New Avengers, The (2025 series) #8

For the last couple of issues this story has been centred around a very large explosion caused by the villainous Killuminati that took out the middle of Osaka, Japan. But the actual action has been split between events leading up to the explosion and events after it. This issue is no exception. But we have also been finding out more about who's behind these modified clones of major superheroes. In particular Winter Soldier learned that Black Widow was helping the creators. Bucky Barnes was sure that wasn't his real lover Natasha Romanoff but a clone. However he 1st had to make sure the clone hadn't also replaced the real deal. Last issue ended with him getting proof that the woman he was with was human, but then she shot him.

That was 2 days before the Osaka event, and now he wakes the next day to find himself alive and reasonably well because it was only a tranquilliser. But he's shackled to a chair and about to be interrogated by Nat. She tells him she knows he doesn't trust her because he's been secretly investigating her. Now she wants to know everything he's discovered. She doesn't need a truth drug because she knows him so well he can't lie to her. He tells her that someone who looked like her helped the Jackal create the Killuminati but it must have been another neurogenic clone, and she's not it. She's disappointed that's all he found out. Then she takes an axe and smashes his shackles, and then she offers to take his place and let him interrogate her *with* a truth drug.

However we then switch to the same day on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia at 1 of the Killuminati's bases where their current leader Iron Apex (clone of Iron Man) is fending off a play for the throne by Lord Britain (newbie clone of Captain Britain) who maintains that it is his by Divine Right. Apex asserts *his* superiority by the might of his iron fists, watched by Luke Charles (clone of Black Panther), Guru Strange (clone of Dr Strange) and the 2nd newbie Rapunzel (clone of Medusa), and also the glitchy holographic avatar of the unknown top boss who reminds them to keep the Avengers thinking they're winning until it's too late. IA says they'll send Lord Britain and Rapunzel to the 1st post-blast trap in Guru Strange's Shamballa 2 (as seen in #6-7) while the 2nd trap will be set up here. And the Jackal clone who is controlling the actual clone creation system finishes regenerating Mr Ouroboros (the clone of Mr Fantastic).

Back at the interrogation Natasha tells Bucky that she *did* help create the Illuminati. But she has to tell the story in order, and it began before the New Avengers were formed when Tony Stark in Stark Tower asked her to investigate a probably connected series of thefts. A cosmic ray generator was stolen from the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building, next-gen mutant growth hormone from the X-Men's Factory HQ, high ductile vibranium from Wakanda's national reserves and a black symbiote sample from a Stark Lab in Berlin. Tony had Reed Richards, Beast and Wakandan Prime Minister Folasade on conference call, and also Quicksilver for the Inhumans and Wong from Dr Strange's Sanctum. Stark dismissed Nat's query if this involved the Illuminati but he admitted they think the last 2 might be robbed next. (She and we now know these were all ingredients for the neurogenic Killuminati clones.) BW agreed to take the job for free. But before she left Stark asked her to look after a container labelled B-26-L. She again accepted, without asking for details, but continued to be suspicious.

When she visited The Factory in Merle, Alaska Henry McCoy showed her surveillance video that showed the thief was disguised as Wolverine but scans detected the mutant DNA of Darkstar (Black Widow's old teammate from the original (1975) Champions series). In Wakanda she learned that the thief flew through a random dome of laser beams. Mr Fantastic said the thief came through the ventilation system without hacking the defence software. They must have manually performed a hardware bypass, which suggested a cyborg. When she met a hologram-Tony in the Berlin Lab she confirmed that she had safely hidden his 'object', and learned that the continual multi-spectrum monitoring of the vault meant the the thief must be some kind of ghost.

Then when she checked into a hotel in Berlin under the name Gosnell she was greeted by a bellhop as a returnee. This disturbed Nat as she had a list of hotels and aliases but she *never* used the same combination twice. A quick investigation, including using a truth drug on the bellhop, revealed that 'she' had been here before, and it was the date of the symbiote heist. She then found the same use of her aliases in Alaska, New York and Wakanda. And she realised then that the only person skilled enough to have done these 4 robberies was *herself*!

She reminds Bucky that she's a mistress of disguise with access to Darkstar's DNA. She's not a cyborg but has the skill to bypass *any* security system. She can't fly but can HALO drop with the grace of a ballerina. She's not a ghost but she has stealth capabilities to evade any and all surveillance methods. She also found evidence of other activities she can't remember, including tracking where she'd delivered stuff to, which is how she found the Jackal's base in Kamchatka (#1).

Bucky realises that she's been manipulating him all along. She admits she persuaded him to start the team so they could abort Jackal's Killuminati before they were 'born', but they failed. But she never meant for him to make *her* the team leader. And she says that *she*'s being played too, by whoever planted this 'other woman' in her head. She couldn't tell him because then he wouldn't be able to trust her, and she needed him to help frustrate whatever the plan was.

Now we at last return to the present. This strand continues from the attack on Shamballa 2 last issue, 2 days after Osaka. That ended with both sides thinking their cunning plan was working, with both of them finding the tracker the other side had planted. But from Iron Apex's statement earlier we know that the Killuminati *want* the New Avengers to enter a trap in the Namibian base, so presumably they left the NAv's tracker in place to lure them in.

Now 3 days after the Osaka incident our heroes arrive in the Skeleton Coast. Eddie Brock clad in his Carnage symbiote materialises via a pool of blood inside the base. He desperately wants to be a real Avenger but the Carnage inside wants to be allowed to kill his teammates. (Apparently the 'tracker' he's homed in on was a fragment of Carnage, but it's been left behind.) They both call the Avengers in for different reasons, telling them that the place is deserted. Bucky and Nat join him with Sub-Mariner and Wolverine (Laura Kinney) via a spell from Clea Strange, who's angry that her target Guru Strange isn't here. B&N have obviously come clean to the others because Widow casually mentions that the plan is to become enough of a nuisance to force the 'other woman' to show her hand. Last issue (before the Bucky/Nat stuff above) Winter Soldier told Wolverine his suspicions and asked her to keep an eye on Nat. Now Laura asks him in a whisper if he's sure the other woman hasn't already surfaced. But their musings are interrupted when something slashes Widow, drawing blood. And they find themselves facing multiple feral clones of the Beast.