[Prelude to Infinity - "The World is Screaming"]
New Avengers #7 - "Thrones"
- One month after #6!
- Tony is still in space.
- Yyatdat = endless fear of losing everything.
- Reed has been hopping from Earth around the multiverse with his family. I think this is a continuity justification, maybe some correlation with the FF title while this was coming out?
- Black Bolt has ordered Maximus to build some kind of machine...
- Let's burn it all down...
- Reed and Stephen have dinner with Doom and Kristoff. Doom inquires as to what Reed and the Illuminati have been doing, especially in relation to what happened in #6, but the two warn Doom to stop asking questions and stay out of their way.
- Black Swan has been reading a bunch of books! Terrax is still quiet.
- Hank has undergone another mutation?
- Reed has built a bunch of anti-matter bombs!
- Namor and T'Challa are having tensions: Wakanda still wants retribution for Namor flooding the country during AvX. Namor sues for peace, T'Challa supports the idea of no loss of life even though he wants to kill Namor. Shuri says screw alla dat, let's go to war! Wakanda needs to rebuild its reputation as untouchable.
Avengers #14 - "The Signal"
- Self-repair origin bomb site in India unleashes some Kirby-esque block-Janus face guys who build a sigil structure not unlike the one in Canada to heal the world. They fail.
- In Australia, the communication site sends a signal out across the world. The world is sick. The system is broken.
- The signal is part of the sickness. Something seeking to remake the world...
- It appears that the awakened origin bomb system has activated, the Earth is awakened, and it knows that it's broken. Multiversal fracture point... World terminal...
- This signal occurs every 6 minutes and knocks out the power across the planet. Avengers jump into action to stabilize the planet.
- Tony is back from space? Or maybe just some remote-controlled Iron-Man armor.
- Self-repair site in India accepts the signal from Australia and goes there via portal.
- Avengers go there as well and fight the creatures.
- On AIM island, the defense origin bomb crystal yield they found back in #4 has started to wake up due to the signal...
Avengers #15 - "Sent & Received"
- Avengers continue to fight the communication bugs and the repair golems in Australia. Since it's an antenna, Thor turns it into a lightning rod and fries the creatures, but not before the signal it has cast out is received by an Aleph in a faraway galaxy...
- Captain Universe returns to the Avengers claiming that the end & the beginning have arrived. She takes Manifold with her as they teleport across the universe. They arrive on an alien world to witness an invasion, with ships that look exactly like the ones we saw back in #1's flash-forward of the war.
- In space, Abigail Brand and SWORD are met with a bunch of space-vessels attempting to land on Earth. One ship escapes their tractor-beam net, a ship filled with Skrulls!
- Pandemonium on AIM Island as the being from the crystal (defense) has escaped!
- Banner and his team track the being as it follows the remnant signal straight to Australia!
Avengers #16 - "To The End"
- Nightmask and Starbrand are still chilling on Sol's Hammer, but they know that they can leave at any time since it's not powerful enough to hold them. Nightmask wants to stay and train Starbrand as he continues to evolve and control his powers.
- The defense being kicks the crap out of the Avengers.
- Banner gets stressed and Hulks out in the middle of the SHIELD facility.
- Captain Universe tells Manifold to warn the Avengers of the coming conflict: her children, the Builders, are on the warpath. The Avengers machine is not complete, they need to get bigger...
- To protect a world you must possess the power to destroy a world...
- The space knights ascend to face the Builders!
- On AIM Island, Scientist Supreme and Superia plan to use the Auger (the device that yanked Hyperion from the death of his universe) to recapture the defense being.
Avengers #17 - "...To the Light"
- Superia confronts the defense being, explaining that its confusion stems from the broken system: Ex Nihilo's defiance of the rules and attempt to evolve the Earth created a system that was interrupted when Starbrand destroyed the over-mind back in #9. Then again, the system was also broken due to the incursions and the fact that Earth is the axis which the Multiverse spins on.
- The Earth doesn't need the defense being (possibly due to the presence of the Avengers Machine), and so the defense being is without purpose.
- AIM's distraction works and they trap him in the void between universes using the Auger.
- They also take a bunch of DNA samples from all the Avengers...
- Bruce chills out from his Hulk-relapse.
- Manifold comes back and dispatches the AIM soldiers, revealing the message that Captain Universe planted in his mind.
- The message is expansion paired with an image of the red planet and the sun...
- Tony and Cap know exactly who they need to recruit: Ex Nihilo and Abyss + Starbrand and Nightmask!
- One more recitation!
- It was the spark that started the fire -- a legend that grew in the telling.
- After the light.
- Before the war.
- And before the fall.
- They were the last days of the great idea -- and Avengers World.
- We were final options.
- We were last resorts.
- We were world builders and world breakers.
- And in the last days of life, before a season of death...
- We were Avengers.
New Avengers #8 - "What Maximus Made"
- One week later. [This takes place after Infinity #1, but I've placed it here in the reading order due to publication date]
- Tony is back on Earth. While he was in deep space, he met with the Watcher and they found the corpse of the Living Tribunal!
- He stayed behind while the Avengers left Earth to go fight the Builders across the stars, and he tells Reed that he thinks everything is falling apart and they need to be more proactive by eliminating a specific variable...
- Maximus finishes the two projects for Black Bolt: some kind of Terrigen mist machine and a pocket dimension where sound has no pitch and Black bolt can speak freely + hold secret meetings (Maximus implies that he's already aware of Black Bolt's meetings with the Illuminati).
- Medusa confronts Black Bolt, but instead of being honest he does something (I'm not completely sure I understand) where he wears the Inhuman crown and holds two blue (Terrigen?) crystals in each hand, then shattering the crown while the crystals vibrate.
- What we are... What we will be...
- Does he destroy this psychic sanctuary they share? All we know is that Medusa is pissed and she slaps him.
- Namor is about to make an offer to Black Swan that will solve both their problems when T'Challa offers him a drink. Namor thinks it's in honor of the peace terms Shuri has agreed to, but T'Challa reveals it was a ruse and Wakanda has launched a sneak attack on Atlantis. Namor leaves to save his people, and the cycle continues.
- Tony and Reed return to Stark tower after apparently meeting with someone to do something...
- Reed believes that since they had one month with no incursions, the next month will have at least three or four.
- They get a signal that Earth is being invaded, and a member of the Black Order arrives at the homes of each Illuminati member!
- Ebony Maw approaches the Sanctum Santorum...
- Black Dwarf approaches Wakanda...
- Corvus Glaive approaches the Jean Grey School...
- Proxima Midnight approaches a devastated Atlantis with a mourning Namor...