Along Came a Spider…

Iron Man arrives at Avengers Park following a battle between the team and the Mandarin and Wizard.[1] Already work is underway to build a brand new headquarters for the team on the site where Avengers Mansion once stood.[2] As Iron Man lends a hand, Captain America becomes suspicious as to Iron Man’s identity given he knows things as intimately as Tony Stark did, something that would be challenging if it was someone new in the armor as Stark recently announced.[3]

Soon, Thor heads off to New Jersey to dispose of a pile of scrap. Captain America also leaves, having his personal pilot John Jameson take him to the penthouse apartment of the Eternal known as Sersi. He has found her recent assistance on past Avengers cases to be invaluable and has come to ask her to officially join the team.[4]

Meanwhile, as Thor flies across the city, reality briefly inverts causing him to lose his grip on the pile of scrap he is carrying. It begins falling toward a school yard full of children. Luckily, Spider-Man is happening by and uses a web-line to pull the rubble away from causing any harm. Thor is grateful for the wall-crawler’s intervention and confirms that he wasn’t the only one who felt the sudden inversion. Suspecting that this might be part of some cosmic threat, Thor heads back to Avengers headquarters, demanding that Spider-Man accompany him even though the wall-crawler isn’t an Avenger.[5] The reality investion is also felt by Captain America and Sersi, who have John Jameson fly them back to headquarters as well. When they all arrive, it is as Iron Man and the Vision are assisting the disorientated construction workers. Deducing that this inversion was felt across the city, Cap has Sersi use her Eternal born powers to key in on the source of the incident and determine how much of a risk it poses.

The source of the reality inversion has come from an energy compressor invented by Professor Paul Harker, who built the device at research laboratory owned by Plydyne. Little does he know that his lab assistant is the alien space pirate known as Nebula. After experiencing the inversion she contacts Gunthar, her minion, who has been scanning the compressor from Nebula’s ship in Earth’s orbit. The Regelian rebel tells Nebula that the test caused all reality to wink out of existence for a brief moment. As Gunthar is telling Nebula all of this, he is being overheard by Starfox, who stowed away aboard Nebula’s ship in order to learn if she is truly the granddaughter of his brother Thanos.[6] Gunthar doesn’t believe that there is any lasting damage caused by the compressor but warns her that continued tests might tip off the one they are seeking out.[7]

Back on Earth, the Avengers have reached this conclusion by consulting Hank Pym, the Vision, and though Sersi’s powers. However, nobody can figure out how the inversion happened or what caused it until something like it happens again.[8]

While at Polydyne, Professor Harker tries to pull the plug on his experimental device until they figure out what went wrong during the test. This angers Nebula, who drops any pretense of who she really is.

At that same moment, Starfox uses his powers to tap into the pleasure center of Gunthar’s brain, incapacitating him. However, when the hero tries to send a distress call the Avengers on Earth, he is stopped by another one of Nebula’s minions. The message is partially received by Jarvis who informs Captain America and the others.[9] Suspecting that this might have something to do with their current crisis, Cap sends Iron Man and the Vision to investigate the alien ship. As the rest of the team tries to figure out their next move, when suddenly they are struck by three more reality inversions. This is incredibly disorientating so Captain America orders Sersi to use her power to try and shield them from another jolt. When she senses the next bolt coming, Sersi summons enough power to prevent it from striking her or her comrades. However, the strain causes Sersi to pass out. As everyone is tending to their Eternal ally, Spider-Man notices that all the security monitors have gone blank. As it turns out, everything in the universe has been winked out of the existence except for the Avengers and the room they were standing in.

Recurring Characters

Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Quasar, Thor, Vision, Sersi) Spider-Man, Nebula, Starfox, Gunthar, Edwin Jarvis, John Jameson, Paul Harker, Avengers West Coast (Wasp, Hank Pym, Wonder Man)

Continuity Notes

1. The Wizard and Mandarin attacked Avengers Park last issue as part of a grand conspiracy against America’s heroes and the Avengers in particular. See Avengers Spotlight #26-29, Avengers #311-313, and Avengers West Coast #53-55 for the Avengers part in the Acts of Vengeance crossover.

2. Avengers Mansion — a home owned by Tony Stark — had been the teams headquarters since their inception in Avengers #1. More recently, following an attack on the mansion by the Masters of Evil in Avengers #273-277, their headquarters was moved to Hydrobase in issue #278. After this move, the original site became Avengers Park in X-Factor #23. Shortly after that, the mansion and Hydrobase was sunk into the Atlantic by Doctor Doom’s robots in Avengers #311. The Avengers new headquarters will finish its construction in Avengers #329.

3. Captain America learned that Iron Man and Tony Stark were the same person back in Avengers #216-217. More recently, Iron Man went on a crusade to brick every piece of illegally used Starktech from other armor users, including government operatives and foreign agents. This proved to be very unpopular and since the general public was unaware that Stark was Iron Man, Tony faked Iron Man’s death and later claimed that a new person was wearing the suit. See Iron Man #225-232 and Captain America #340. Iron Man will drop all pretense that he’s a different guy in the suit, at least among his fellow Avengers, in Captain America #399. Tony will drop this pretense among his teammates starting in Avengers West Coast #72.

4. Sersi helped Captain America with a missing children case in Captain America #355-357 and later assisted the Avengers during the Atlantis Attacks event as seen in Avengers Annual #18, Avengers West Coast Annual #4, Thor Annual #14 and Fantastic Four Annual #22. The Avengers then assisted her in liberating Olympia from the Negative Zone in Avengers #309-310.

5. At this point in time, Spider-Man had tried to join up with the Avengers on a few occasions in the past and always flunked out. See Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3 as well as Avengers #221 and 236-237.

6. Nebula made the claim that Thanos is her grandfather back in Avengers #260. This is later refuted by Thanos himself in Infinity Gauntlet #1-6. Later, in Gamora #1-5 and Silver Surfer: Rebirth #2, it is revealed that Nebula’s actual connection to Thanos was that he raised her as an adopted daughter early on in his career. Nebula’s motivation for claiming to be his grandfather is unexplained at she has made contradicting details regarding her true lineage as seen in Silver Surfer Annual #5 and Nova (vol. 2) #1. I have a theory on all of this here.

7. The entity that Gunthar is talking about is the Stranger. As we’ll see in Avengers #316-318, Nebula’s plan is to steal the Infinity Union from him.

8. Captain America wonders if the Beyonder is responsible for what happened, recounting that the Fantastic Four had recently discovered that he was still alive. The Beyonder was a powerful cosmic entity with the power to do anything who tested Earth’s heroes in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1-12. He later came to Earth to experience human desire, but was seemingly killed when he assumed the form of a mortal baby, as seen in Secret Wars II #1-9. The Fantastic Four later discovered that the Beyonder hadn’t actually died, he merely just returned to his native dimension as seen in Fantastic Four #319.

9. Here, Jarvis is depicted wearing an eye patch. This is because he suffered a serious eye injury after receiving a severe beating from Mister Hyde during the Masters of Evil’s siege on Avengers Mansion back in Avengers #273-277. Jarvis will continue wearing the eye patch on the regular until issue #317.