Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Avenger Base Two, the secret base in the Savage Land for Sunspot's AIM, is under attack by Maker and his New Revengers. OMNITRONICUS has taken over the computer system and is firing defence lasers at boss Roberto Da Costa. But Warlock the Technarch alien has appeared to defend his friend by forming a shield from his techno-organic substance.
OMNITRONICUS claims Sunspot has lost his powers. Bobby doesn't deny this but says he doesn't need them as Warlock forms himself into battle armour and a sword for him.
The Warlock-suit also gives Da Costa radio contact with the rest of the base. (OMNITRONICUS had cut internal comms last issue.) He checks in on Dr Toni Ho in the Rescue armour she designed, where her force-shield is protecting her and injured Pod from Maker and Skar. She also uses the forcefield as a weapon. Roberto tells her to hang on because SHIELD are going to provide a big distraction soon.
SHIELD Agent John Garrett and his army of Dum Dum Dugan LMds have aimed a huge drone bomb at where Songbird told them Avenger Base Two was. But it actually hits Maker's WHISPER HQ in the Himalayas. Which destroys OMNITRONICUS and of course causes Maker to lose contact. And Toni/Rescue chooses that moment to form her forcefield into an atom-thin blade and slices Skar's head off. Maker translocates out.
We now flash back to 2 previous issues and show what really happened.
There was a scene in #3 where Songbird appeared to show Sunspot a very tiny bug she'd found, and when SHIELD 'spy' Hawkeye overheard them they accused him of planting it on them. He denied it, and they wondered if someone else was spying on them. We now learn that actually it was a bug Songbird had helped create, and she was going to plant some in SHIELD, for whom she was pretending to spy on Sunspot.
Then in #5 after the team had captured some tech thieves in Tokyo we saw Songbird talking to a cop and 1 of the thieves in the background of a Hulkling/Wiccan conversation. Now we learn that she was asking the thief who he worked for. He refused to say and she planted a bug on him.
Now Songbird, Power Man, Dr Positron and Cannonball are fighting Dugan LMDs in a SHIELD helicarrier where the 3 men came to rescue Melissa. She has just been telling them that last bit, and she says that single bug was enough to give them the location of the boss Maker's base.
So when John Garrett hooked her up to a lie detector in #13 and asked for AIM's base she gave them Maker's instead. She knew that the lie-detector was audio-based. She might not have her full vocal powers without tech assistance these days, but she could still control her voice enough to fool the detector. (In this fight she's using tech Max Bashear/Positron brought for her.)
With the LMDs defeated Dr Positron says Sunspot has organised their exfiltration. The New Avengers (Hulking, Squirrel Girl and Wiccan) port in via Wiccan's magic and presumably whisk them away.
In the Savage Land base Toni Ho tries to revive Pod. Suddenly the living armour splits open and discharges its occupant Aikku Jokinen. Aikku says that Pod was too injured to keep them both alive, and has sacrificed itself to save her.
And in the base dojo the Ava Ayala White Tiger, without her mystic power, faces the Angela del Toro version, with the power of two Tiger Gods. Ava says Sunspot allowed Maker to attack to give her the chance to save Angela from her possession. And she uses her mortal martial arts to take the Tiger Amulet from her 'foe'.
Then rather than claiming the power back for herself she destroys the Amulet so the Tiger God(s) can't control anyone again. And as she and Roberto hoped, freeing Angela from the Tiger Gods also freed her from the taint of the Hand who had killed her and ritually resurrected her.
But the 2 now merely human women are confronted by Maker and his remaining New Revengers (Angar, Asti, Paibok and Venom).