PREPARE TO BECOME FICTIONAL!: New Avengers #1-3 + Avengers #1-3 Annotations

[Illuminated]

New Avengers #1 - "Memento Mori"

And it begins!
Recap page: clipped scene from one of the Bendis comics with the Illuminati (one that I don't care to look up) where T'Challa declines the membership and warns them of disagreement in their future endeavors to shepherd the world...
Reed gives us his everything dies speech; it's inevitable, and I accept it...
In Wakanda, a group of tech'ed out kids complete a gauntlet of trials, becoming fitting candidates for the Wakandan space program. Black Panther congratulates them, but not before discovering a hidden vibrational threshold.
On the other side, we see an Earth in the sky. Black Swan and Manifold descend with some foot-soldiers from this Earth, planting a device while they speak in high Sumerian.
The Wakandans confront them, but the kids don't make it out.
Mentions of Incursions, the great destroyer Rabum Alal, and the Wheel...
Apparently Manifold teamed up with Swan to destroy his planet, but she kills him anyways.
Swan activates the device and destroys the Earth in the sky, but Panther KO's her.
Panther recalls a meeting with Bast, who warns him of dark days ahead, worlds dying, and those who answer the call of a desperate man...
The Illuminati!
Iron Man, Cap, Namor, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange, and Reed Richards!

New Avengers #2 - "In Secret, They Rule"

Reed interrogates Black Swan beneath the Necropolis.
Something is hidden within her...
The Wheel demands an offering, and the destroyer gets his due...
The Wheel shames the weak; it breaks hope and crushes decency and steals honor...
What comes next...
Tension between Namor and T'Challa (I assume because of AvX). T'Challa says he will kill Namor.
Reed gives the everything dies speech, and then lays out the known ground rules for the incursions.
The death of one universe causes the end of everything early, contractions in the multiverse, a domino effect of colliding universes.
Incursions last for 8 hours, two earths in the same space. Either destroy the other Earth, or both universes perish. Black Swan used a device to destroy the other world.
Cap rejects any immoral or consequentialist course of action, presenting the idea of using the Infinity Gauntlet as a way out.
They split up to gather the remaining gem (since Charles is dead) while Tony, T'Challa, and Reed build an early defense system.
Hints of what's coming: some reptilian creatures, flying helmed beings, alternate heroes, and robotic soldiers...
Reed and T'Challa meet: two possibilities for the cause of the incursions, either it's natural, or someone is behind it. Reed says if the plan with the gauntlet doesn't work, then they must learn to destroy a world...

New Avengers #3 - "Infinity"

DAMN!
Hank McCoy Beast joins the Illuminati in place of Charles Xavier. He brings the final gem along with him.
The gang finishes the early warning system, devices implanted in their palms.
They put together the gauntlet when an incursion appears, and Cap uses it to push the reality back.
It works, but some kind of feedback shatters all of the gems, except for the time gem which disappears.
Steve says there is no way he's going to let the rest of them build WMD's to stave off the incursions, and they all agree to mind-wipe him with Strange's magic.

Avengers #1 - "Avengers World"

Tony and Cap resolve to expand the Avengers... an Avengers World!
Cap has bad dreams about the mind-wipe...
On Mars, Ex Nihilo and Aleph and Abyss are up to no good. They've come to judge Earth; Aleph has chosen to raze the planet. They send Origin Bombs to evolve flora and fauna on Earth. Two of them hit Australia and Canada.
Ex is making his own perfected artificial man...
The movie lineup of the Avengers come to take these villains on; they get shredded.
Cap is sent back to earth in the Quinjet as a warning, he assembles the backup roster he and Tony put together.
Wake the world!
Before the Light...
Before the War...
Before the Fall...

Avengers #2 - "We Were Avengers"

Recruitment season!
Avengers Machine: Spider-Man, Falcon, Wolverine, Eden Fesi (from Secret Warriors!) as Manifold, Captain Marvel, Shang-Chi, Spider-Woman, Hyperion, Smasher, Captain Universe, Sunspot and Cannonball.
So our three stooges were created by The Builders, the first race born in the universe. They worshipped the female incarnation of the universe, but then decided to remake all of reality as they see fit.
The Aleph judges worlds and purges them accordingly, carrying two seeds within him: an Ex Nihilo and an Abyss. The Ex & Abyss can choose to evolve the surviving worlds to their full potential in the new design of the universe.
A ton of Origin Bombs land on Earth, striking Japan, India, Savage Land, Croatia, and Norway.
Cap gets Manifold to transport the new Avengers roster to Mars.

Avengers #3 - "The Garden"

The perfected artificial man, Adam, is born. He starts spewing builder machine code, referencing something called a White Event, and how the universe is broken, and the builders have left the machine.
Ex Nihilo is psyched, life is chaos, evolution is unpredictable!
The Avengers fight the three interlopers; Captain Universe pretty much one-shots them since apparently her suit is the embodiment of the universe that the builders worship.
She talks about 'a crash' and pie...
Falcon speaks to the birds on Mars, they have some kind of natural psychic link with the dogs Ex spawns, and they depart together.
Aleph gets nuked by Captain Universe, but Ex and Abyss are chill. They decide to stay on Mars.
One was life, one was death! Cap and Tony!