Avengers #7-13 Annotated

[Heralds of the New Universe]

Avengers #7 - "The Last White Event"

• Superflow! The Bleed in the Marvel continuity! Dreamspace between universes!
• Stations operated by Caretakers and Curators, being destroyed by some kind of rogue entropy.
• As universes die because of the Incursions, the Ascension Stations are destroyed.
• The legacy of the Builders, extinguished. At the nexus of all superflows, the caretaker orders all remaining stations to fire their white events. They are destroyed.
• The White Event arrives on Earth.
• The Light...
• Nightmask explains that a White Event activates heralds to shepherd a world on the brink of universal ascension. A Nightmask is a forerunner of change.
• Because the multiverse machine is broken, the white event is broken, so all the heralds are not present.
• Nightmask uses stark-tech to locate any other heralds: he finds a Starbrand. The selection of the herald occurred at a college campus, and killed everyone there...
• A Starbrand is a planetary defense system, but the selection process was broken, and it chose someone who has been ignored their whole life to wield a power to break worlds...

Avengers #8 - "Starbranded"

• The Avengers confront Starbrand, Kevin Connor. He freaks out and they fight.
• Captain Universe and Nightmask give us some foreshadowing: Starbrand is a product of a broken system, he is inherently flawed. But there is something else at work here...
• The system is broken, but it's also conflicted...
• Nightmask breaks the fight up and teleports him and Starbrand away. Captain Universe tells him to do it, even though it will make things worse and eventually put Nightmask in a box... right where he belongs...
• Nightmask shows Kevin the downed superflow station of the builders: the delivery mechanism for white events. There will be no other heralds to join them as a result of the broken system: they are alone.
• Nightmask explains that there is a conflict in the broken system: an older system that's not meant to operate in tandem with the white event...
• The Avengers return to home base and activate the 'wake the world' protocol to gather reserves.
• Tony mentions that he tagged Nightmask with a universal tracker, courtesy of Reed Richards...
• Just as Bruce questions the involvement of Reed, they find out that the two are on Mars...
• Nightmask tells Kevin that he himself is a product of the older system but repurposed for the new one. This puts him in direct conflict with his maker: Ex Nihilo...

Avengers #9 - "Star Bound"

• Nightmask and Kevin meet with Ex Nihilo and Abyss in the Martian Garden. Abyss tries to scan Kevin, but he reacts, and a scuffle almost breaks out. Nightmask allows Abyss to scan him instead: she discovers that the conflict between systems is actually a result of Ex Nihilo's own experiments. Instead of sticking to the normal gardener MO of termination or evolution, he changed the rules to try to make the Earth sentient. His origin bombs contained their own "human trait charge" that will initiate within its own organism and ecosystem.
• Self-awareness (Croatia), self-sustenance (Savage Land), self-repair (India), reproduction (Japan), communication (Australia), evolution/adaptation (Canada), self-defense (AIM Island).
• The Avengers see that the two fugitives have left Mars and are in Croatia.
• They witness the self-aware organisms fuse into an over-mind, the sentient brain of the planet Earth. It tries to communicate and absorb Adam, but Kevin perceives it as an attack and he destroys the over-mind.
• Adam says they will all be judged. Captain Universe tells him that she gave a warning: do what he believes is right, but it will end up with him in a box.
• The Avengers see the whole thing happening, and fight Kevin.
• The fight ceases when everyone comes to their senses.
• The Avengers believe Kevin and Adam to be too dangerous to remain on Earth, so they are sent to the solar station within Sol's Hammer.
• There was a lot of builder machine code, so here are the translations:
• I WILL BURN THE MEAT FROM YOUR BONES (pg.2)
• DO NOT DARE (pg.3)
• JOIN (pg.9)
• ALIVE (pg.10)
• CAN YOU HEAR ME (pg.11)
• I AM OF THE SYSTEM (pg.11)
• I AM EARTH (pg.11)
• THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN (pg.11)
• THE WORLD IS BROKEN (pg.11)
• THE WORLD IS BROKEN (pg.11)
• BROKEN (pg.11)
• BROKEN

[Survival of the Fittest]

Avengers #10 - "Validator"

• Crazy issue!
• Maria Hill and Agent Porter approach the corpse of Canadian Dept H Agent Robert Michaud. They access the recording implant in his head to find out what happened during the mission... and why he killed himself...
• One of the origin bomb impact sites was in Regina, Canada. Ex Nihilo said it corresponded with evolution...
• One month ago, Dept H sent a super-squad known as Omega-Flight to investigate the impact site. They were picked off by the flora & fauna within the dome; Validator leaves a final message, a warning: This place is death...
• Dept H gets the Avengers to come and investigate, led by Captain America, Falcon, and Wolverine. Michaud explains that they did everything to penetrate the dome, but nothing worked, not even nuclear weapons.
• Eden is able to get them in there, but Michaud tags along.
• The group meets an indigenous tribe of little yellow people. The guide them to a pit of orange energy.
• Validator emerges from the pit and raises her hand...
• Hello father...
• She whispers something into Michaud's ear...
• The group appears out of the dome in a desert, the sand beneath them a mysterious symbol...
• Agent Hill intercepts them, but Michaud shoots himself in the temple...
• Porter and Hill discuss why the Avengers withheld information from them, but Hill understands that SHIELD gives the heroes a reason not to trust them.
• Porter reveals he found 327 hours of additional footage of the mission, but it came from the past... and the future...
• Validator raises her hand as the orange energy pit casts the same symbol found in the desert.
• The Avengers are hit by a wave of adaptation and evolution, morphing them into past and future analogues.
• They see that Validator pulled Michaud close, and she told him something...
• As the Avengers fly home, they discuss the events of what happened, with Logan explaining that Michaud offed himself because some secret was more important than his life, the secret told to him by Validator, his daughter!
• Validator tells Michaud that something amazing has happened, they've made something within the dome, and now she must protect it...
• The system is now online...

Avengers #11 - "Wake the Dragon"

• Avengers go to infiltrate a criminal underworld exchange at a casino in Hong Kong.
• Of course, it doesn't go so secretive, Bobby and Sam convince some AIM bozos to quit their jobs.
• Carol goes head-to-head in poker with the AIM broker Mathias Deeds. He beats her since he was cheating.
• Everybody thinks AIM is there to sell something, but it turns out that they were there to buy an army.
• The army belongs to a group called Chimera; mercenaries who profit on death and war, a wicked kind of progress. Shang Chi fights against a couple of them.
• Shang Chi believes that AIM is preparing for some kind of war...

Avengers #12 - "Evolve"

• The Avengers go to the Savage Land to teach the alien children some good ol fashioned values!
• Spider-Man is still Superior and Tony is in space with the Guardians at this point in continuity.
• The kids were from the self-sustenance pod, so they don't get tired, they don't eat or drink or sleep or run out of energy. So the question is how they will fit into society without any want or need...
• Thor and Hyperion talk about the wars to come, and the storm that seems different than any they've faced before. Will there be another side?
• Builder machine code spoken by kids:
• I HAVE TRIUMPHED
• BUT HOW?
• I HAVE EARNED IT
• Hyperion and Captain Universe tell the kids that their purpose will be to provide and do good in hope of a world without need. Virtue unbound!
• Some of the kids then get kidnapped by the freaking High Evolutionary!

Avengers #13 - "Strong"

• Avengers get help from Garrok the Watcher who tells them High Evolutionary took the kids.
• Evolutionary activates a re-animated Terminus to hold off the heroes.
• Hyperion goes in and whoops Wyndham only to find out that he was using the kids as batteries to power the Terminus. Hyperion gets the kids out of the robot just before Thor fries it with lightning.
• High Evolutionary gets away.
• Hyperion tells Thor that he believed the death of his world to be the defining point of his life, but now knows it was the arrival of a new world. He pledges himself to these alien children. The acceptance of a family, of love, makes him strong!