MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: THE BLACK GLOVE PART II

THE BLACK GLOVE PART II

Batman #672 - "Space Medicine"

• Bat-Devil arrives at GCPD calling for former Commissioner Vane.
• Officer Farelli, possibly the one Batman argued with back in #665?
• 7:35 last night, the bat signal came on, the sleeper awoke...
• Mayor is still putting pressure on Gordon for his relationship with Bats.
• Bat-Devil says he came from Hell: we're assuming this is the same guy we saw in #666. His daddy is the devil...
• A secret to tell about Batman...
• Jet and Bruce are a media sensation. Vicki Vale, once a flame of Bruce's, hopes he's happy.
• Jet gave up her life to carry her father's work. Alfred advises to proceed with caution in the relationship.
• "We were pals, remember?" So, all the ghosts were cops? Is that why they were covering up Bat-Bane? Yup, he has the badge.
• Branca and Muller, Bat-Bane and Bat-Cop.
• Bruce's previous encounter with the Three Ghosts was something he might have blocked out; he believes it was in a dream.
• Grenade launcher hits Batman square in the chest. Gordon is also hit.
• The GCPD apparently sent Bat-Devil to hell to learn from the devil...
• A Specimen: we see the head of the stone face idol over Bat-Devil's face from Batman #156. The doctor called him a hardy specimen, an isolation chamber experiment for space medicine.
• Bat crashes through the window: red eyes, black wings, Joker's dream in #663.
• Zur En Arrh:  the planet Batman was abducted to in Batman #113.
• Cardiac arrest, 5 mins till brain death.
• Bat-Mite returns! What are the eyes behind him...

Batman #673 - "Joe Chill in Hell"

• My favorite kind of storytelling! Someone get me an Ergodic, stat!
• Joe Chill talks to his guards as he pops pills, he's paranoid.
• Interspliced flashback of Batman in the urban commando years, he's coming for Fortress Chill.
• He's brought the gun that killed the Waynes, the gun Chill dropped in the alley.
• Batman has been coming to Fortress Chill every night for a month.
• Chill built the LSAT comp, a reference to Batman #47, which this is revamping and retelling.
• Chill is motivated by class warfare, a possible motive for killing the Waynes. Little does he know that the child he wishes he killed is the same creature of the night that is stalking him now...
• Maybe Chill believes that it's Wayne who is sending Batman after him.
• He plays with a deck of cards...
• Batman impersonated one of his goons, Frosty.
• One bullet left in the gun when Chill dropped it. A change from the original, Joe Chill kills himself to prevent death at the hands of criminals when they hear he made Batman.
• Flashback to 52 #47, Batman undergoes the Thogal ritual. Yangti: seven-week retreat that simulates death, after death, and rebirth.
• Bruce feels he's having a flash forward not a flashback, could this be him in Nanda Parbat or is it him now during the heart attack...
• Twin Peaks: is it present, or is it past...
• 13th day of silent isolation: everything is normal, this is my life now.
• All of Batman's cases are tracked in black notebooks, Alfred insists on recording.
• 52 #30, back to the empty quarter, the Ten-Eyed surgeons prepare to cut out his fear. There's a black hole where Batman's heart should be, a result of the dark age of Batman. From the Killing Joke until Infinite Crisis, Batman has been destroyed over and over and over again. The surgeons will wound his soul forever, forcing it to jumpstart a spiritual healing process that will make him stronger than before.
• 2 years with ninja shadow masters, 6 months with the Ten-Eyed tribe.
• 23rd day of Thogal: eyes with human intelligence, verbatim from Batman #156.
• Bruce at five years old: the well of bats, the black well inside his heart. The Forever Pit at the center of existence, the awareness of mortality that breaks dreams.
• He sees his own funeral. Bat-Mite speaks to him; embrace the darkness, make friends with the void.
• The Doctor from #156, one of man's most primitive fears is loneliness, the mind plays tricks when in isolation. In that story, Batman's fears of Robin's death self-inflicted PTSD during the isolation experiment.
• Now, Batman is scared of losing Tim too, which is why he's been keeping him at arm's length since he got back (even though he's had some good screen time in the last Club of Heroes arc.)
• A recap of #156 with some new additions: apparently Batman agreed to the space medicine experiment to experience psychotic states. He wanted a glimpse into the Joker's mind.
• 50 days of Thogal, but those days were last year, while the iso-chamber was years ago.
• Batman's hallucination was brought about cardiac arrest, but Bat-Devil resurrects him with the defibrillator.

Batman #674 - "Batman Dies at Dawn"

• The isolation experiments were a precursor to further experimentation by this Doctor Hurt, the army doctor we saw in #156. The GCPD and military joined forces to create replacement Batmen in the event the real one died, all while Gordon was demoted to patrolman and replaced himself by Vane. Of course, it was a fiasco.
• Three were chosen: Josef Muller, ace marksman, Bat-Cop. Hands were broken by Batman.
• Branca, obedient family man, Bat-Bane. Injected with monster serum and venom, killed his family in state of psychosis.
• Michael Lane, family killed by 'Satanists', Bat-Devil.
• Farelli was part of the program but didn't make it to the top three.
• As Bruce blacks in and out during Bat-Devil's torture, Bat-Mite claims the PTSD that almost made him give up the Batman role in #156 was a post hypnotic command implanted by Doctor Hurt.
• All the iso-chamber stuff from #156 as well as the replacement Batman program happened in the sealed off basement of the GCPD.
• "These are the secrets we teach of death..."
• Mite also says he came from Zrfff, capital city of the 5th Dimension within Space B, an idea created by Morrison in 52 #47 when Buddy Baker used it to return to Earth. "...to prepare your passage."
• Bat-Devil burns Hurt's notebook containing post hypnotic keywords implanted in Batman and his three counterparts. Every secret he needs to save himself and Gotham is turned to ash.
• Farelli claims the officers covered it up out of loyalty to their traumatized brethren.
• Batman wonders if his repression of the Three Ghosts to a dream was manufactured by this Doctor Hurt, this ultimate mastermind playing the final game of 5-d chess.
• Hurt believed that trauma was the driving force behind Batman, so he orchestrated replicant suffering in the lives of the Three Ghosts before setting them upon Batman, who of course beat all three in combat.
• A panel I still think about on page 12: we see Michael Lane's origin, smoke and fire emerging from the corners, followed by Hurt pointing a remote and surrounded by police aiming their weapons, while similar smoke and fire emerge from the corners of his panel. Could this be him at the scene of the Lane family murders and his dialogue referring to Lane, or is it the GCPD turning on him while he refers to footage of Batman? Is the smoke and fire an effect symbolizing the sequence as a secret of the burning notebook Lane has placed on Batman's chest?
• Lane claims Hurt is not human, but the devil we've seen referred to in this arc and Batman #666.
• Hurt is the villain Batman has always feared, the unimaginable evil with a design no one could see coming.
• Batman escapes his bonds and chases Lane. Branca is killed by Farelli. Gordon goes to finish his talk with the Mayor.
• Lane escapes, leaving behind a black glove...
• Bruce resumes his position in the dumpster to cover up his absence to Jet.

Batman #675 - "The Fiend With Nine Eyes"

• Meh issue.
• Dick and Tim take on crime while Bruce has a day off.
• Bruce has dinner with Jet who gives him an ultimatum: take the relationship to the next step or she's done.
• Alfred continuity weaving: was an army doctor before becoming an actor as Alfred Beagle (the OG name for Alfred in the golden age E2 continuity).
• From Bruce's POV it's almost as if we see Jezebel's background change to red against her black skin... black and red...
• She can see something underneath the surface, she knows that Bruce Wayne is the mask...
• Just before he deflects her, they're attack by the Nine-Eyed-Man, an exiled member of the Ten-Eyed-Tribe turned terrorist.
• Meanwhile in Talia's mountain base: she's jealous of Bruce's relationship with Jet and sends Merlyn to take care of her. Merlyn finds out that they've been captured by terrorists, but Damian and Talia see through this as some kind of facade. Someone is out to get Bruce, and they need a plan to stop it.
• Tim and Dick take care of a villain called the Ray-Gun Raider. Dick remembers Batman #156 but hasn't been filled in on what happened during last issue.
• Bruce snaps into Batman persona and makes quick work of the villain, but Jezebel discovers that he's Batman.
• This seems too easy... could this be a ploy to cement Jet and Bruce's relationship just as he was about to let it go? Is him revealing his identity a way to feed the beast and get closer to the mystery closing around him? Does he think Jet is part of the Black Glove?

MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: THE BLACK GLOVE PART I

THE BLACK GLOVE PART I

[The Black Glove Act I - "Impostor Syndrome"]

Batman #664 - "Three Ghosts of Batman"

• Pennyworth blue rose, opposite of the black and red flowers we saw last issue.
• Jabari and Diallo, bodyguards of Jezebel Jet.
• Jet's father was assassinated because of what he believed in...
• DeShawn, pimp in Gotham.
• More Zur En Arrh graffiti.
• Roxy, prostitute.
• Batman gives Ellie a job as a reception girl.
• Chasing old leads, missing street girls, GCPD cover up, monsters...
• Battle of the alpha males, Batman as the ultimate man, the true super-human.
• Bat-Bane. Connected to the Bat-Cop from #655.
• Black Casebook... series of locks opens in his head...

Batman #665 - "The Black Casebook"

• Three ghosts, three impostors. Bat-Cop, Bat-Bane, and some mystery Bat. Damian with his hair in the shape of horns is there as well, "The Third Ghost is the worst of them all..."
• Bat-Bane designed to trigger Bruce's worst fears, he smelled his fear, alpha male animal kingdom battle of egos. Monster serum and venom...
• Black Casebook: a compilation of all the weird stories from the synthetic era of Batman. Vampires, flying saucers, time travel. Alfred equates this to Bruce and Dick's exposure to Joker venom and Scarecrow fear gas.
• Batman has apparently encountered the Three Ghosts before...
• The third sold his soul to the devil and destroyed Gotham...
• Tim Drake is set off by the last arc, feeling he has to prove himself to Batman. Once more playing into the alpha male theme...
• ALPHA MALE PLUS! BATMAN BEATS JAMES BOND BABY!
• Batman kicks the absolute crap out of Bat-Bane, but why are the cops covering up for him...
• Why is the mayor leaning on Gordon to leave the Bat-Bane case alone? Who's leaning on him?
• Talia survived and Damian barely, organ harvest will get him back. She's jealous of Jezebel Jet...
• Bruce kisses Jet, but someone watches from afar, with black gloves...

Batman #666 - "Batman in Bethlehem"

• The futcha baby!
• Damian Wayne, Batman! Interesting that he was engineered to kill and replace Batman...
• Apparently, Batman dies at some point while Damian is Robin, is it caused by Damian or somehow his fault?
• Candyman...
• Commissioner Barbara Gordon, taking up the mantle after her pops died...
• Yeats's Second Coming referenced; the Devil nears...
• New Batmobile!
• Professor Pyg and his Dollotrons. Killed and crucified upside down.
• Alfred the Cat!
• Two Batman costumes, so the Batman who died was Dick Grayson?
• The real killer of Pyg and Candyman, the third ghost, the anti-Christ who will return on the eve of Armageddon's battle.
• Damian's wound is smoking...
• The demon star at zenith...
• Climate change and global warming, summit in Gotham.
• Damian has met some form of the devil, made a bargain with him on the night that Batman died.
• Phosphorus Rex, Loveless...
• Killings of five crime bosses to sign a Satan signal on Gotham.
• Babs says that Damian is responsible for the death of a good friend, most likely Grayson or maybe Tim drake?
• Bat-Devil, anti-Christ...
• Twins (Nikolai + ?), the Weasel, Max Roboto, Jackanapes, Flamingo...
• Bat-Devil suffered to earn the mantle of Batman, but he's a son of the devil as well.
• So Dick Grayson is the Batman who died.
• Bat-Devil and Batman have had an encounter before this future. He was anointed by the devil, the dragon of revelation, the old man who anointed him messiah.
• Devil made bargain with Damian when he was 14, Damian's soul in exchange for Gotham's survival. But the dragon has not returned to claim the soul yet.
• Immortality granted by the bargain; Damian cancels the apocalypse until he says so!

[The Black Glove Act II - "The Club of Heroes"]

Batman #667 - "The Island of Mister Mayhew"

• A man is strung upside down while another man holds a blade...
• The Black Glove, criminal organization of rich dicks betting on games of murder and corruption.
• Roulette wheel, black and red. Good and evil.
• Mister Mayhew from World's Finest #89, Club of Heroes, Batmen of all Nations.
• Apparently, there was another meeting after that issue, Batman didn't even show up.
• Man-of-Bats + Raven Red, Wingman, El Gaucho, fat Legionary, Musketeer, Dark Ranger.
• Musketeer sold his Watchmen-esque fall from grace into a book and movie pitch that made him rich overnight.
• Mayhew's movie called 'The Black Glove', starring Mangrove Pierce and Marsha LaMarr.
• Dark Ranger got an upgrade from cowboy expy while Wingman's become his own insecure Batman knock-off, claiming he came up with the concept a year before Bats.
• So apparently the man being skinned is John Mayhew, and some villain, possibly the narrator from the first page, is wearing his skin! Some kind of gothic painting behind him...
• All of the planes are blown up.
• Legionary killed like Caesar, stabbed on the forum. A note is dropped next to his body, 'Et Tu Morte?'
• Maybe this whole thing is being televised: a big contest for the Black Glove, placing bets on the lives of heroes.

Batman #668 - "Now We Are Dead!"

• Twelve Years Ago: The second meeting of the Club of Heroes, Percy Sheldrake the Knight confronts John Mayhew and engages in fisticuffs with Legionary...
• 23 wounds. Red and Black.
• Apparently, Cyril has disappeared since the ending of last issue.
• Man of Bats saw someone running from the crime scene. Legionary's blood is on his hands since he checked his body.
• Tropical storm around the island.
• Knight's a recovering drug addict after his pops died, Beryl saved him, and they became the revamped Knight and Squire. The gorilla mind control is a reference to JLA Classified. Apparently, Cyril has motive to kill Legionary because of what happened in the flashback.
• Charlie Caligula, nemesis to Legionary.
• They find Cyril in the library, forced to swallow a ticking bomb, the same way his father was killed by enemy named Springheeled Jack.
• Library locked from the inside, no light, just books, some kind of secret door?
• Robin and Squire escape into the library as it locks down, Bats Gaucho and Musketeer take on the knights. Tim hears a scream. Dark Ranger joins the other party, Robin and Squire find a secret room behind the bookshelf and Raven Red is there...
• Pierrot Lunaire, enemy of Musketeer.
• Scorpiana and El Sombrero, enemies of Gaucho.
• On the day of the second meeting, the Club of Heroes was exposed as a sham: who had the most to lose with its disbandment? Could the reunion be a machination of a Club of Villains?
• Wingman is dead, his visage charred and his corpse hung.
• The stakes are raised, the villains have the children, but the Batman does not yield the advantage so easily...

Batman #669 - "The Dark Knight Must Die!"

• We return to the flashback: Percy claims Mayhew killed some woman, never got evidence to prove he did it, and Percy met his end due to losing his nerve.
• Man of Bats gets the bomb out. Batman doubts the death of Wingman, he was too good to let this happen...
• King Kraken, enemy to Wingman.
• Batman and Gaucho follow Robin's trail to find El Sombrero with a rifle and a complex death trap: Raven will be consumed by piranhas unless Robin and Squire support his weight.
• Batman deduces that Dark Ranger is actually Wingman, he swapped costumes after he killed Ranger. His plane was booby trapped, he arrived before the storm.
• Wingman wants revenge since the Club of Heroes was his big break and the Knight ruined it. The Black Glove took him seriously.
• Wasps are set on Tim and Beryl. Tim's shoulder was dislocated back in #665. Man of bats saves them just in time.
• Apparently, Mayhew's wife (Marsha LaMarr?) was having an affair with her costar Mangrove Pierce. Mayhew had her killed and Pierce jailed unjustly for the crime. This is who Percy confronted Mayhew about in the flashback.
• Wingman is killed by Sombrero, who is actually John Mayhew! So, who was skinned in the opening sequence...
• The primary target was Batman, who Mayhew failed to kill: advantage good.
• Mayhew was jaded, unfulfilled, poisoned by consumption. He joined the Black Glove to get his kicks.
• He escapes, but the Black Glove cements his loss by detonating the explosives on the island. Mayhew dies in the explosion. Batman commandeers the Beechcraft and gets all the heroes off the island.

[The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul]

Batman #670 - "Lazarus Rising"

• I-Ching!
• Ra's Al Ghul's spirit is back, inhabiting the body of one of his former bodyguards, Sam Tang. However, the body is poisoned with radiation, so it's rejecting Ra's soul.
• Evil spice girls: Silken Spider, Tiger Moth, Dragon Lady. They distract bats as Talia extracts Ra's in Tang's body at the hospital.
• A sect of the Assassin's League broke off after Talia took control, led by the Sensei. His students are the Seven Men of Death.
• Ra's proves his identity to Talia by recounting the memory of holding Talia at the summit when she was an infant.
• Ra's wants to use Damian's body to host his soul until he can get to the city of Nanda Parbat and restore himself fully. Damian of course says screw alladat and dips.

Batman #671 - "He Who Is Master"

• Ra's spares the Robins if Batman agrees to take him to Nanda Parbat.
• Bats knows the way since he came during 52 #47.
• They get there and Rama Kushna guides Batman's abilities to disable the Seven Men of Death in mere seconds.
• His battle with Sensei is not so fortunate.
• Sensei is the father of Ra's and wants to kill him for his failure in leading the Assassin's League.
• Batman gets his ass whooped, but since Sensei is old af, he can only last for two minutes max. Batman outlasts him, and the two fall in the fountain. It burns Sensei, but heals batman.
• Ra's dies in his current body, but a monk touches him, and Ra's possesses the monk.

MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: BATMAN & SON

[Batman & Son]

52 #30 - "Dark Knight Down"

• So Bruce, Dick, and Tim have been traveling the world to recreate the journey that built the batman, and they believe it's happening because he wants them both to become the new batman and robin.
• Dick and Tim intercept an intergang weapons shipment in North Africa.
• Bruce has dipped out on Dick and Tim towards the desert, the empty quarter, to have the ten eyed tribe cut out his demons accumulated through the grim-dark age since the death of jason todd.
• Dick returns to Gotham and Tim finds Bruce in the desert, who claims that Batman is gone.

52 #47 - "Revelations"

• In Nanda Parbat, Bruce has entered the Thogal ritual for 7 days in darkness. A ritual of spiritual purification. The Ten Eyed Tribe have cut his demons out, demons that provided some comfort and protection. Bruce & Tim climbed the 9999 steps of Nanda Parbat. Will Bruce survive?
• Tim waits outside the cave, and the monk tells him a riddle: there is a goose in a bottle, how will you get him out without killing the goose or breaking the bottle?
• Tim answers the monk's riddle: the goose is only in the bottle because he said so; the goose and bottle are mere words, now the goose is free...
• Bruce emerges from the cave with a smile on his face.
• Batman has been put in a box by his creators since the 1940s. Grant Morrison is saying that box does not exist, freeing him to evolve as we segway into the greatest run on the character.

Batman #655 - "Building a Better Batmobile"

• Batman impostor shoots Joker in the face. Ex-cop who snapped.
• Zur En Arrh graffiti.
• Crime Blitz: Batman's return from abroad puts away all of his rogue's gallery in Arkham.
• Action for Africa...
• "Growl in your voice": we are at prime batman; the personas of Bruce Wayne and batman are achieving a symbiosis never before seen. Tim even suggests the idea to him.
• New Batmobile being built...
• Francine Langstrom is kidnapped, a blackmail to Kirk Langstrom, formerly man-bat, to deliver his were-bat serum.
• Earl of Wordenshire = Cyril Wordenshire the Knight, Batman of England!
• Kathy Kane, Julie Madison, Vicki Vale, Silver St Cloud...
• Man bat commandoes!

Batman #656 - "Man-Bats of London"

• Jezebel Jet, super-model turned leader of small African nation...
• Aunt Agatha Wayne!
• Prime Minister's wife...
• Talia's secret lair in the London sewers...
• Ra's is dead, Talia has picked up the mantle...
• Batman and Talia banged back in O'Neil/Adams run: apparently it wasn't consent, but a eugenics experiment to birth an heir to the Al Ghul empire.
• Talia drops of the kid with Bruce while she retreats with the PM wife to hold the world hostage to "a new kind of terror".

Batman #657 - "Wonderboys"

• Damian Wayne!
• Talia was busy running her criminal empire, so she wasn't with Damian. He's essentially like a twisted Bruce, raised by evil with absent parents, except they're not dead but super screwed up.
• The Spook!
• "Where's he holding his hostages? The fifth dimension? The land of the dead?"
• Damian is cursed by LOA indoctrination; his programming has made him tribal. Just like Bruce tells him, his rage is born out of fear. He just got a dad, he can't help but want to be the center of attention, and he'll get it at any cost, even eliminating rivals for his father's love and approval.

Batman #658 - "Absent Fathers"

• Kirk Langstrom reverse-engineers cure to man-bat serum...
• Bat-rocket allows them to perform sub-orbital halo jumps!
• Talia uses pm wife as a blackmail for Gibraltar, outpost between Spain and Morocco...
• Batman's tolerance for Damian comes from an empathic connection: just like Alfred did to him, Bruce wishes to pull Damian from the pit and save him from the same darkness that almost devoured him.
• Bulu, Talia's own Ubu expy!
• Talia uses the world as her game board, 5-dimensional chess, plans within plans, wheels within wheels, just like Batman. Either she has the dark knight, or no one does. She doesn't even care about Damian, she just uses him as a pawn to manipulate Bruce.
• Did she let the torpedo hit the sub, or did she detonate it herself? What button does she push on her wrist?
• Poor Damian, a casualty of a life he never asked for.

Batman #663 - "The Clown at Midnight"

• "Putting Bozzo To Bed"
• Bozzo The Bandit!
• Peanuts Parker!
• Black and Red flowers...
• Charlie Cheesemold!
• "The Knight & The City"
• The Boys of St Genesius!
• The flowers unleashed the poison that killed the clowns...
• "Down on Jollity Farm"
• Joker is different. Super messed up following the events of #655. Numerous surgeries, speech therapy, brain trauma...
• "Who's working with you?" ... "D.E.A.T.H.H.A.H.A"
• Wisakdejak = Cree Indian trickster god...
• "Her Special Day"
• Sheba...
• Joker's ringmaster-from-hell phase = Killing Joke?
• Bouquet of red and black flowers...
• "Nirvikalpa Samadhi"
• Nerve agent of aerosol poison activated when red and black flowers are brought together.
• The Lamas in Nanda Parbat, we saw them in 52 #47.
• Batman uses mediation in his detective process, slowing his breathing to enter supreme meditative state.
• The dwarfs are the same ones from Killing Joke??
• The pattern = red and black, snake scales, rebirth, life and death transformed.
• "Joker Maggot"
• So Joker uses his own kind of meditation, but instead he wills his metamorphosis. He is the joker maggot, trapped in a cocoon, wishing to be born.
• Counting backwards to midnight...
• "The Checkerboard Doll"
• The flowers, a death rosary...
• "She loves his shattered thoughts, imagining them in all their labyrinthine, jeweled disarray as unknown cities on a distant planet, and she, the girl explorer, lost among sinister wonders."
• Superpersonas...
• "Joker Unbound"
• Joker has immunity to all poisons that would kill most men.
• Bogeyman of this dark century...
• Satire Years, Camp, New Homicidal = eras of the joker!
• He's been disfigured by the plastic surgery, his massive chin is gone, stitches holding his visage in place like thread on a quilt.
• His warring personalities clash for control, who will ascend control of the clown? It's always a new one, a predator-persona that purges the labyrinth and makes it his own kingdom until the next cycle.
• Batman #1 = OG criminal serial killer from the Golden Age!
• Batman #67 = satire years with dick as robin, throaty theatrical!
• Batman #11 + Batman #251 = aristocratic clown prince of crime!
• Killing Joke + Arkham Asylum + Hush = comedian, ringmaster from hell!
• "Harlequin of Hell"
• The Clown at Midnight, the Thin White Duke of Death, Jack of all Crimes, Knave of Razors.
• A diseased demon jester from a negative world beyond all human laws: could this incarnation be influenced by frequencies from the anti-matter universe?
• Andalusian Dog style = Luis Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou"
• Robin dies at dawn, batman dies at midnight!
• The plan was to kill Harley; her death will cement his rebirth and shed the skin of his former super-persona.
• Joker and Batman try to find meaning in a meaningless world. Joker wants Bats to give into the chaos, and finally get the joke!
• "The Unbearable Inevitability of Batman and The Joker"
• Batman uses semi-hypnotic repetitive phrases to draw in his enemies into similar patterns so he can take them down predictably.
• "Like a bad dream waking up and finding out that it's real."
• "Red and Black. Like a bat. In a dream. In a window."
• Absolutely brilliant. This is the best Joker story I have ever read, hands down. Some of the best prose as well.

Marvel's INFINITY Annotated

[Infinity Act I - "War on Two Fronts"]

Infinity #1 - "Infinity"

• We open it up with a play-by-play of T'Challa destroying the blue incursion earth from New Avengers #6.
• "The Tribute"
• This was originally published in the 2013 Marvel free comic book day issue.
• An Outrider, parasite-assassin of Thanos, finds a planet to reap tribute from. Corvus Glaive, a member of the Black Order/Cull Obsidian, goes to this planet and kills its greatest warrior, then demanding a tribute of severed heads to present to Thanos.
• Apparently the Black Order had already visited this planet once before and genocided their population, but Thanos wants tribute anyway (maybe because he worships death?).
• Outrider has one more job to do: find another planet to demand tribute. But I guess he's also looking for something secret as well...
• And of course, he goes to Earth!
• "Constructing Apocalypse"
• On Galador (the planet Manifold and Captain Universe visited in Avengers #15-16) the space knights fight against the Alephs sent to raze the planet by the Builders in their campaign to remake the universe as they see fit.
• There are three types of Builders: Creators, Engineers, and Caretakers + the Curator droid (we saw some of them back in Avengers #7). We also see a female gardener!
• Captain Universe watches as the Builders deploy their world-destroying weapons and annihilate the planet.
• "Orbital"
• Abigail Brand and SWORD coordinate Cap and Hawkeye as they hunt down the Skrull refugees who came to Earth back in Avengers #15. They don't put up a fight since there are no warrior-caste skrulls there.
• Captain Universe suddenly teleports to the Peak, having escaped the blast from the previous sequence.
• "What Was Hidden, Now Uncovered"
• The Outrider sneaks into Black Bolt's chambers and infiltrates his memories:
• We get a rerun of Black Bolt's backstory: Kree experiments 1,000,000 years ago + Terrigen Mists make you who you are + midnight king son of prophecy + schism in family due to his partnership and plans with Maximus.
• This isn't what the Outrider is looking for, so he digs deeper...
• Cap, Tony, and Ex Nihilo take a look at the recovering Captain Universe while Brand shows them a transmission from a secret Kree outpost.
• The Kree have been overrun by the forces of the Builders, and based on the trajectory of the Builder's warpath; Earth is right in the middle.
• Outrider discovers Black Bolt's membership in the Illuminati and their destruction of the Infinity Gems from back in New Avengers #3. He digs deeper to learn of the ancient hidden inhuman kings and lost queen.
• Black Bolt wakes up and rips the Outrider's arm off. Outrider escapes... 
• "Outbound"
• Carol rallies the Avengers as they prepare to depart for the war against the Builders. Everybody goes except for Tony, who stays behind in case their efforts fail.
• Outrider returns to Titan and presents his yield to Thanos and the Black Order: Black Bolt hides what Thanos seeks...
• Outrider receives his gift of death. Corvus explains that even though all past plans have failed against the Avengers, they have all left Earth to fight across the universe.
• Apparently, some guy with a triangle on his temple who was working for SWORD was actually a pawn of Corvus Glaive?

Avengers #18 - "Avengers Universe 1"

• Big space battle!
• "World's Rise"
• Skrull leader Kl'rt unites the remnants of the empire following Secret Invasion, a decides a course of action as the Builders invasion nears. One of his lieutenants sacrifices himself to kill some Builder ships by drawing them into the death of a nearby star.
• He takes this info to the Galactic Council: Shi'ar, Kree, Brood, Annihilation Wave, and the Avengers.
• Supreme Intelligence recalls a battle strategy used in a conflict against the Sh'iar, a strategy which they will use against the Builders.
• "Fall Into Singularity"
• They hide in debris orbiting a black hole; they will lure the Builders between the singularity and their fleet as a trap.
• It all seems to go well until the Builders uncloak the rest of their fleet and destroy a third of the forces in a minute.
• Manifold gets the Avengers out of there as everyone retreats, but Carol tries to slingshot around the singularity, but an energy bleed from a nearby cruiser knocks them out.
• Their ship slowly drifts towards the black hole...

New Avengers #9 - "The Cull Obsidian"

• "The Stones, Shattered"
• Thanos and the Black Order watch a replay of the Outrider's memories from Infinity #1.
• The Illuminati had the gems, but they were destroyed except for the time gem.
• Thanos sends his lieutenants to search for the gem at the homes of each Illuminati member while he acquires his tribute...
• "The Cull Obsidian"
• Tony and Reed activate Stark Tower's defenses to protect NYC from the invasion.
• T'Challa and Shuri successfully fend off Black Dwarf and his warriors from invading Wakanda.
• Ebony Maw restrains Wong and interrogates Doctor Strange while he's in the middle of some kind of ritual that he can't move from (I assume?). He doesn't really care about finding the time gem, he's more interested in what Thanos is looking for...
• Supergiant and Corvus Glaive besiege the Jean Grey School. Wolverine gets impaled.
• Proxima Midnight approaches Namor in the ruins of Atlantis. She offers to leave him and the rest of Atlantis alive if he tells her the location of the time gem. Wanting vengeance, Namor tells her that the gem is in Wakanda...
• Black Bolt and Maximus enact their secret plan they've been putting together, calling all the Illuminati members to convene. Apparently he knows why this invasion is occurring, and they prepare to use the machine while setting greater plans in motion...
• Thanos' flagship approaches the floating city of Attilan...

Infinity #2 - "Fall"

• "From Titan, The Horde"
• Thanos' forces invade the Peak, but Brand and her gang outsmart them.
• Brand and Sydren find out that the invaders messed with the station weapons and alignment, presumably leaving them vulnerable to the fleet heading in their direction.
• "The Gauntlet"
• We get a recap of what happened in New Avengers #9.
• Corvus Glaive's ship arrives at Attilan, and he reveals what the tribute is: a sacrifice yield of the heads of all Inhumans aged 16-22.
• He also tells Black Bolt that Thanos knows his secret, he knows what he is hiding...
• When Medusa threatens Corvus, he explains that none of Thanos' followers fear death, but instead seek it. A group of Corvus' men slit their own throats to send a message.
• Corvus gives them 24 hours to decide: tribute and live, or die...
• "A War In The Heavens"
• We get a recap page of what happened in Avengers #18.
• The council is hunted by the Builders, so they make a stand above a planet Whaan Prime.
• The heroes look to be succeeding until a gardener goes down to the planet and turns himself into a death-bomb that poisons the entire world.
• Interesting that the gardener, Jerran Ko, longs for the days of life before the Builders went on the warpath.
• The council retreats from the dying world with refugees, a pyrrhic victory...
• "A Convenient Lie"
• Black Bolt summons the Illuminati to the pocket dimension Maximus created.
• Of course Maximus is eavesdropping.
• Strange is yoinked from his encounter with the Maw and doesn't even mention it...
• Bolt gives them a drive with information on the kings and queens of the Inhumans, inside is what Thanos is seeking.
• He will go and confront Thanos, because the tribute is complete bs. Thanos has enacted the tribute on countless worlds to ensure the death of one specific person: his son!

Avengers #19 - "Building Towards Collapse"

• "Binary Collapse"
• Carol, Clint, and the X-Bros are captured by the Builders.
• Carol is chosen to have an audience by a female gardener called Ex Nihila.
• "Behemoth"
• On the ring world, Ex Nihilo feeds the refugees with make-shift gardens.
• The council debates the next step, either glorious death in battle or something more elaborate.
• Cap and Thor think a strategy would arise from meeting with Ex Nihilo.
• J-Son of Spartax is a total tool.
• "All These Things We've Made"
• Carol is brought before the Builders.
• They have Abyss, Starbrand, Nightmask, and Captain Universe in stasis. They ask her how the Avengers got a hold of them.
• Apparently all of the Abyssil are gone so the fact that this one exists is significant.
• The Builders see the manifestation of Captain Universe as heretical. They rejected her long ago in favor of rebuilding the universe in their image, but they operate on a platform of pride that only they can do it...
• So what sets the Avengers and Earth apart? Why are they special?
• Ex Nihilo never met the Builders, his education from the Aleph cemented a purpose of creation, which is why he's at odds with the current agenda.
• Cap proposes to use their perceived disadvantage as an infiltration tactic to trick the Builders.
• J-Son is an idiot and tries to betray the council so his empire can survive. The Builders reveal that their main goal is to destroy Earth, but they don't really care about making alliances. They hack his signal and discover the location of the ring world sanctuary, firing on the station.

[Infinity Act II - "Spawn of the Mad Titan"]

New Avengers #10 - "The Thanos Seed"

• "The Thanos Seed"
• Black Bolt gives the Terrigen Codex to the members of the Illuminati to find the son of Thanos.
• Inhuman Lore: four kings and one queen, lost tribes splitting up across the Earth and the stars. One of them met Thanos, and sired a son. The son was brought to Earth, hidden in one of the tribes. Thanos has come to get/kill his son.
• They leave Black Bolt, Maximus reveals himself having heard everything. Black Bolt shows him that he didn't give them the real codex, and now it's time to activate the machine Maximus has been building since New Avengers #7.
• "Favor & Disfavor"
• Thanos meets with his Black Order. They prepare their next moves.
• Ebony Maw is still missing, but Thanos is not worried...
• Proxima Midnight tells him of Namor's claim that the final stone is in Wakanda.
• Thanos banishes Black Dwarf for his failure against the Panthers.
• "The Hunt"
• Illuminati discusses whether they should be focusing on the Inhuman stuff or the Incursions.
• There is a lot of tension between Namor and T'Challa...
• Strange says he's been fine...
• The group splits up to the locations.
• Beast finds some guy encased in ice...
• Strange finds the hidden village, and Thanos's son who hasn't become Inhuman since he wasn't exposed to Terrigenesis yet.
• It's revealed that he's been controlled by the Ebony Maw this whole time, and won't remember anything he's done!
• An incursion occurs, all the Illuminati go to deal with it just as Thanos' fleet arrives over Wakanda!

Infinity #3 - "Kingdoms Fall"

• "Submit or Perish"
• After destroying the Behemoth, the Builders give an ultimatum to the empires of the stars: surrender or die.
• Most agree to give up, specifically the Kree and Spartax, even though Ronan would prefer to die as a warrior.
• The Super-Guardians of the Shi'ar. the Annihilation Wave, and the Skrulls stand by with the Avengers because apparently Captain America has a plan, he just needs bait...
• "World Killers"
• As the Builder fleet surrounds New Hala and accepts the Kree surrender, the Avengers descend with the counterattack.
• Manifold teleports squads into the Builder World-Killer ships and reprograms them to fire on their own fleet.
• The Builders retreat, but tell Ex Nihila to finish them off.
• The prisoners from #19 are freed and Widow convinces Starbrand to unleash his full power, destroying the rest of the Builder ships.
• "What Maximus Built"
• As the Illuminati go to deal with an Incursion in the middle of the invasion, Black Bolt receives Thanos in the abandoned Attilan.
• Beneath the city, Maximus evacuates all of the Inhumans through Eldrac, sending them where they need to be.
• He and Lockjaw stay behind as he activates the machine he has built...
• When Thanos tells him to reveal his child, Black Bolt screams no and destroys Attilan just as the machine is activated...

Avengers #20 - "The Offer"

• "The Words Of A Gardener"
• While the Avengers assaulted the Builder ship with the captive heroes, Abyss encountered Ex Nihila who looks at them and leaves. Abyss tells Ex Nihilo that she actually told her something telepathically: "Come find us."
• "The Edge of Annihilation"
• A lone Builder continues to hold Hala.
• Ronan is pissed, but the Builder uses Supremor to calculate percentage of success if they resist: it doesn't look good.
• Gladiator sends down a drone to the Builder: they wish to parley...
• "Without Judges We Are Lost"
• Ex Nihilo and Abyss meet with the Gardeners who reveal that the Builders changed their purpose when they made the New Universal Superstructure...
• So the new system of Builders was indeed Hickman's reintroduction of Jim Shooter/Warren Ellis New Universal stuff with Starbrand and Nightmask. That's what made the Gardeners and Abyssil obsolete.
• The Gardeners build worlds and the Abyss judge them, but the Builders removed the Abyss and made the Gardeners World-Killers.
• Ex Nihilo goes obsidian as it appears that he leads the Gardeners on a new crusade...
• "No more!"
• "One Man Kneels"
• The Builder agrees to parley with the Avengers, but only one representative can appear.
• Gladiator does not understand the strategy, but Cap claims that even with the victory they just had they are still at a disadvantage.
• All that's left to do is surrender...

Infinity #4 - "Thane"

• "The Last Lesson"
• Builder communicates with his brothers, alerting them of the coming parley with the heroes. They want to broadcast it all over the universe to display the surrender.
• The Accuser Corps are gathered to witness the parley.
• "The Change"
• We learn that Thanos' son is named Thane, and he is a healer in the lost tribe of Lor. They don't have a big chunk of the Terrigen crystal, so only a few have undergone terrigenesis.
• Attilan falls and the machine is activated, unleashing Terrigenesis upon the entire world.
• Thanos fights Black Bolt and wins, now going to find his son.
• The Inhumans believe that terrigenesis unlocks an inhuman's true self, stripping it of lies and facades.
• Thane is affected by the terrigenesis and his power spreads death!
• "A Prayer"
• Thor meets with the Builder to surrender, but he has to be unarmed so he sends Mjolnir off-world while whispering a prayer.
• The Builder pretty much dunks on Thor, slapping him and claiming that even though the surrender will spare the space empires, the Builders will still go and annihilate Earth and all of humanity.
• However, Thor summons Mjolnir back through the freaking Builder's abdomen!
• The Builder says that killing him means the end of everything...
• If they can be killed, they can be beaten! The Accuser corps raises their hammers, the world is free!
• Now we win!

Avengers #21 - "Emancipation"

• "The Promise of the Universe"
• Ex Nihilo believes that Captain Universe can save them all...
• "The Second Wave"
• Ronan rejects the Supremor's desire to surrender and smashes his tank. He leads the Accusers to join the Avangers against the Builders.
• Even though the Avengers liberate a couple planets, the Builders are still too powerful.
• The Annihilation Wave is released once more from the Negative Zone to fight the Builders, but they turn them on each other and the Wave consumes itself.
• Gladiator is a badass and doesn't care: he will die a warrior and face the enemy head on.
• "The Promise Fulfilled"
• The gardeners band together, led by Ex Nihilo, and combine power to awaken the mother. Captain Universe comes back, but warns them that a day is coming when she will close her eyes forever...
• She confronts her children on the Builder command vessel: they claim that they stopped worshipping her when the incursion began. If they can destroy Earth, the axis point, they might save all of the universes.
• She won't let them, because "she has lost something, and must find it..."
• Captain Universe solos all the Builders, but they unleash a protocol to the Alephs: destroy everything!
• Also, one of them escaped into another universe...

New Avengers #11 - "Builders"

• "All These Worlds"
• Illuminati arrive at the incursion site but are met by an Aleph from that universe. He takes them to the World-Killer of his masters, Builders from the other universe.
• Their Gardener rips the mind-web left behind from Ebony Maw within Strange's mind.
• They present the one Builder who escaped from Captain Universe in Avengers #21; he swam to the nearest reality, not knowing that it was under an incursion.
• There is an implication that the Builders emerged from the 616 universe and spread out across the multiverse, building ascension stations in the Superflow between realities like the one we saw in Avengers #7-8, but because of the incursions they can't travel as easily or safely.
• They tell the Illuminati to destroy their own Earth with the weapons they've made, and send them back as they use their world-killer to detonate the incursion Earth.
• Meanwhile in Wakanda, the Black Order succeeds in breaching the walls of the golden city.
• They discover the Necropolis base of the Illuminati, finding the Anti-matter injection devices and the prisoners Terrax and Black Swan.
• Thanos enjoys the surprise, but does not release the captives.

[Infinity Act III - "Avengers Into Oblivion"]

Infinity #5 - "Left Hand of Death"

• "Of Suns And Storms"
• The war in space is won by heroes!
• Planets rise up to destroy  the remaining Alephs, brandishing the banner of the Avengers!
• They are all Avengers Worlds!
• As Thor and Cap enjoy a drink, Gladiator brings grave news: Earth Has Fallen...
• "This Ebony Now"
• Ebony Maw encounters Thane in the ruins of the hidden city.
• He gives him new armor that will contain his power, but it's a trick that imprisons him.
• The pawns of Thanos try to unlock the power of the anti-matter injection devices while Supergiant pries secrets from the mind of a captive Black Bolt.
• Maw contacts Thanos: he has found his son.
• The Illuminati return to Wakanda with Maximus and Lockjaw, hoping to stop the Black Order from turning the golden city into one more Necropolis.
• Thanos meets his son, but receives communication that his base on Titan has been attacked.
• "In The Shadow Of Giants"
• The Avengers return to the Solar System with remnants of the galactic council.
• It's time to repay the debt and free one last world...

Avengers #22 - "To The Earth..."

• "Homecoming"
• Cannonball and Smasher begin a romance!
• The galactic council touches down on Titan, it's time to get their planet back!
• "Plans And Intentions"
• Black Dwarf has been relegated to command the Peak for his failure back in New Avengers #10.
• The heroes evaluate their plan of action: the blockade and the Peak will be problems, but Cap has a strategy to deal with them both.
• "A Greater Purpose"
• Manifold has some doubts about this final battle. The stakes are higher than ever before, and it feels more real than the war in space somehow since it's on Earth.
• Cap and Carol give him some pragmatic assessments as they prep him to teleport Avengers behind enemy lines, but it's Thor who truly inspires hope and perseverance in his heart.
• Time to take Earth back!

Avengers #23 - "...To The Very End"

• "A Word From The Heavens"
• Tony talks to Cap before he and the Illuminati prepare to retake the Necropolis.
• He sends Cap coordinates of where Thanos will be so they can ambush him after the blockade is lifted and Wakanda is freed.
• "Homecoming"
• The heroes besiege the Peak.
• Avengers take on Black Dwarf, but he's pissed and solos all of them.
• Manifold takes the heads of the galactic council to the Peak, and they have an awesome fight against Black Dwarf.
• Ronan bashes his head in. It's amazing.
• With the pirate armada in shambles, the Avengers are free to take down Thanos and liberate Earth.

Infinity #6 - "Amber"

• "Tyrant"
• The Avengers break the blockade as Cap, Carol, Hulk, Thor, and Hyperion venture to the hidden Inhuman city to take down Thanos.
• The illuminati confront Supergiant amidst the weapons room where she has Black Bolt under her thrall.
• As she prepares to detonate the bomb, Maximus reveals he has the trigger and activates it himself, but not before Lockjaw teleports both her and the bomb to a barren ice planet!
• Thanos is about to off his son, but not before the Avengers arrive to brawl!
• Hulk gets merc'd, but Cap deflects Proxima Midnight's tri-part spear onto Corvus Glaive, who then gets incinerated by Hyperion. Awesome.
• His staff survives, so he might live again...
• Thor goes head to head with Thanos, but Ebony Maw frees Thane to make his own decision...
• Thane's left hand was death, but his right hand unleashes something else, trapping Thanos and Proxima in amber!
• Oh yeah, and Starbrand uses his powers to destroy a big chunk of the pirate armada.
• "Epilogue"
• Black Bolt hides the Inhuman codex in the Himalayas for another to find one day. Apparently the royal family presumes both of them dead...
• Maximus is surprised that he always was going to unleash the Terrigen machine to start a new Inhuman age.
• Earth and the space empires rebuild.
• The Gardeners make the planet Whaan Prime (when the one gardener Jerran Ko from Infinity #2 detonated himself) their new home.
• The Shi'ar imperial guard rebuild while the Accuser corps are accepted back by the Supremor.
• The Skrulls crown Kl'rt, but they plan on conquering once more...
• The Annihilation Wave secure a stable portal to the Negative Zone, turning the planet Praxis II into an Annihilation World.
• Thane and the Ebony Maw go do whatever across the universe.
• The Illuminati bring the amber prison to the Necropolis.

New Avengers #12 - "Epilogue"

• "Endgame"
• Apparently Black Bolt has been left weaker since the detonation of the Terrigen Bomb.
• Wong thinks Strange seems different since the Infinity event. Strange is going to confine himself as he confronts the demons of the Blood Bible; he hopes to find a solution to the incursions. He tells Wong that if he does not emerge in three days, Wong must call Reed Richards and dispatch the Sanctum from this plane of reality...
• Is the Blood Bible the same as the Blu'Dakorr mentioned in New Avengers #4?
• T'Challa is banished from Wakanda after the Dora Milajae snitch on him to Shuri about Namor's presence. He refuses to reveal the plans of the Illuminati nor the nature of the Incursions to his sister. Namor gives him a slow clap as he gloats.
• Tony, Beast, and Reed converse with Black Swan. They had to deactivate some of the anti-matter injection devices since Thanos and Supergiant tampered with them.
• She tells the three that the threat of the Builders is nothing compared to what is coming along with the Incursions: the Map-Makers and their Sidera Maris, the Black Priests, or even the Sinnu Sarrum, the Ivory Kings...
• We get some interesting commentary from her regarding the Builders: their ships are not used to traveling across universes since they relied so much on interdimensional travel via Superflow. They were desperate, confined to current universes, unable to escape the Incursions and the offerings to Rabum Alal.
• Everything they just dealt with, the entire Builder saga and the coming of Thanos... it was all just playtime.
• The end is here. Everything dies...

Avengers #14-17 + New Avengers #7-8 Annotations

[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...

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!

New Avengers #4-6 + Avengers #4-6 Annotations

[Swan Songs of a Dead World]

New Avengers #4 - "World Eater"

• Reed and T'Challa are almost done replicating Black Swan's weapon, an Anti-Matter device.
• Tony gives them VR helmets and shows them what he's been making: a Dyson Sphere around the sun to use as a tool to stop the Incursions.
• Reed christens it "Sol's Hammer". Recall that we saw Sol's Anvil back in Fantastic Four.
• Stephen reads dark spells in a book called the Blu'Dakorr. Wong is disturbed. The spells require a high cost; 40 fallen souls... and one righteous.
• An incursion is alerted, and Stephen tells Wong that his estate will be left to him in the case that anything happens.
• The gang runs through some solutions, but no avail. Namor says fuck it and goes into the fray.
• This world was ruled by Magneto but is in the process of being eaten by Galaktus.
• His herald, Terrax the Enlightened, dunks on them. He says there's nothing they can do: Galaktus will unmoor the universe by eating earth.
• The Illuminati say screw it and fight anyways.

New Avengers #5 - "Black Swans"

• The origin of Black Swan!
• The Illuminati resolves to let Black Swan out of the cage to get some info on the incursions.
• Beneath her cage is a bomb, but they give her a necklace with the same explosive power if she goes out of line.
• Terrax from last issue ended up getting captured; they were too late to stop Galaktus, but they took Terrax for some info as well.
• Swan doesn't rock with Stephen...
• Her origin has a reverse of the first page of Avengers #1.
• Her name is Yabbat Ummon Taaru. She had a brother, Dadingra, and they inherited a key to the Library of Worlds, a gift from Sinnu Sarrum, the Ivory Kings.
• Only the great ladies, Black Swans, could navigate the twisted paths between worlds.
• Their planet got attacked by beings called Black Priests, descending from an incursion world. They are seen in the flash forward from New Avengers #2.
• Yabbat is the only survivor, she takes the key and flees to the Library. The Black Swans find her and train her in their way.
• Her world was an offering to Rabum Alal. The birth of Rabum Alal started the incursions, and every Earth destroyed by Black Swans is a gift to him, to save one planet until the next incursion instead of both universes perishing. One season longer... Wardum Uggae.
• The Eighth Way, shading the apocalypse: evacuating Earth and destroying it stops the incursions for that universe.
• Alternate Beasts use this method, and his name is known in the Game of Worlds...
• Black Swan has incursion detectors in her eyes, but they can forecast better; she can predict them.
• An incursion begins, but this one is in Latveria...

New Avengers #6 - "Blue Hell"

• Incursion in Latveria!
• The gang shows Swan the anti-matter bomb they built.
• They take her with them to Latveria where they discover this to be a different kind of incursion: a blue sky.
• Blue means Map-Makers: so there is a race of beings called the Map-Makers who have hijacked the incursions for their own benefit. They harvest worlds, wait for incursions, then send their Sidera Maris (Bridge-Builders) to conquer the new world. From the new world, the dead world is destabilized, and a piece of it falls onto the new, marking it. The marker allows the Map-Makers to locate it and begin the cycle once more. Somehow, they can travel the multiverse at will.
• Doom and Kristoff take on the Sidera Maris, but Panther is worried about the actions of the Illuminati getting found out since Latveria is a surveillance state.
• The group agrees to destroy the dead world.
• Reed thanks Swan for her help.
• Swan telepathically conspires with Terrax, claiming they can be useful to each other in the future. He doesn't miss Galaktus, but he misses finding worlds to destroy.
• Doom's minions find a remnant of the dead world, a marker...

[Heroes Assembled]

Avengers #4 - "The Death & Resurrection of Major Titans"

• Origin of Hyperion!
• His world was destroyed by the Incursions. he tried to hold both earths apart but failed. He survived the death of the two realities but was snatched out of the void by AIM. He was then freed by the Avengers.
• The Avengers discover a sixth impact site of the origin bombs that Ex Nihilo unleashed, in the savage land.
• They intercept the AIM scientists trying to claim it, and the pods burst to reveal little alien children. Hyperion is their new dad.
• However, the AIM scientists find the seventh site in Norway, and an individual encased in crystal...

Avengers #5 - "Superguardian"

• Origin of Smasher!
• Flashback to the New X-men arc Imperial, the Shi'ar are attacked by Cassandra Nova and Smasher falls to Earth to warn the X-Men. A piece of his goggles is left behind, living armor picked up by Isabel Kane. She becomes the new Smasher, and is initiated as a Sub-Guardian of the Shi'ar.
• Her gramps was Captain Terror, an old ally of Cap. He puts her in touch with the Avengers.
• in present day, Stark finds out that the new man built by Ex Nihilo is called Adam/Blackveil.
• Cap and Smasher lead an Avengers squad to the help the Shi'ar against an invasion. They win, and Isabel becomes a Super-Guardian.
• Gladiator and the Superguardians discover that the invading race was actually running from something...

Avengers #6 - "Zen and the Art of Cosmology"

• The origin of Captain Universe!
• She was a single mother with her daughter in a car crash. She was in a coma for ten years.
• The Universe selected her because they were both broken and dying. Earth is the axis that the multiverse spins on.
• Spider-Man is Superior right now, douchebag Otto in our best boy.
• Shang Chi gets our Mother/Cap Universe back on track; Tamara Devoux faces grief.
• But nobody knows what happened to her daughter...
• Tony is still trying to decode the builder language to communicate with Blackveil.
• Cap Universe speaks builder machine code and reveals his name is actually Nightmask. She completes Tony's translator and gives Nightmask English:
• The System is broken, it's coming, the White Event...