Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Death Of Dr Strange: Avengers #1 Synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Dr Strange, Sorcerer Supreme is dead. Someone killed him in Death Of Dr Strange #1 and now the barrier he maintained against invasions from other dimensions is down. But long ago Stephen cut 7 days out of his life and hid them, and now Dr Strange, Master Of The Mystic Arts is back with just 1 week to save the day. In #2 inhabitants of various dimensions invaded uninhabited parts of the world, but Clea popped in to tell this Stephen (who doesn't actually know her, let alone that they were married) that the 'invaders' were refugees fleeing the Three Mothers (the Crawling, the Crown and the Wyrd) who are travelling the universe seeking magic to feed their Child. Then *they* turned up and easily fended off 4 Avengers (Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man and Thor). Then they left, promising to return with the Child.
This issue starts with a flashback to the creation of the Illuminati in Wakanda. Iron Man is studying some fearsome masks and Dr Strange tells him they were meant to ward off bad luck and evil. Shellhead likens that to his plans for the Illuminati, but he has his reservations about Strange because he hates magic because it offends his scientific sensibilities. Stephen Strange points out that IM's fellow-Avenger Thor is a Norse God, but IM says that he can pretend he's just a strongman. He admits that he invited DrS because Black Panther likes him whereas T'Challa suspects that the armoured Avenger covets Wakanda's vibranium, and IM hopes DrS can help persuade him to join. Before they follow Black Bolt and Prof X into the meeting room where Mr Fantastic and Sub-Mariner are waiting, Iron Man asks Dr Strange if the masks work at keeping the monsters at bay. Doc taps IM's helmet and asks him the same question.
The rest of this issue is set in the present day, beginning in the Florida Everglades as a group of minions from several of the invading forces take an atom bomb to the Nexus Of All Realities. They explain for our benefit that its guardian Man-Thing has been attracted to all the fear out in the rest of the world. They intend to detonate the bomb inside the Nexus to seal it off to stop other things from joining them on Earth. That is if the representatives of Aggamon and Tiboro can stop squabbling. They arm the device but then what looks like Juggernaut crashes through the Nexus and tramples them all. And the authorial voiceover tells us that the Survivor can feel the construct doing the trampling.
Tony Stark is scrubbing himself clean in a shower and trying to not think about having a drink or several. He remembers (DoDS#2) the Crawling sending alien worms into his Iron Man armour, and now he's obsessively getting his AI BOSS to run and rerun a scan for xenobiological material. Captains America and Marvel are worried about him, and about Thor who's brooding about his defeat (DoDS#2 again) and also his conviction that he could have nipped the War Of The Realms in the bud if Stephen had told him about the mystic barrier. Carol Danvers remembers the Mothers saying that Earth's magic would be a feast for their Child, and she fears that the worst is yet to come.
Then they get a call from T'Challa with Echo/Phoenix and Sub-Mariner in Antarctica where Umar from the Dark Dimension has built her new home. CapM reports that various magic-users are trying to reinstate Strange's barrier. BP informs them that Umar and others have sent envoys to the Everglades and he asks them to go investigate a sudden energy surge there. The Golden Avenger has suited up and says he'll join them.
When they get there they find the trampled envoys and the activated bomb, which BOSS matches up to a Russian nuke that went missing in the 70's. Tony says he'll handle the bomb but the other 3 had better make themselves scarce just in case he can't. And CapM gets news of multiple Juggernauts in downtown Miami, so the other 3 Avengers head there ...
... where they find that the crimson Juggernauts (none of whom are Cain Marko because he's in New York) are building a crimson tower (which the voiceover calls the Mourningspyre) that Carol detects is emitting a lot of psionic energy. Steve Rogers counsels restraint but Thor goes in smashing.
Back at the Nexus Tony Stark is spooked when some millipedes crawl over his armour. Panicked he orders Clamshell Protocol which opens front of the armour and ejects him into the mud.
In Miami the 3 Avengers are fighting 2 Juggernauts who noticeably aren't attacking people just collecting material for their construction. When CapM flies into 1 which is attacking CapA she discovers that it's hollow and easily falls apart. So Thor has no hesitation in smashing the other 1's head in. But more Juggernauts keep on building, and these 2 reassemble to rejoin their endeavour. And now Carol Danvers recognises them as built out of the Crimson Bands Of Cyttorak that DrS often invoked in a spell.
Carol and Tony are in continuous contact so he knows about the Cyttorak connection too. But now he says he's taking the bomb into the Nexus to see where the Juggernauts came from. Inside the Nexus he loses contact with CapM and he finds a version of the standard Ditko/Starlin psychedelia. And then he sees a handy clue, a crimson body halfway through another portal. Stepping through he finds a crimson world with an injured woman who manages to gaspingly ask if 'the girl' is safe. BOSS scans her and says she's dying. Stark asks if this is the Crimson Cosmos of Cyttorak. She says it's what's left after the Three Mothers and their Child passed through, but now she's the only 1 left here. And she asks to be taken to another Mourningspyre.
Back on Earth the 3 Avengers are still battling Juggernauts, when 1 of them claps his giant hands around Thor's head, temporarily deafening him.
In the Crimson Cosmos the woman tells Iron Man that the Spyre can't heal her, but it can tell him her story. A psionic energy discharge shows Tony how a female child was born to Cyttorak but was discarded, and then adopted by the woman Stark has found. As the child grew she discovered she could control the Crimson Bands, and when the Mothers came she formed them into an army of Juggernauts - while Cyttorak fled to the Flickering Realms. The Crimson dimension was razed, and the girl's 'mother' gave her a last chance at survival. Stark wakes from the vision to find the woman dead, and as (I think) the nuke explodes he jets away home ...
... where deaf Thor is making a last assault on the Spyre with Captain Marvel. The last Juggernaut with the Survivor inside desperately defends it, but Thor smashes through part of it. At that point Iron Man gets back in touch with Carol and tells her *not* to destroy the Spyre because it's not a weapon but a headstone. But she can't call the Thunder God off as he turns his attention to the Juggernaut and throws Mjolnir at it. However the Golden Avenger gets there in time to interpose his armoured body. And as the hammer hits him he uses the Clamshell Protocol to eject out of it in time.
Thor wants to know what's going on and Stark says the 'Juggernaut' will explain. Paralleling Dr Strange's action at the beginning he taps on the helmet and asks the Survivor to come out. The crimson girl dispels her crimson armour and places her hands on the Mourningspyre and broadcasts her grief to the world. But also a warning that they must unite against the Child or there will be nothing left of their world.