Synopsis / Summary / Plot
We start with a flashback showing how Quicksilver got into the mess he was in last issue. He'd been working with the New Men/Knights of Wundagore to stop Modred the Mystic from assembling the complete Book of the Darkhold. They tell him that the last page is in the Vatican, but when he superspeeds there he finds Modred has beat him to it. Modred says he now has the whole Book, and almost everything he needs to summon Chthon to Earth. And he vanishes.
The Knights then inform Pietro Maximoff that Modred has returned to Mount Wundagore, to the Darque Hold cave where Chthon wrote the Darkhold. Quicksilver races back there as he hears the New Men being slaughtered over his communicator. But as he enters the cave he sees all the Knights dead, and Modred with Bova the cow-woman his prisoner.
Modred reveals that he killed the Knights hours ago and he's been faking their calls to lure Pietro here. Magic soon has Quicksilver in chains. The Mystic says he's the last piece in the puzzle, a child born on the magic mountain who comes here of his own free will to become the host of Chthon.
Last issue we saw Modred spend a day transferring the Darkhold text into letters of fire on his own body - becoming the Book. This enabled him to call Chthon to occupy Quicksilver's body.
Outside the mountain in Transia a new team of Avengers has been assembled, seemingly by Pietro's sister the Scarlet Witch. But they're not getting along at all well. Stature enlarges and tries to hit the woman who killed her father Ant-Man/Scott Lang (in Avengers Disassembled), until Vision (Jonas) points out that SW is just an astral projection. Hulk is just mad at everybody. Hercules and Jocasta try to restrain him, but U.S. Agent attacks Herc because he and Amadeus Cho are wanted fugitives. Hulk severely injures robot Jocasta and leaps off. Wasp (Henry Pym) tells everybody to stop fighting. (Edwin Jarvis is there too.)
Chthon, Modred and Bova watch this from further up the mountain. Chthon isn't worried about this ragtag team of Avengers, and he speeds off to play havoc with the world. But Modred wants to deal with the heroes just in case. Wanda sees the speedster's dust trail, and also the retreating Hulk. She uses magic to follow 1 of them. Amadeus Cho sees the team disintegrating in front of his eyes, but Hank Pym is more concerned about the collapse of his friend Jocasta.
While Modred was reading the Darkhold the Earth suffered a day of random chaotic afflictions. Now Chthon/Quicksilver races round the globe spreading just 1 of those plagues everywhere, and we see the world engulfed in carnivorous plantlife. (We see Captain Britain, Black Knight and Spitfire fighting back in England; Crimson Dynamo, Darkstar and Red Guardian in Russia; She-Hulk, Thundra and Valkyrie in the US.)
Last issue Iron Man went into space to view the Chaos Cascade (as Cho called the random problems) as a whole. He figured out it was centred on Mount Wundagore, and he has landed his booster rocket nearby. SW has chosen to follow Hulk and she draws his attention to the rocket - she wants to see if Tony Stark is the man to lead the team rather than Pym.
But when Hulk sees Iron Man he is reminded that Stark was 1 of the Illuminati who exiled him to the planet Sakaar. This may have had the happy outcome of Hulk finding a bride Caiera, but it also led to her death. So he attacks IM, who has difficulty fighting back because he can't control his Extremis armour so well since the Skrull virus in Secret Invasion.
The other Avengers have made a local inn their temporary HQ. Wasp re-enlarges a workstation from his Toolbot and enters it to repair Jocasta. Stature's suspicion of Wanda Maximoff is increased by the innkeeper who tells them 1 of the Maximoffs was seen entering the Darque Hold. Jarvis goes to inform Pym and finds him finishing the robot's repairs. Wasp delegates Cho to monitor Jocasta's recovery and Jarvis to watch over them both. The rest will head for the Darque Hold.
But Modred is prepared for them. He has written spells on the walls of the cave to spawn a horde of opponents to surround the team. Even Vision can't phase through them. Hank Pym figures the runes now on the golems are what animates them, and the Avengers aim at *them*.
Hulk tries to throw Stark's giant booster rocket at him. But it's leaking fuel which Iron Man ignites. The team in the cave feel the explosion, and Chthon senses it on the other side of the world and heads back.
The pages of the Darkhold have been blank since Modred took the writing into his own body. But now we see writing on a page communicating with Bova. The chained cow-woman tries to brain the Mystic with the book, but she doesn't catch him by surprise. But distracted he doesn't notice Iron Man enter with an unconscious Bruce Banner. And 1 repulsor ray zap knocks Modred out, and the golems freeze.
Stark says that now he's here he'll take over.
And the person communicating from the Darkhold is Pietro who's trapped inside.