Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The credits page summarises the situation as a long time ago the Celestials came to Earth and created the Eternals and Deviants. But then it adds that "everything since then has been a complete lie". This presumably refers to the Eternals discovering (in #4 of the current Avengers series) that they weren't really put here altruistically to protect the Earth and its inhabitants. Instead they were protecting humans because the Celestials needed them as 'antibodies' against their enemies the Horde. This revelation caused the Eternals to commit mass suicide, from which they have only recently been resurrected (in the current Eternals series). In between the Avengers defeated the Horde.
Ajak is particularly badly hit by the change. Her job used to be to communicate with the Celestials but now they have no more use for the Eternals and her. She now sits in Celestia, the city of the star gods, with no gods to worship.
Cue a Machine infodump on Celestia. It is 1 of the 6 cities of the Eternals, and in particular is designed to host a visiting Celestial (with an *enormous* chair). There are 6 Priests Of Celestia:-
Ajak, keeper of the old ways.
Makkari, keeper of the new ways.
Harpokratis, keeper of the mysteries.
I-Chel, keeper of the skies.
Master Elo, keeper of the paths.
The Delphan Mother, keeper of the soil.
Ajak has been moping around Celestia for weeks when Makkari zips in to see her. They aren't on best of terms because (in the 2006 series) the heretic Dreaming Celestial chose to communicate with Makkari rather than Ajak, which (in the 2008 series) caused Ajak to have Makkari murdered. The previously male pair have both been resurrected as females. And in the intervening weeks Makkari has been trying to contact the dead Dreaming Celestial, which has somehow rendered her deaf, mute and without telepathy so she now communicates with sign language and lip reading.
Makkari chides Ajak for brooding. But Ajak wants to know why the space gods are angry with them. Makkari opines that they don't hate the Eternals, they just don't care about them. She urges her to get on with her life, which Ajak interprets as going on a pilgrimage to the corpse of the Progenitor, the 1st Celestial to visit the Earth, which was left with the Avengers at the North Pole. Makkari zooms there and back to report that it's the same as it was. But Ajak points out that the purpose of a pilgrimage is the journey not the arrival. So they both set out to walk there the slow way.
While they're doing that we go back 1 million years to a time when Arishem The Judge was sitting on the throne at Celestia and Ajak (apparently female then too) received a command from him. She got the Machine to teleport her to investigate the Avengers of that era:- Agamotto (the 1st Sorceror Supreme), the unnamed 1st Black Panther, Fan Fei (the 1st Iron Fist), Firehair (the 1st human Phoenix), Ghost (the 1st Ghost Rider), Odin (with Mjolnir) and Vnn (the 1st human Starbrand).
As our duo walk the world in the present we learn that Makkari has only been a Priest since the Dreaming Celestial spoke to her (and told her of a new covenant). But then various X-Men villains (High Evolutionary, Mr Sinister, Exterminators) at various times cannibalised it for parts, and she can't reanimate it. Ajak thinks the Gods are testing them both, but Makkari thinks they need to learn from all this and go on. They've been walking up the Americas from Celestia in the Andes, blasting through the wall between Mexico and the US, and by now they've reached the snows of Canada.
In the past Ajak (looking very much like DC's Big Barda with a funky helmet) tries to talk to the Avengers but Starbrand attacks her. So she calls on the power of the Machine to blast him.
Another infodump, this time on the relevant history:-
4 billion years ago the Horde-infected Progenitor died on Earth and his disease is the cause of all superpowers.
Nothing relevant happened for a long time.
1 million years ago a Celestial called Zgreb The Aspirant arrived to find out what happened to Progenitor. He got infected and the 1MBC Avengers killed him. Then the Celestial First Host arrived to investigate what happened to *him*. They fought off the Avengers and recognised the plague infecting the planet. They hoped that this would eventually generate superpowered 'antibodies', and created the Eternals to defend the experiment. (This doesn't explain why they also created the Deviants.)
More boring years (but not without more Celestial visits).
6 months ago the Final Host arrived, and the Eternals learned the truth and committed suicide.
1 month ago the Machine resurrected them all.
Back in the past Ajak is struck by Mjolnir. (The Machine explains to us that current Ajak doesn't actually remember this, but she has the event in backup memory storage which can give her a full virtual replay.) She recovers and emits deadly blasts which are also probes to extract data. Then it's Phoenix' turn to respond. Followed by the 'weaker' other 4. Ghost's hellfire chain kills her. But the data she has gathered will survive into her resurrection.
While Ajak strokes a polar bear Makkari reviews her recent history. She mourned *her* god the Dreaming Celestial but then learned the truth about the Eternals' role and despaired. Their old gods have abandoned them and her new god has been broken up for spares. They now have no gods. But she once (actually many times) read the story of Frankenstein who made life from parts of the dead, and now she realises they should make their *own* god who can make a new covenant with them. Ajak, possibly diplomatically, says she'll think on it.
In 1MBC Ajak awakes in the resurrection chamber. (The Machine comments that a Deviant has just unexpectedly died. From the current Eternals #6 we know what the Eternals didn't that every time 1 of them is reborn it is at the cost of someone else's life.) The Eternals were armed and armoured ready to go to war against the 1MBC Avengers, but she tells them to stand down. She reports that the Avengers have a goal much like their own, to protect the Earth - or what the Eternals call the Machine.
Now our duo reach the body of the Celestial called Progenitor and Ajak learns that the Avengers have burrowed into it and turned it into their HQ. To her this is blasphemy and she gets very angry. Ghost Rider comes out to see what all the shouting is about. He explains that the Celestials told him personally that this is what they wanted (see Avengers #8). Ajak reads his mind and discovers it's true. But the fact that the Celestials spoke to GR and not *her* ticks her off even more. She's about to annihilate him when Makkari whisks her 100 miles away.
The pair now do an Eternal trick (which I don't think we've ever seen before) of each splitting their mind in 2. In 1 compartment they debate (untelepathic Makkari allows Ajak access to her consciousness), with the other they use their bodies to fight. Makkari tries to run away but Ajak traps them both in a subspace bubble which gradually contracts to force the speedster into range of her fists. Makkari keeps darting in to wear her opponent down with micro-blows, but she knows she hasn't got time to win this way. She pins her hopes on the debate.
Ajak says she can't stand by and let the Avengers defile a space god. Makkari points out that she witnessed *her* space god desecrated by X-foes so she sympathises. But she claims that as Priests of the Celestials it is their job to bear it. And Ajak stops throttling her.
Makkari now asks her friend if she will join in her plan to build their own god. But Ajak is even more convinced that this is a test. In her experience the Celestials always speak enigmatically, and it is the Priests' job to interpret their sayings. The plain statement they gave to Ghost Rider won't be what they actually meant. She now realises it was a mistake to let the 1MB Avengers live.
Machine ends the issue with a clarifying statement. Ajak plans to go to war against the Avengers. Makkari plans to create a new god out of parts of old Celestials. This won't end well.