Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The Avengers are bouncing back and forth through time fighting Mephisto alongside various earlier wielders of 'Legacy Powers'. Last seen they were in the US Wild West with Reno Phoenix and the Starbrand Kid. After a Judgment Day interlude with Hawkeye last issue we now continue where the team left off in #59 ...
... where young Starbrand (Brandy Selby) carries the Wild West Mephisto away (and the other Avengers disappear to follow her).
But before *we* follow them we have a flashback to Avengers Mountain HQ where Captain Marvel attempts to make Starbrand stay behind while the others go time-hopping after Mephisto. She's worried that every time Brandy really lets loose with her power it ages her by years. The teen protests that that the team has lost Black Panther (#55) and Ghost Rider (#50 when he moved over to the Avengers Forever series), and Iron Fist and the Sorcerer Supreme are going through some changes (there's a new IF, and Dr Strange has died and been replaced as SS by his wife Clea). The team's running out of the Primal (Legacy) powers so they need her. Carol Danvers doesn't buy that and tells her to call Blade if she needs anything. Brandy knows that the team are using the Celestial teleporter to time-travel. But they don't know that she's in contact with the Celestial whose body they live in, and she now gets it to teleport her after them. (We also learn that she's no longer sleeping.)
The next scene is in 1047, in the age of the Vikings. Thor has only recently become worthy of wielding Mjolnir. Now he's allied with Murkfoot the Sasquatch Sorcerer Supreme, the superstrong Viking Bodolf The Black, Theodosia Szardos the Phoenix Witch of Wundagore, the Grizzly-riding (Ghost) Rider of Cahokia and Nehanda the renegade Panther with her lover Princess Gale the outlaw Atlantean Iron Fist. These Avengers have gathered together to battle a giant dinosaur Mephisto. (Members of this team also appeared in #38 and issues of Thor.) Until our Starbrand zooms in and downs the dragon with a zap in the mouth before moving on to the next Mephisto ...
... which is a possessed group of thugs in 1924 Hong Kong who are attacking martial artist Grandmaster Wong, master of the Drunken Dragon Fist (presumably Wong Fei-Hung seen in #50), and Knuckles O'Shaughnessy the dead-end kid Spirit Of Vengeance (previously in #23-24 and issues of Ghost Rider). They're doing OK but Starbrand swoops in to defeat the baddies. The other Avengers (Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Nighthawk, Phoenix (Echo), Sub-Mariner, Thor and Valkyrie) follow her too late to be of any help. And Brandy is impatient to get to the next Mephisto (urged on by the current 1).
They've been trying to get back to the original 1M BC Avengers (to save them from the Multiversal Masters Of Evil) but Mephisto has been messing up their jumps to delay them. This time they've way overshot and reached 66 Million BC where they've helped the original dinosaur Starbrand against Mephisto-possessed giant spiders. Valkyrie takes Brandy aside for a chat asking if the girl is *really* trying to burn herself out. They talk about death and Val urges her to sample living as well as fighting. Brandy points out how rare Starbrands have been among the Legacy Powers they've seen on their time trip, which she says is because Starbrands burn bright and short.
Now the T-Rex Starbrand contacts her power to power, and she learns that he got the Brand from the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs but enabled him to survive long afterwards. The dino asks her what the beings of the future are like. She shares memories with him:- Of Thor telling her he loved being a god. Of the Samoan Shark (Ghost) Rider (again from #50). Of Tony Stark telling her how to fix anything in the Galaxy. Of Sub-Mariner arm-wrestling her. Of Carol Danvers pointing out stars she's been to. Of meditating with Blade(?). Of Steve Rogers telling her about her dead mother.
Then they left there and went to 1868 in #59 where we saw Brandy Selby taking Mephisto away. She keeps beating him mercilessly even as he changes into other appearances (from alternate timelines?) ...
... and suddenly the Avengers find themselves in 1M BC which they'd been aiming for, with no sign of Mephisto. And Brandy joins them, now a very old woman but still with a few punches left in her.