Synopsis / Summary / Plot
We begin with a recent flashback as Dr Stasis (a clone of Mr Sinister) and MODOK revive someone in a life-support container. They keep the lights off because the subject's eyes haven't adjusted yet. Their organisation Orchis needs him for a special role that they don't want traced back to them. The duo introduce themselves and inform him that the world has gotten worse while he's been 'away'. The mutants have their own nation and Orchis have taken over from the defunct SHIELD to oppose them on behalf of humanity. They have a plan to wipe the mutant nation out and they want him to be a part of it. MODOK asks him to blink twice for yes. But instead he responds by smashing his way out of the container, which they take as agreement. MODOK suggest he needs a uniform, and Stasis knows the 1 to use.
This is obviously the char who broke into the mutants' New York 'treehouse' embassy in FCBD (2023) Uncanny X-Men, almost killed Cyclops and stole the Captain Krakoa suit that Cyke (and some other X-Men) had used recently. He then wore it to wipe out a Senate Intelligence Committee in the Capitol.
Now Ben Urich owner of the Daily Bugle scans the latest issue reporting on that attack and the events at the mutants' latest Hellfire Gala. He reviews recent mutant history:- They formed their nation (on the island Krakoa). They gave mankind new medicines which have turned out to be poisonous (Ben thinks Orchis may be responsible (as we readers know to be true)). He knows that Cyclops represented them as Captain Krakoa but again suspects that the CK who committed the Washington atrocity wasn't him. The mutants on Krakoa seem to have vanished, and Orchis is rounding up other mutants and deporting them to mutant-occupied Mars, but Urich understands there's a mutant civil war going on there. He muses that he's got an inside source keeping him updated.
Later we see the deportations going on in an Orchis Filtration Centre in Kansas City. As Orchis troops herd the refugees in the rain into a giant space shuttle a hooded female figure stops the line and tells them to get ready to run. But not to return to their homes. She slashes the throat of the troop leader with a sword and then uncloaks as Psylocke/Kwannon of the X-Men before killing more of the troops with both her swords. Since the fall of Krakoa the originally-Hand ninja assassin has been evading Orchis' Iron Sentinel robots as she staged hit & run strikes on the enemy.
The refugees *want* to obey her and escape but they can't get through the surrounding chain link fence. Until Psyclocke's partner Penance/Monet St Croix rips through it. Neither of them expect to live long doing this but they'll go down wreaking as much vengeance as they can for their fellow mutants.
Suddenly in the midst of the battle Psylocke senses someone else behind her and whirls with a sword to strike Captain America's invulnerable shield. She immediately believes Cap is here on the side of the oppressors and asks if the rest of the Avengers are with him. But he throws the shield past her to take down (non-lethally) some more Orchis troops and says he's here to help them fight fascism. It took him a while to catch up with them, but if he can do it so can Orchis. So he he asks them to join his new version of the Avengers Unity Squad (that previously fostered Avengers/X-Men cooperation). Monet's limited mind-reading in her Penance form suggests that he's telling the truth but Kwannon doesn't think Cap will approve of her lethal methods.
Another suddenly they're joined by Quicksilver who's zoomed back from delivering the escapees to the Canadian border. And Deadpool also appears claiming to have set charges to blow the place up. Penance and Psylocke mentally agree to join Cap's team, at least until they prove not willing to go as far as necessary. As giant Iron Sentinels arrive and the base starts to burn our heroes take their leave. Pietro Maximoff races off to scout out more Orchis bases. The others get in a helicopter which Wade Wilson pilots away. On the way out Deadpool contacts the team's other member Rogue (she teamed up with Cap in the FCBD issue) who's flying above Orchis' mutant gulag in New York and discovers she can't get closer than 200 metres without detection.
Now we've met the team it's time to meet their opposite numbers. Captain Krakoa has commandeered the X-Men's Thunderbird jet and is flying over Krakoa with Blob and Wildside. He's pretending to be Cyclops and promising Blob revenge. Wildside just wants to kill people. He leaves them and leaps down to the island. The Stark Sentinels let him through because he's on their side, but CK has told the others that he's made himself invisible to them. He smashes through the floor of the Quiet Council's meeting chamber to get to the Pit prison beneath it. There he finds and recruits the Fenris twins, Baron Strucker's mutant children Andrea Von Strucker and Andreas Von Strucker.
Steve Rogers and Wade Wilson meet up in the Grand Central underground station. Cap had given DP a place in a previous Unity Squad, and felt guilty over how Wilson had been duped by his Nazi duplicate in the Secret Empire event which is why he's brought him back for this run. They are joined by Kwannon and Monet equally in civilian guise (Kwannon has her swords in a guitar case). They sneak into the old Morlock tunnels under Manhattan where they meet Tony Stark and Hazel Kendal. Stark is working on defeating the Iron/Stark Sentinels that Orchis have built using his technology which he no longer owns. And 'Hazel' is really White Queen/Emma Frost in disguise (she used this alias before when she tangled with Iron Man in a flashback tale in #6 of the current IM series). Psylocke has brought the Squad here to meet the remains of the X-Men:- ShadowKat (Kate Pryde), Rasputin IV and Ms. Marvel.
But then Quicksilver speeds in and takes the members of the Squad away individually. We learn that he's taking them to Captain Krakoa's next target an atomic weapons site where Rogue already is. And CK's got his new team with him who now name themselves the new Mutant Liberation Front. So it's split up and fight time. Exhausted Pietro sits it out. Psylocke mentally offers Wildside 1 chance to surrender which he declines. Penance takes on Krakoa himself but gets slapped down. The Fenris twins join hands to amplify their power and blast a hole straight through Deadpool, through which we see Rogue grappling with Blob while trying to convince him he's fighting for the wrong side. CapA's shield takes out Wildside and then rebounds to hit CapK. The 2 Captains then face off. As they close Steve realises that under the strength-amplifying battles suit CapK is already superstrong. His opponent comments on the predictability of CapA's tactics and then seems to break his shield-arm.