Synopsis / Summary / Plot
The Avengers (Black Panther, Blade, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, She-Hulk and Thor) are fighting someone called the Autocrat outside their North Pole Avengers Mountain HQ (the body of a dead Celestial). A voiceover describes what's going on for us as Jennifer Walters summons all her rage to defeat him and then she orders him to release the other Avengers from his mental control or she smash his head in. He obeys but tells her he'll still win. The virus that infected the team and gave him control was only an early version. His new version will be impossible to break free of, and then the world will worship him as their god-king. But she points out that only *he* can exert that control, so if she kills him the virus won't matter. Cap A reminds her that Avengers don't kill but she says it's the only way given how infectious the virus is.
Then she stops and wonders what she's doing. Autocrat laughs at their nobility but Blade hits him in the back of the head. Tony Stark realises it's happening again, and Cap M and Thor concur that they can't remember how they got here. Stark says this is the moment they've been waiting for and asks Panther if they're 'on the same page'. T'Challa says he expects so.
The voiceover thought they wouldn't catch on this time because he's 'subsumed himself in his new role'. He apologises to the Avengers, although they of course can't hear him, but it's not easy to control things when he can only influence them. He *could* just tell them what it is he's been preparing them for, but he's constrained by the situation he's in to not do that. However he's totally surprised by what happens next.
The Avengers teleport into a room in the HQ which none of them have been in before, including Tony and T'Challa despite the fact that it's full of Stark and Wakandan tech. The duo tell the others that they've each been building half a device, but in order for the 'voiceover' not to realise what they were doing that had to do it without discussing it with each other. They each used their years of working together to intuitively know what to do. And now they've teleported the 2 halves into this room for the 1st time to see if it will work. The machine will detect any previously unknown energy and force it to take physical form.
The voiceover panics and then appears before them and screams at them that he was trying to help them, to save them, but they've ruined everything because now a mysterious 'he' will know where he is. Even Carol Danvers recognises him as the Beyonder who was responsible for Secret Wars I and II (she wasn't involved because she was in space as Binary with the Starjammers at the time). (Blade keeps quiet but he wasn't involved either.) Beyonder says she's right and recaps how he used to be a whole universe by himself but then he discovered the multiverse, became intrigued and that led to the Secret Wars.
But now he adds that he was a child of the Beyonders (who destroyed the previous multiverse in the run-up to the 2015 Secret Wars) and has the same god-like powers as them. However their power is not their own, it came from a being called the Lost One who predated the omniverse (of multiverses). He created them and gave them a fraction of his power, but they rebelled and stole the rest of it and then banished him to a moon outside the omniverse. But recently he broke free of that prison and now stalks the current multiverse seeking the Beyonders who have scattered into hiding. And this Beyonder came to Earth where he's been preparing the Avengers (in the All-Out-Av mini-series) to help him against the foe.
Our heroes aren't happy about this but he knows their principles won't let them turn their backs on him. Grudgingly they sort-of agree. But 1st Iron Man orders him to get rid of the Autocrat's virus (assuming correctly that he was behind this like all the other scenarios in AOA). Beyonder does that and then sends Autocrat back to his old life with no memory of any of this. 2nd Black Panther says they'll mediate a *peaceful* solution between him and the Lost One, but it must happen away from Earth. Beyonder points out that since the Av made him materialise the LO will already have detected he's here and sent someone to capture him.
On cue the HQ's alarm system goes off and a woman arrives. Beyonder says he saw her attack the Avengers on the planet of the Drahl (AOA#4) and he didn't recognise her although he knows everyone in the universe but he did see she wore the uniform of the old Kharradun Empire. (*We* also saw her master then who is presumably the Lost One.) But now she names herself as Tiamok Rath of Kharradun and Beyonder realises he *did* know her but the LO somehow hid her from his memory. She claims that her master has been siphoning power from the Beyonders without them realising it, enough to hide him and her.
She and Cap M have unfinished business from the Drahl planet. Thor wasn't there but he will stand with Carol now. But Tiamok's super-powered martial arts moves take him down quite easily so Cap M hits her and then she has to athletically dodge Cap A's shield, IM's repulsors and the fists of Shulk while attacking BP. Blasts from her eyes even trouble Iron Man and she's enjoying herself as she somersaults over Blade. She says she came here for the blood of the thief, who blasts her point-blank. But she survives and says that his stolen power can't harm her or the Lost One. And she nicks Beyonder's cheek with her knife.
Thor now has her in a chokehold but Tiamok doesn't care because her mission is accomplished. As Captain Marvel and She-Hulk help restrain her she continues to explain that if Beyonder uses his power to do anything major like leaving Earth then the Lost One will detect it. And he will be here soon to destroy this planet. Beyonder says it's not safe for him to be in physical form now or to 'hold these thoughts', so he dematerialises while reminding them that (over the course of All-Out Avengers) he has given them the tools to fight the enemy, and he'll try to help them.
Black Panther recalls that they gained a strong planetary defence shield (AOA#3) and some unlimited power crystals (AOA#4) so they get to work installing them, hoping that the Lost One doesn't have more minions to throw at them. But we and Beyonder see the Black Order on the way.