Synopsis / Summary / Plot
This issue has a voiceover by Ken Hale, Gorilla-Man. He locates the action in War Of The Realms by an opening scene of the Avengers (Black Panther, Blade, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes), Iron Man and She-Hulk plus Thor's dog Thori fighting Dark Elves and Frost Giants in New York (in WOTR#1). He comments that he's usually not involved in these big events because he's usually drunk. But this time he's part of the Avengers' crew, Black Panther's Agents Of Wakanda.
But at the moment he's in an enclosure in Wundagore Zoo in Transia talking to Ursa Major of the Russian Winter Guard. Hale figured this would be an inconspicuous place for 2 animal-form super-characters to have a meeting. Apparently Major Ursus has been working undercover for the Avengers because he doesn't trust the Guard's latest leader Red Widow. (Being thrown out of an official meeting with the Avengers in #11 was meant to solidify his position with RW.) And on Panther's orders, via Gorilla-Man, he arranged for Dracula to be confined to Chernobyl (which suited the vampire lord as seen in #17). (If you didn't think BP planned this, read on.)
The secret meeting is then broken up by fellow Wakanda Agent Ka-Zar in a SHIELD-type flying car who says communication has been lost with Avengers Mountain HQ (all comms networks are down due to Roxxon in WOTR#2). So they rush off to see what's up. (What's up is the invasion of the world by Malekith's forces in WOTR, which presumably hasn't reached Transia yet.)
In the HQ Doctor Strange has just teleported (WOTR#2) the population of New York City to safety within the giant body of the dead Celestial. Agent Of Wakanda Wasp (Jan van Dyne) leads the people to accommodation in the rib cage. Spider-Man (Peter Parker) congratulates DrS, but Stephen Strange is worried about the Valkyries they left behind. (Rightly so because they all died in WOTR#2.)
Gorilla-Man swings in and T'Challa tells him he wants him to harness the power of the Celestial's staff which supposedly reaches down to the Earth's core. Tony Stark has theorised that it could unleash incredible energy, with the downside that it might destroy the HQ. But Stark is busy doing something else (with Screwbeard the Dwarf creating weapons as seen in WOTR#3, and I suspect in Tony Stark: Iron Man #12 whenever that finally gets published), so it's up to Ken. As Hale heads off he mentions his meeting with Ursa Major saying there's still no clue where the Russians have hidden Dracula. (This doesn't sound like the meeting *we* saw? Read on.)
There's a montage of other thing's happening in WOTR#3. Captain America plans to lead Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Spider-Man and Wolverine to Jotunheim to find Thor. Freyja will take Blade, Ghost Rider, Punisher and She-Hulk to Svartalfheim to destroy Malekith's Black Bifrost. Roz Solomon and Man-Wolf, more Agents Of Wakanda, are trying to find out where the Roxxon hackers are operating from. Captain Marvel and the Asgardian Sif are part of the War Avengers (who will go to London).
But in this issue Dark Elves, Fire Demons and Frost Giants attack the Celestial body now known as Avengers Mountain. Atop the Celestial Black Panther and Thori survey the massed enemy as G-M charges up the Celestial staff. Dark Elves teleport in to stop him but Ken Hale kills them all, as BP and Thori fight off Fire Demons. Then the weapon fires and the enemy is routed.
Ka-Zar finds Gorilla-Man severely injured by the explosion. But he says the dead Celestial spoke to him as he lay near death, and showed him that the Roxxon base they are seeking is in Antarctica. (And in WOTR#3 that's where the Agents Of Wakanda head.) He's taken to hospital in the bed next to Odin, recovering from wounds incurred in WOTR#2. Agent Of Wakanda Doctor Nemesis is looking after the injured.
Later G-M is up and about and goes to see Sarge the Hellhound of the Legion Of The Unliving ((re)captured in #17). It turns out Ken Hale has made a deal with Dracula. (So Black Panther never told him to arrange for Dracula to be sent to Chernobyl, Dracula did. And Hale is keeping all this secret from BP.) Ken's voiceover has reminded us that he is condemned to his gorilla body forever unless someone kills him and takes the curse upon himself. Hale has tried to die, and now seemingly Dracula has offered to remove the curse.