Gift of the Gods

The Avengers —Black Widow, Black Knight, Crystal, Sersi, Vision, and Hercules — have been brought to the planet Polemachus which has been turned into a desert wasteland due to the life sustaining energy rings radiating out of control. A religious leader named Anskar has deemed this punishment of the gods that can only be appeased by the sacrifice of a young woman named Astra. The Avengers, on behalf of Polemachus’ ruler Arkon, have convinced the locals to give them 24 hours to solve the problem in order to prevent this sacrifice from happening.

The Black Knight, Black Widow, and Vision venture up past the atmosphere in a ship to examine the energy rings. The Vision risks his own destruction to plunge into the rings in order to get a full reading.

On the ground, Crystal worries about Dane being on this mission as he is still healing from his current injuries.[1] Hearing her concern, Hercules asks if Crystal has feelings for Whitman that go beyond friendship. Crystal declines to answer that, reminding the demigod that she is married to Quicksilver and they have a daughter — Luna — and she is trying to make their marriage work.[2] However, when the ship carrying the others lands, Crystal rushes off to make sure that the Black Knight is safe.

The Knight then holds a meeting with the Avengers as well as Arkon and his consort Thundra. Dane explains that, in the past, Polemachus’ rings would run out of power requiring an artificial means of re-energizing them for the planet to continue sustaining life.[3] However, this has had the unforeseen side effect of making the rings overcharged, leading to the current crisis where they are increasing the temperature on the planet and turning it into a wasteland. The Vision concludes that the planet will be incapable of sustaining life if nothing is done within the next 72 hours. However, he has come up with a solution to siphon off the excess energy from the rings and return them to their original levels something they can pull off by combining the powers of Arkon, Sersi, and Crystal. As they begin making plans, Anskar is outside working people up into a panicked frenzie and demanding that Arkon allow them to sacrifice Astra to the gods.

With the situation becoming volatile, the Avengers get working on putting the Vision’s plan into motion. Going back up into space in a shuttle, the Black Knight goes on a space walk with Sersi, Crystal, and Arkon. Once they are close enough to the energy rings, Dane orders Crystal to use her elemental powers to isolate the excess energy. This takes a huge effort on her part because Crystal has never used her powers in such a way. However, she succeeds prompting Sersi to use her transmutation powers to rip the access energy and pull it from the rings. From there, Arkon uses one of his magical thunderbolts to open a rift for the energy to be dumped. While this successful in reducing the surplus energy threatening Polmachus, Crystal gets caught into the pull of the rift. Luckily, the Black Knight is able to grab her and keep her from being sucked in long enough for Arkon to close the rift.

When they return to the planet surface, the damage done by the overcharged rings is already starting to reverse themselves. While everyone celebrates, Anskar — unwilling to accept that their salvation was anything but a gift from the gods — fatally stabs Astra in the back, telling Arkon and the others that it was the only way to appease the gods. While everyone reacts in shock and horror, Sersi turns and uses her cosmic powers to incinerate Anskar and his priests. When the Black Widow asks Sersi what she has done, the Eternal simply responds “I wan an Avenger!”

Back on Earth, Jarvis and Marilla are taking Crystal’s daughter Luna for a walk in Central Park. There they spot Taylor Madison — a young woman Hercules has become smitten with — crying by herself on a park bench. When they ask her if she is ok, she assures the pair that there is nothing wrong and asks them not to tell Hercules that they saw her. They are confused by the whole encounter, but Marilla can tell that Madison is suffering from a deep pain.[4]

While at the Proctors citadel in the Tibetan Plateau, the leader of the Gatherers have brought back his operative Tabula and bets that his teammate Cassandra will be happy to see the robot again. That’s when the Gatherers return from another reality with their latest recruit. Cassandra warns Proctor that their latest acquisition is downright insane. Proctor already knows this and it will factor in his future plans. As they others take their new member down to the infirmary, Proctor muses to Tabula that soon they will kill the errant Swordsman and he can begin his endgame with the Avengers.[5]

Recurring Characters

Avengers (Hercules, Vision, Black Knight, Black Widow, Sersi, Crystal), Arkon, Thundra, Luna Maximoff, Marilla, Edwin Jarvis, Taylor Madison, Anskar, Gatherers (Proctor, Anti-Vision, Cassandra, Tabula Rasa, Magdalene, Sloth)

Continuity Notes

1. The Black Knight was attacked by the Starjammer known as Raza, who had been hired by the Kree to assassinate him. See Avengers #350-351.

2. Quicksilver and Crystal have been married since Fantastic Four #150. More recently, Crystal had an affair in Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #6-12 and got caught. The pair have been trying to make their marriage work since Fantastic Four Annual #21. However, this has been made more difficult since Quicksilver joined X-Factor and Crystal the Avengers, as seen in X-Factor #71 and Avengers #336. Further complicating things is the fact that Dane has been attracted to Crystal almost since the moment she joined the team.

3. Past troubles with the rings of Polemachus were chronicled in Avengers #75-76, Fantastic Four #160-163, and X-Men Annual #3 and 5.

4. Hercules met Taylor Madison while putting on a show at a hospital for sick children in Avengers #349. Taylor Madison is under the impression that she is terminally ill, and is partially right. See, Hercules’ step-mother has been manipulating Hercules to make him fall in love with a terminally ill woman who will die and thus break his heart. Little does anyone know that Zeus was aware of this bit of trickery and used his magic to create Taylor and that her “terminal illness” is really just the magic burning itself out. We’ll learn all this in Avengers #384.

5. Lots going on with the Gatherers that bares further explanation. The facts:

   • As explained in Avengers #355-356, the Gatherers come from different realities and are the last surviving members of their own Avengers teams. They have been gathered by Proctor for some grand scheme. This was also where they lost the Swordsman who was captured by the Avengers.

   • What they don’t know is that Proctor is butt-hurt over getting dumped by his reality’s Sersi and his mission is to kill every Sersi in the multiverse like a dimension hopping Incel. See Avengers #374-375.

   • As we’ll learn next issue, this new recruit is an alternate reality version of the Vision.

   • As for all the realities everyone comes from they are: Earth-374 (Proctor), 921 (Swordsman), 932 (Vision), 9201 (Magdalene), 92101 (Cassandra). The realities where Sloth and Tabula originate from, as of this writing (May, 2022) are unrevealed. See Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #2, 3 and 5.