Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The Ashen Combine, the 1st Tribulation Event predicted by Kang, arrived in #3 and attacked 5 cities. 5 of the Avengers went to confront them while Black Panther and Captain America (Sam Wilson) headed for their huge orbiting spaceship base the Impossible City. Last issue concentrated on Thor vs Idol Alabaster in Vatican City, Scarlet Witch vs The Dead in Sydney and Iron Man vs The Citysmith in Toronto while BP and CA planted bombs to blow up the base which seems to be deserted. But at the end the City contacted them to tell them it was a sentient AI. And "we're all going to die".
The AI continues that their brave friends are fighting its masters but they can't win because the Ashen Combine are very good at what they do, which is killing cities.
In Helsinki the synthezoid Vision faces the robotic Meridian Diadem whose armoured minions gather up the populace to be punished for their 'sins', and the best of them will become more of her 'children' who fight him for love of her. She says they are willing to die for her. Vizh says that he too was created to obey his evil master but he rebelled. Now that he has KO'd all her servitors she won't be able to create more from the city's people. She claims to have innumerably many more but he says he can't see any. But then she opens the front of her body to reveal a portal.
On the base ship the AI explains to his audience that her body contains a tesseract space where live all her janissaries. Idol Alabaster is projecting a field of worship-compulsion that will spread geometrically. The Citysmith's metrokinesis allows him to shape the city however he wishes including using it for offence or defence. The Dead animates the dead for psychic carnage. And in Manila Lord Ennui is the embodiment of entropy. They are all unstoppable.
Panther asks the City if *it* is unstoppable too because soon his bombs will tear it apart. The AI responds that the bombs will only damage 28% of it. Cap A wonders why, if they can't kill *it* and it doesn't seem to want to kill *them*, did it say that they were all going to die. The AI promises to explain.
But meanwhile we see Captain Marvel blasting Lord Ennui to no avail but he doesn't fight back. He says he prefers to let entropy take its course. And he emits his entropic field which accelerates that process and causes Carol Danvers to crash to the ground because he's absorbed some of her life energy. She throws a car at him but he absorbs the energy in its molecular bonds and it crumbles to dust.
The ship's AI claims the Impossible City was built by other heroes that the Combine defeated. Then Citysmith created a parasitic nervous system that runs through the City. Meridian Diadem destroyed some of his memory core so he doesn't remember who he was. But they cruelly left him his conscience so he can be appalled at the crimes he is party to while being unable to act to stop them.
Inside Meridian Diadem's tesseract we see a few of the battalions at her command activated to exit and attack Vision. They arrive all screaming "Kill for Mother". She explains that the natural chaos has been corrected out of them so that they now love order and being controlled. She also explains that she has gathered weapons from hundreds of worlds. And metallic serpents emerge from her capable of density manipulation, and so able to hurt the density-changing synthezoid.
Meanwhile in Manila Captain Marvel is carrying the victims of Ennui's energy-draining 2 at a time to nearby Quezon City. Ennui points out that her efforts are futile. She asks him what he *wants*? He claims no-one's ever asked him that before. He says he's bored because nothing can affect him. He wants to feel something, and the nearest he gets to it is stopping others from feeling. But he admits to mildly enjoying her company.
The AI asks BP and CA what ethical choice remains when someone is forced to continue to be responsible for the death of millions. It says that the only choice left is suicide. Their bombs can't kill the City but it will kill *itself*. This will prevent the Combine from moving on to ravage any other worlds. Unfortunately for Earth it will leave them trapped here to continue destroying *their* cities.
Cap and Panther repeat the Avengers' oath that wherever innocent lives are in danger they will stand and say "No". And we see the other 5 scattered Avengers saying "No" too.