The Secret History of the Avengers

Seven time lost Avengers have been gathered to protect Rick Jones from Immortus who wishes their old ally dead for unknown reasons.[1] After a failed assault on Immortus’ stronghold in Limbo, Yellowjacket has been captured and Rick Jones has gone missing. However, Hawkeye has managed to steal a Synchro-Staff from Immortus’ lair and is trying to figure out how to make it work, in the hopes that it might provide answers to what is going on.[2] Losing his patience, Clint then tries to snap the staff in half when it suddenly starts screaming for him to stop. That’s when the Synchro-Staff reverts back into its true form: A Space Phantom!

While this is a shock to everyone, it starts to make sense given what they have been learning on this mission. After Songbird restrains the Space Phantom with some solid sound restraints, the Avengers begin interrogating the Space Phantom to learn everything he knows about Immortus and how the time master has been manipulating the team for years. With no other choice, the Space Phantom agrees to tell them what they want to know.

He starts at the beginning, when Immortus first discovered Limbo and its equipment and began viewing the time stream.[2][3] It wasn’t long before Immortus was visited by the Time Keepers who offer him the opportunity to learn all the secrets of time as well as become the keeper of seven centuries of history. Immortus took up the offer and was put in charge of maintaining the integrity of the time stream. In this task, he frequently used the Space Phantoms to carry out these tasks covertly.

That’s when the Wasp interrupts to ask who and what the Space Phantoms are and where they come from. Their captive explains that the Space Phantoms were people who got lost in Limbo and the effects of the realm transformed them into what they are now. Protected by the effects of Limbo by his machines, Immortus then enslaved the Space Phantoms to carry out his bidding. Often, he would brainwash the Space Phantoms to believe specific things to fool those he manipulated. As it turns out, their captive was the first Space Phantom the Avengers encountered early on in their careers and he was brainwashed into thinking he was an invader from another world.[5] While the Space Phantom’s original mission was to destroy the Avengers, as they would be influential to the future, why that changed happened during his next encounter.

In that instance, Immortus went after the Avengers directly allying himself with Baron Zemo’s Masters of Evil. During the battle, Immortus was impressed by the nobility of the Avengers. Ultimately, the battle was lost when the Enchantress used a spell to reverse time, preventing the Avengers from encountering Immortus. Immortus however, still remembered, the encounter and decided that rather than destroy the Avengers per the Time Keeper’s wishes, he would shepherd them to a future more agreeable to their desires.[6]

That’s when Goliath points out that this all contradicts with the time Thor told him about how he used his enchanted hammer to save the planet Phantus which was being sucked into Limbo. The Space Phantom laughs and gleefully tells them that Phantus wasn’t real and that the whole plot was cooked up by Immortus in order to drain the time traveling abilities of Thor’s hammer so it could not be used to disrupt the time stream.[7][8]

Songbird then asks why Immortus is going through all of this trouble. The Space Phantom admits that he has gotten ahead of himself. He explains that Immortus was carefully monitoring the timelines to make sure that the Avengers followed a specific destiny. It was during the Avengers involvement in the Kree/Skrull War where Immortus ran afoul of his masters.[9] Even though the situation resolved itself, the Time Keepers were deeply concerned about the Avengers foray into space. It was then impressed upon Immortus that he prevent Earth from becoming a space faring society and revealed to him a dystopian future where the Avengers have evolved into a galactic battalion. Led by the descendants of Rick Jones — all empowered with the Destiny Force — they would lay waste and dominate the entire universe.[10]

This tracks with the Avengers, who have all been to timelines that Immortus has influenced or erased. He seemed focused on preventing the human race from reaching the stars.[11] The Space Phantom explains that the Time Keepers have deemed that the human race is the most dangerous in all existence and that is the reason why they cannot be allowed to achieve interstellar travel.

That’s when Goliath asks why Immortus has been so pre-occupied with the Vision. The Space Phantom tells them that it’s not the Vision that Immortus chose to manipulate, but the Scarlet Witch, or more specifically her children. As a powerful nexus being, the Scarlet Witch’s children would become incredibly powerful and would have the power to rock the entire cosmos.[12] While the Time Keepers wanted Immortus to slay Wanda Maximoff outright.[13] However, Immortus sought a more subtler approach. He then prodded along a relationship between the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, since Wanda wouldn’t be able to reproduce with a machine.

Immortus started with making the Vision embrace his humanity, first by having a Space Phantom tempt the android with a physical body, via stealing Captain America’s physical form.[14] Although he rejected the offer, it helped the Vision embrace his emotions and encourage him to pursue the Scarlet Witch romantically. He went a step further by showing the Vision his secret origins — that he was built from the body of the original Human Torch — to give him a past. This pushed things further to the point where Immortus later officiated the wedding of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch himself.[15] However, there was a hitch in the plan, as the Scarlet Witch managed to use her magics to impregnate herself and give birth to the twin children she wanted.[16]

Concerned about this recent development, Immortus investigated the origins of the children, discovering that they were brought to existence using fragments of Mephisto’s souls and that the demon had charged the sorcerer Master Pandemonium to recover these fragments.[17] Immortus then set about on a mission to weaken their bonds in order to eliminate the children. When the Vision was captured and disassembled by the government, Immortus set his scheme in motion. Having a Space Phantom pose as Phineas Horton, the creator of the Human Torch, he convinced the Avengers into thinking that he had no part in the creation of the Vision. Although the Avengers put the Vision back together again, he was stripped of the emotions that once allowed him to love the Scarlet Witch.[18]

While the Avengers try to make sense of this contradictory information, Captain Marvel remembers something he saw on Kang’s computers earlier and calls it up. What they witness is how Immortus fooled them. It began when the Mad Thinker revived the original Torch to fight the Fantastic Four. In the end, the android turned on the Thinker and was deactivated. The Fantastic Four then left the Torch where he died.[19] Moments after that, Immortus appeared and used the Forever Crystal to create a chronal duplicate of the Torch. One of these Torches was taken by Ultron who used it to create the Vision. The second one was then left for the Mad Thinker to find, which he later used to manipulate the Torch’s former partner, Toro, that Torch ended up buried in a cemetery.[20] When the Avengers later recovered the Torch from the cemetery, it further cemented the deception that the Vision was unrelated to the Torch.[21][22] From there, it was simplicity to position Mephisto in place to reclaims the fragments of his soul, eliminating the Scarlet Witch’s children in the process.[23]

However, shepherding the Avengers wasn’t easy as not long after this, the Avengers got themselves involved in the galactic war between the Kree and the Shi’ar. Fearing that this would lead to the future Immortus was trying to prevent, he exerted his influence to try and disinterest the Avengers in galactic affairs. To that end, Immortus had hacked into Iron Man’s armor and began influencing him, making Tony Stark more cruel and temperamental. It was learned that the Supreme Intelligence was responsible for allowing a Shi’ar nega-bomb to be detonated in the Kree galaxy to jumpstart his people’s evolution. This angered many of the Avengers, and Iron Man — under the influence of Immortus — convinced a number of the team to execute the alien intelligence for his crimes.[24]

The Time Keepers returned to Immortus and revealed that this wasn’t enough, showing him the future where a young Shi’ar warrior named Deathcry would soon join the Avengers. It would be through this association that the Avengers would take to space and create a galactic empire to save the Kree from the tyranny of the Shi’ar.[25] In order to prevent this, Immortus looked into the future and saw the coming threat of Onslaught and sought to keep the Avengers Earthbound until the threat showed itself.[26] To bide this time, Immortus used his connection with Iron Man to manipulate him further. He forced Iron Man to commit two murders and reveal himself as a sleeper agent working for Kang the Conqueror. However, this wasn’t really Kang, but Immortus in disguise. He employed a number of Space Phantoms to pose as allies past and future to confuse the Avengers. In the end, Iron Man sacrificed his life and was temporarily replaced with an other-dimensional analogue.[27] This kept the Avengers busy with Onslaught and thereafter the team had been in too much disarray to even thing about returning to the stars.[28][29]

All seemed well until Rick Jones began manifesting the Destiny Force again, forcing Immortus to act directly. Immortus figured that if he eliminated Rick Jones then humanity could be spared. As the Avengers try to make sense of all of these revelations, Captain Marvel’s Cosmic Awareness kicks in and tries to warn them of danger. Unfortunately, the warning has come too late as they are all taken out by one of Yellowjacket’s bio-stings. Their former teammate has betrayed them to Immortus in exchange for the timeline to be altered so he will remain Yellowjacket and be married to the Wasp. When asking Immortus if this makes good on their deal, the time master informs Yellowjacket that all he desires will be his, so long as he still save humanity.[30]

Recurring Characters

Avengers (Wasp, Goliath, Captain America, Hawkeye, Yellowjacket, Captain Marvel, Songbird), Rick Jones, Space Phantom

Continuity Notes

1. The Avengers were all plucked from different points in history as seen in Avengers Forever #1 and explained last issue. They are:

   • Captain America circa Captain America #175, after he discovered that the President of the United States was secretly the leader of the Secret Empire.

   • Hawkeye was plucked out of time circa Avengers #99. This was after he returned to Earth following the Kree/Skrull War without his Goliath growth serum or his trick arrows.

   • Yellowjacket was abducted from Avengers #60. Actually Hank Pym, a mental breakdown convinced him that he was someone else and that he killed Hank Pym.

   • Goliath and the Wasp come from the present day, having been plucked out of time circa Avengers (vol. 3) #11.

   • Songbirdand by extension Captain Marvel) aren’t from the mainline Marvel Universe, but an alternate reality. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #5, it has been designated Reality-98120.

2. The Avengers previously used a pair of Syncrho-Staves to learn the secret origins of both Mantis and the Vision as seen in Avengers #133-135.

3. Here, the Space Phantom reminds the Avengers of the past incarnations of Immortus. He only mentions two, but there are more. The details:

   • The first incarnation of Immortus was Rama-Tut, first seen in Fantastic Four #19.

   • The second was the Scarlet Centurion whom we first saw in Avengers Annual #2.

   • Next came Kang in Avengers #8.

   • We then were introduced to Immortus in Avengers #10. The revelation that these were all the same men was explained in Giant-Size Avengers #2.

   • Since this story we have been introduced to other incarnations of Immortus. Ironlad first appeared in Young Avengers #1, while Kid Immortus appeared in FF (vol. 2) #8. In Fantastic Four (vol. 6) #35, Mister Fantastic disguised himself as Scion, yet another incarnation of Immortus who has yet to be encountered.

4. In this panel, Immortus is depicted viewing the timeline belonging to Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur, seen in Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur #1. This prehistoric world exists in an alternate reality. Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4 designates it as Reality-78411.

5. The Avengers first encountered the Space Phantom back in Avengers #2.

6. Immortus’ first direct encounter with the Avengers is from Avengers #10. The Enchantress used a spell to go back in time to prevent this encounter from happening, creating a divergent timeline. The battle with the Avengers did fight Immortus early on in their career has been designated to Reality-64110 as per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4.

7. Mjolnir had the ability to travel through time as first seen in Journey into Mystery #86. Immortus created a Phantus hoax to trick Thor into draining the chronal energies from his hammer in Thor #280-281.

8. During this flashback, we see Thor and the Space Phantom walking past an image of Lex Luthor riding piggy-back on Doctor Octopus. This is a scene from Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man #1. That story takes place in a parallel universe where Marvel, DC and characters from other publishers exist in a shared universe. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #3, this is Reality-7642.

9. The Kree/Skrull War took place in Avengers #89-97.

10. We saw this dystopian future in Avengers Forever #1. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #3 this future timeline exists in Reality-9812.

11. The Avengers experienced a future where Martian invaded Earth and a version of 1959 was was erased because a Skrull infiltrator would ramp up the space program, as seen in Avengers Forever #4-5. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #3, these have been indexed as realities 9930 and 9904 respectively.

12. The future where the children of the Scarlet Witch are powerful enough to fight Eternity itself is glimpsed for the first time here. Per the same Official Handbook this reality has been designated as Earth-9972.

13. The Scarlet Witch is referred to as a mutant here. However, years later, it is revealed that she never was a mutant. She was actually experimented upon by the High Evolutionary when she was a baby and he covered up his work by having her register as a mutant, as seen in Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5. One could presume that either the Space Phantom is unaware of this, or Immortus is making him maintain this deception as it probably fits in with one of his long running schemes.

14. The Grim Reaper and Space Phantom tempted the Vision in Avengers #106-108.

15. The Vision was showed his past in Avengers #134-135 leading to his marriage to the Scarlet Witch in Giant-Size Avengers #4.

16. Wanda combined her and the Vision’s essence to create her pregnancy in Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3 and gave birth to her twins — Billy and Tommy — in issue #12 of that series.

17. Mephisto’s soul was fragmented after he was temporarily destroyed by Franklin Richards in Fantastic Four #277. Master Pandemonium was tricked into thinking he was recovering fragments of his own soul. See West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #9 and 15.

18. The dismantling of the Vision and his reconstruction, and all of Immortus’ deceptions were chronicled in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #42-45.

19. The android Torch was revived to fight the FF in Fantastic Four Annual #4.

20. The Mad Thinker used the Torch duplicate to manipulate Toro into a fight to the death with Namor in Sub-Mariner #14.

21. The second android Torch was revived in Avengers West Coast #50.

22. Here, Captain America is surprised to hear the Torch is still alive and both he and Hawkeye notice that Wonder Man is alive again as well. From their perspectives, both characters were dead.

    • From Cap’s point in history, the Human Torch had been MIA since around 1955 when his powers flared out of control and he was lost in the desert for decades, as depicted in Saga of the Original Human Torch #4.

    • Wonder Man had seemingly perished due to a side effect of the process that gave him his powers in Avengers #9. As explained in Avengers #164, he didn’t really die but went into a death-like state as his body metamorphosized into an ionic energy life form. He’ll come back from the “dead” in Avengers #151.

23. The destruction of Wanda’s children happened in Avengers West Coast #51-52. However, as explained in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #6, the children were reincarnated as Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shephard, who will turn up in Young Avengers #1.

24. This whole series of events is particularly complex. So allow me to break it down:

    • This all occurred during the Operation: Galactic Storm even which took place in Captain America #398-400, Avengers West Coast #80-82, Quasar #32-34, Wonder Man (vol. 2) #7-9, Avengers #345-347, Iron Man #278-279, and Thor #445-446. Immortus influenced Iron Man specifically during the events of Iron Man #278.

    • Immortus was able to access Tony’s mind due to the armor he was wearing at the time which had a neural interface. During this period Tony had recently been shot through the spine in Iron Man #242 leaving him disabled from the waist down. He cured himself with an experimental bio-chip in issue #248. This chip was exploited by enemies as a backdoor to override Stark’s nervous system with an artificial one that allowed them to take control of his body. Iron Man uncovered and foiled this plot over the course of Iron Man #258-266. However, this left Tony needing to wear a suit of armor with a neural interface to get around. Tony’s condition persisted until a cure was found in Iron Man #290.

    • The Wasp tells everyone that the Supreme Intelligence managed to cheat death. Indeed he did. After his physical body was destroy in Avengers #347, he transmitted his mind into a new one that existed in the sewers of New York in Imperial Guard #1-3. He was later relocated to the Moon by the Lunatic Legion in Iron Man (vol. 3) #7/Captain America (vol. 3) #8/Quicksilver #10/Avengers (vol. 3) #7. This is where we found him at the start of Avengers Forever #1.

25. Deathcry would come to Earth and ally herself with the team in Avengers #343. However, following The Crossing, Deathcry would only go into space with Hercules in Avengers #399.

26. Onslaught was birthed when Professor X of the X-Men used his mental powers to wipe out Magneto’s mind in X-Men (vol. 2) #25. This evil, as explained in Wolverine (vol. 2) #104, infected Xavier’s mind and eventually manifested into Onslaught in X-Men (vol. 2) #52. For more on the Avengers conflict with Onslaught see Onslaught: X-Men #1, Uncanny X-Men #335-336, Avengers #401-402, Fantastic Four #415-416, Cable #34-35, Incredible Hulk #444-445, Excalibur #100, Wolverine (vol. 2) #104-105, X-Factor #125-126, Amazing Spider-Man #415, Green Goblin #12, Spider-Man #72, X-Man #18-19, X-Force #57-58, Punisher (vol. 3) #11, X-Men (vol. 2) #55-56, Iron Man #332 and Onslaught: Marvel Universe #1.

27. This was the infamous Crossing event which took place in Avengers: The Crossing #1, Avengers #390-395, Iron Man #319-325, Force Works #16-20, War Machine #20-23, Avengers: Timeslide #1, and Age of Innocence: The Rebirth of Iron Man #1. Tony Stark was killed and replaced with his teenaged counterpart from Reality-96020 (per Marvel Legacy: The 1990s Handbook #1.

28. This glosses over that after Onslaught, the core Avengers were seemingly killed. In reality, they were transported to a pocket dimension to live reimagined versions of their lives as seen in Avengers (vol. 2) #1-13, Captain America (vol. 2) #1-13, and Iron Man (vol. 2) #1-13. They were returned to their proper reality in Heroes Reborn: The Return #1-4. The Avengers had only recently reformed in Avengers (vol. 3) #1-4. I’ll note here that the original Tony Stark was restored to life by being merged with his younger self, as will be explained in Avengers Annual 2001.

29. Goliath asks the Space Phantom if Immotus is responsible for his many mental breakdowns over the years. However, Hank’s mental health problems are entirely his own. He has had many at this point in Avengers #60, 161-162, 213, and West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #17-18.

30. Yellowjacket come from circa Avengers #60 when a mental breakdown and believes he is someone other than Hank Pym. He wants to stay like this and be married to the Wasp after learning that he’ll revert back to his Pym personality and his marriage with the Wasp will come to an end circa Avengers #213.

Topical References

• References to the present day taking place in the 20th century should be considered topical. The Sliding Timescale has pushed the Modern Age forward so that it does not begin until after the start of the 21st century.