Avengers (vol. 2) #13
World War 3 Part 2: Winning and Losing
This story continues from Fantastic Four (vol. 2) #13…
Two realities have merged together and the Earth is now under invasion from both the Daemonites and the Skrulls. The world has been plunged into total war as humanity fights to survive.[1]
With the situation growing more dire, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four has called together Earth’s heroes who make up SHIELD, the WildCATs, and Stormwatch. The only group unaccounted for are Wetworks, with Lynch informing Reed that they had grown bored and went to fight the enemy in Venice, Italy.
Pulling up the battle on the monitors the assembled heroes watch as Dane, Claymore, Flattop, Jester, Mother-One, Pigrim, and Hawkeye fight for their very lives. It is a losing battle and Wetworks begins taking casualties until Iron Man arrives on the scene to lend a hand.[2] The battle quickly ends and Iron Man and the surviving members of Wetworks are teleported back to the Stormwatch satellite.
There Tony Stark explains his rational for joining the fight, saying that he had a need to avenge after the initial invasion, which started by taking down Stark Industries. He also reports that Steve Rogers — the former Captain America now calling himself Nomad — is still out there somewhere in Europe fighting the alien invaders. This prompts Lynch to have his assistant, Kitaen to try and locate Nomad and bring him back.[3] Reed and Sue Richards also hope they can also rescue the Thing, who got lost during an expedition into the Negative Zone. Reed explains that this expedition led to the discovery of a multiverse of realities that exist outside of their own the world they are living in now was the result of the merging of two distinct realities and that their job now should be separating the two worlds again. However, this task will be a difficult one because the merger is being held in place by a dimensional lock created by Doctor Doom.
Little do the assembled heroes know that there is a spy in their midst that is reporting everything back to Doom and his allies the Daemonite Helspont and the Skrull emissary. They all agree that their next move should be stopping the heroes and then taking over the rest of the world.
Deep in the Negative Zone, the Thing continues to float aimlessly in the void along with the mercenary known as Deathblow. When Ben offhandedly wishes there was a sign post to point them out of the situation their in, Deathblow reveals that he has an affinity to Earth and that he can lead them back to reality. With new hope, the pair agree to work together and get themselves home.
Back at the Stormwatch base, Mister Fantastic concludes the meeting by explaining that the dimensional lock exists half on Earth and half in the Negative Zone and that they will need to split into two group to properly shut it down. Reed decides to lead the Avengers and Stormwatch into the Negative Zone to shut things down on that side while Lynch and Dane will lead Iron Man, Wetworks, the WildCATs and the rest of the Fantastic Four on an assault on Doctor Doom’s castle so they can shut down things on the other side. Before everyone heads out, Reed takes a moment to kiss his wife, hopefully not for the last time.
Observing this from their hideout, Helspont and the Skrull leader suggest they kill all the heroes in one swoop by blowing up the Stormwatch satellite. However, Doom wants to keep their weapons in reserve and instead orders the Skrull fleet to launch an attack.
Moments after Mister Fantastic’s team crosses through the Negative Zone portal, the satellite is attacked by Skrull forces. With their shields sabotaged the satellite has no way to defend itself. There is a surreal moment where Fairchild and Roxy meet each other for the first time and swear they have met each other before. Moments later, the Stormwatch satellite explodes, killing everyone aboard.
… This story continues in Iron Man (vol. 2) #13.
Recurring Characters
Avengers (“Iron Man”, Captain America, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Hellstrike, Freefall, Brass), Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Burnout, Maul), WildCATs (Grifter, Zealot, Warblade, Lord Emp, Goliath, Gorgon), Stormwatch (Jenny Sparks, Winter, Fuji, John Hawksmoor, Weatherman, Fairchild, Vision, Triton), Wetworks (Dane, Claymore, Flattop, Jester, Mother-One, Pigrim, Hawkeye), Karnak, SHIELD (Lynch, Voodoo, Black Knight), Doctor Doom, Helspont, Defile, Skrulls, Annihilus, Thing, Deathblow
Continuity Notes
During the World War 3 event, the Heroes Reborn pocket dimension was temporarily merged with the Wildstorm Universe starting in Fantastic Four (vol. 2) #13, resulting in an amalgamated reality that will be split back up again in Captain America (vol. 2) #13. As a point of clarity this is the version of the Wildstorm Universe following its separation from the Image Comics universe in Shattered Image #4 and prior to its incorporation into the DC Comics multiverse following Infinite Crisis #7. Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4 designates this merged reality as part of the Marvel Multiverse indexing it as Reality-13031.
This is not the real Iron Man, but a Skrull impostor as revealed in Iron Man (vol. 2) #13.
After the start of the alien invasion, Steve Rogers gave up being Captain America and became Nomad, the role of Cap was then taken over by the WildCATs Spartan, as seen in Fantastic Four (vol. 2) #13.