Quasar #8
Still Life With Metal
Continuing his census of aliens that are currently living on Earth, Quasar finds himself on the rooftop of the New Mutants New York headquarters.[1] There he meets with the New Mutants Warlock, Cannonball and Sunspot. Getting them to stand down, he tells them that he only seeks to learn about Warlock's alien origins and do a threat assessment. The New Mutants try to describe Warlock best they can and Quasar, seeing Warlock’s comedic attitude determines him to be no threat and leaves before he can lose his straight face.[2] Reporting back to Eon on his findings he goes after the next anomalous reading.[3]
To his surprise he finds that it is at Project: PEGASUS, the location of his former employers. He recalls back to how he had quit his job there after he nearly succumbed to the power of the Serpent Crown and had to be saved by the Thing, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange.[4] Reaching the front entrance of the facility, Quasar is surprised to find that the power in the facility has been shut off and the emergency back-ups are no longer working. Exploring further, he finds the facility deserted and the life support systems in the lower levels no longer functioning either. In the communications room he finds a lone survivor, Helen Carver. She has no answers about the cause of the black out, only that everyone else seemingly evacuated the facility. Using his quantum bands to send her to the surface, Quasar begins searching deeper into the facility.
In the bottom levels of the facility, Quasar finds that some thing managed to melt the main generators. Searching further, he finds a strange metal cocoon. Inspecting it, he finds signs of life inside and pries it open and is shocked to find Blue Shield, the newest head of security for the Project. However, as he is freeing the man, he is suddenly attacked by a strange mechanical creature that sprays corrosive fluids that can even melt the solid energy constructs created by his Quantum Bands. Learning that he creature killed and consumed 15 men, Quasar and Blue Shield try to battle it, but it proves too strong to stop. Quasar asks Eon for answers, but his guide says he will have to get back to him. When the creature grabs Blue Shield, Quasar creates a sword with his bands and slices it's hand off, sending the creature fleeing. To their surprise the creatures severed hand attempts to crawl away, but Quasar traps it in a energy cube.
As he flies to the surface with Blue Shield and the captured hand, Eon explains that the creature hails from Battleworld. There, when Iron Man's armor was damaged in battle, Reed Richards repaired it with devices found on that world. However, upon returning to Earth, Iron Man found that the enhancements didn't work properly in Earth's magnetic fields and dumped them in a snowbank in upstate New York.[5] Unknown to Iron Man, these parts were alive and were washed into the sewers consuming metal and evolving into a creature known as the Omnivore until it finally made it's way to Project: PEGASUS. Realizing that the only key to defeating the creature would be extreme heat, they lure it to the Magma Tap, a part of the Project facility linked to Earth's molten core. There, Quasar uses his powers to force the creature deep into Earth's core forcing it down as deep as possible where the massive heat and liquid magma incinerates the creature.
In the battles aftermath, Blue Shield feels horrible that he failed at his task, but Quasar attempts to talk sense into him and tell him to learn from his mistakes instead of giving up. As he departs, he hopes that his pep talk with Blue Shield gets him to learn to better himself as he goes along. Back at Pegasus, when Dr. Wilburn asks Blue Shield what happened, he explains the incident and how Quasar saved him and that he failed in his task. He then tells Wilburn that after he helps engineering restore power to the facility he is going to hand in his resignation.
Recurring Characters
Quasar, Omnivore, Blue Shield, Myron Wilburn, Eon, New Mutants (Cannonball, Sunspot, Warlock),
Continuity Notes
Quasar shows off his Avengers ID as his credentials. At the time of this story, he had just recently joined the group following the events of Avengers #301-303.
Cannonball and Sunspot try their best to explain Warlock’s origins. He is an alien of the Technarc race. They first encountered the alien in New Mutants #18.
Sunspot states here that they should tell Cable about this. At the time of this story, Cable had just taken over as leader of the New Mutants. See New Mutants #89.
Quasar’s tenure at Project PEGASUS began in Marvel Two-In-One #53. The Serpent Crown incident and his resignation happened in Marvel Team-Up Annual #5.
Iron Man was one of the heroes kidnapped by the Beyonder in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1-12. His armor was cannibalized to build a device to help the heroes escape after a mountain was dropped on them in issue #4. In issue #8, he used alien technology to repair his armor. However, upon returning to Earth, he discovered that the armor was unstable and ditched them, as seen in Iron Man #183. It should also be noted that this Iron Man was Jim Rhodes, not Tony Stark, as this took place when Rhodes operated as Iron Man from Iron Man #169-195.
Topical References
While being interviewed, Warlock takes on the forms of the robot from Lost in Space, Marvin the Martian from Loony Tunes, and Groucho Marx. These wouldn’t be topical references since Warlock learned everything from Earth from scanning television broadcasts.
