finally comes to an end. Mur-g’nn and Captain Glory join Captain Marvel and Human Torch at the sun, continuing to slow down its explosion. From Earth, Tony uses Mister Fantastic’s unstable molecules to teleport some very dense iron into the heart of the sun, which absorbs its expanding energy and stops the supernova.
Teddy fights with his grandmother R’KLLL. Rather than kill her, he puts the containment mask on her and says that a true king shows power through mercy, not violence.
General celebrations of victory ensue and will be followed up on in the 3 epilogues.
N’Kalla shapeshifts into Sky in order to sneak out of the hospital without Alicia noticing. She uses her special connection to Jo-Venn to find the Dark Harvest, but rather than rescuing him, she gets captured, too. The Dark Harvest use their Omni-Wave Projector to transmit N’Kalla’s and Jo-Venn’s hatred across the cosmos, ensuring that the Kree and Skrull are no longer able to cooperate.
Wolverine tracks N’Kalla to their location. He and Spider-Man fight off the Dark Harvest while Franklin and Valeria talk to N’Kalla and Jo-Venn. Val reminds them that even though they were bred to fight each other, they were also the only ones who understood what the other was going through. Their thoughts of hate turn to compassion, and with that being broadcast to all Kree and Skrull soldiers, their millennia long war finally comes to an end.
Disappointed in his minions’ failure, Qoi kills the Dark Harvest with his remote control over plants. With their adventure (and the war) now over, Spider-Man and Wolverine agree to take the kids to Disneyland.
After the death of Peter Quill and the shaky truce between the different Guardian factions, Nova goes to see a therapist to work through his depression over his friend’s death. Told largely through flashback, we learn that Nova blames himself for Quill’s death because he feels he should never have needed to ask for help.
This seems to stem from his less-than-supportive father who hammered into his head that men don’t ever ask for help. We also learn that Nova and Gamora were once romantically linked, but she ended up loving Quill, and thinks Nova subconsciously asked Quill to help fight hoping he would get hurt. Nova rejects this, telling Gamora that he loved Quill too, and that Quill was his best friend.
Without saying it, Nova seems to realize that he’s actually found therapy useful (he learned that asking for help, even emotional help, isn’t a bad thing). He reconnects with Rocket, who tells him that he’s glad he liked therapy but he needs to catch up on what he missed: namely the Kree and Skrull alliance (as seem at the end of the Empyre crossover), which will reshape the geopolitical structure of the entire galaxy.
At his house, Miles is fighting a mysterious Spider-Man, dressed like him, that seems to have all of his same powers, but never talks. Miles manages to call his parents to warn them not to come home, but his parents get surrounded by a group of soldiers in red and blue uniforms. Jeffery makes an opening so that Rio can run to safety with their infant daughter, Billie.
At the Brooklyn Visions Academy, Barbara refuses to sign a pledge she calls fascist, which requires her to report any suspected underage superheroes to the new government agency, C.R.A.D.L.E. She hosts a sit-in that Ganke and Judge join. They call their congresswoman, Hurtado-Ramos, but she isn’t able to prevent them from getting arrested.
Miles and his silent enemy end their battle by both charging up their venom blasts to maximum power. Miles loses, and finds himself, once again, kidnapped by the Assessor.
The mysterious monsters from issue 8 attack Nova Roma, killing everyone but Senator Aquilla (Magma’s father.) The monster’s mother tortures him by inserting a creature that slowly eats his organs. She wants to know who killed her babies (it was the New Mutants, back in issue 8.)
Back on Krakoa, Trinary uses her technopathy to find the location of the mutant hating website, Dox. Magik, Mirage, and Glob pay them a visit, but instead of violence, they show pictures of the mutants who were killed because Dox posted their addresses online. They upload a program Trinary wrote so that anytime a user posts a mutant’s address, that user’s full name and address will be posted alongside it.
Dox’s owner, Joseph Canning, says that won’t stop them and threatens to crucify all mutants for trying to stifle freedom of speech. Glob loses his cool and punches Joseph. Back on Krakoa, Glob explains to Magik that his father was a proud mutant hater, and that he was raised on hate until he escaped to Xavier’s. He feels bad for losing control of his anger, but Magik reassures him that sometimes anger towards the right things can be healthy because it shows how much you care.
Lin Lie — the master of the legendary Fu Xi sword and heir to the fabled clan — and Ji Shuangshuang, a descendant of the Nu-Wa clan, catch a ride with Lie’s friend, Cheng. As they drive to Shuangshuang’s ancestral home base, they explain to Cheng that every fable he’s ever heard is true.
When they finally arrive at Shuangshuang’s home — an ancient looking temple fortress — it’s being overrun with the demon army of the evil God of War, Chiyou. The Nu-Wa guards are fighting off the horde of Lovecraftian hellbeasts, and Shuangshuang and Lie join the battle while Cheng gleefully runs over demons with his Jeep. While the demons continue to overwhelm the Nu-Wa, their magic Chief leader arrives and uses her super magic fighting to tell the demons, in no uncertain terms, “Get off my lawn!”
Dracula and 2 of his lieutenants have Wolverine frozen in a block of ice. They’re stealing his blood and using its healing factor to create bloodclocks, which temporarily allow them to walk in the sun. They’re using this power to convert entire small towns in northern Canada into a vampire army. They drive a truckload of new and hungry vampires across the border and release them in Minneapolis.
Three punk-ass-kid rebel vampires rescue Wolverine. They hate that Dracula has control over them, so they’re rebelling against him, too. There’s only one town within 100 miles that hasn’t been converted yet, Black River Falls. Wolverine helps the kids trick out their snowmobiles with giant wooden stakes, but only one of the kids survives the fight with Dracula’s lieutenants. Wolverine kills all the other vampires, destroys the bloodclocks, and heads off to hunt down Omega Red.
In an epilogue, Asgard’s magic rainbow, the Bifrost, teleports Wolverine to an unknown location as a mysterious voice tells him he is needed elsewhere.
You must be logged in to post a comment.