New Avengers (4th series) #5

The year 20XX:
The Demiurge aka William Kaplan, omnipotent super-villain, smirks as he looks at the corpse of Thor at his feet, his skull in his hand. You’d think an Asgardian would have a less detachable head, he muses aloud.

Thor’s fellow Avengers Marvel Woman (Marlee Brashear), Vision (Victor Shade), King Hulk (Teddy Altman), Iron Mariner (Jako Krangsen), Collapsar (Manu, Chouhan) and Namorina (Dorma McKenzie) are horrified. Collapsar gives the order to attack. Oh please, Demiurge sighs. They can’t even touch him! as he conjures up a protective field.

Vision phases through the field. Demiurge gives the order to dissipate entirely and that is what Vision literally does. Next, he uses the same spell on the horrified Namorina.

Addressing him as ‘Billy,’ King Hulk begs him to stop this. He knows he can. It’s not too late. Iron Mariner grimly points out Demiurge just atomized the Princess Royal. It definitely is.

Demiurge informs them that the canned sardine is right. He laid his eggs in the soul of his beloved Billy years ago. Then he ate him from the inside out. And now he is going to do the same to everything else. Moridun reveals his true, tentacly form.

Danielle Cage aka Captain America calls the team. She informs them trans-temporal team-up is go. Madame Natasha found a working link: Avengers Island 2016. They send a portal to the team and the survivors - Iron Mariner, Marvel Woman, King Hulk and Collapsar - run into it and emerge at the lab.

King Hulk feels guilty for running. Collapsar points out Demiurge killed three of them just by feeling like it. They can’t do this head on, Marvel Woman agrees. Demiurge is at full power now. He can rewrite reality at a whim. Luckily for the world, so can they. Captain America announces. They have a through-line to the past out of the time firewall caging their present. One chance to fix what happened here.

In Demiurge’s body, Moridun gets ready to rewrite reality to make it more like the fifth cosmos he hails from.

Rewind.

The year 2016:
Tokyo, a tech heist in progress. And Clint Barton aka Hawkeye is about to stop it. He fires a concussion arrow at a WHISPER agent taking him out. Much to the annoyance of WHISPER’s boss, the Maker aka evil other-dimensional Reed Richards.

He grumbles about the science in this reality. This is not what he’s used to. Everything’s more … flamboyant here. He chuckles. More… fantastic. Isn’t that right, City? he asks.

Who is City? the giant electronic organism replies. It is Omnitronicus Organo-Mechanic nexus iterated techno-radical organizational networked intelligent computer unity system. Of course it is, the Maker mutters. Well, there are other realities. And the means don’t matter. Only the end. The bold world of mapmaking. Of unification. He grins. But, in the meantime, they really have to do something about the New Avengers.

Elsewhere, the Maker’s agents panic at the attack. One of them complains he could have joined HYDRA.

Power Man tests some new tech, downloading local knowledge directly into his brain which makes him stronger. He and White Tiger quickly take care of the agents. Songbird informs mission control that four tech thieves are down, with two to go. Maybe this time they’ll learn who is behind it. Roberto DaCosta asks her to keep him posted.

Roberto asks engineering about Avengers 4, the time machine. Dr. Toni Ho explains that, if it works, it will beat the von Doom model for precision and energy efficiency. They’ll know in an hour.

Roberto informs the field team they have eyes on the last two thieves. They are running right now.

Said two thieves are more scared of the Maker than their enemies. Hulkling and Demiurge catch up with them. Hukling points out their boss sounds a nightmare. Demiurge magics away their sky cycles. Horrified, Teddy shouts they are two hundred feet up. He stretches his arms and catches the two grateful men.

He could have killed them, he accuses Billy, who tells him to relax. They are in the age of the gravity belt, remember? He figured they’d have one and, even if they didn’t, they are the bad guys. C’mon, let’s call mission control, he suggests while Teddy looks at him shocked. They are done here.

Back in the lab, Roberto muses about the time machine. User status happy, Pod announces. Happy? Toni Ho asks surprised. User status confused, Pod admits. Toni touches her and tells her not to second-guess it.

Hoping this doesn’t kill them, Roberto states, it is his great pleasure to announce this time machine open. He presses the button. The next moment energy builds but the machine seems to be short-circuiting. Squirrel Girl apologizes. Tippy Toe wired it up and squirrels are color blind.

The next moment, the Avengers of 20XX appear on the time platform. So are they fired or really fired? Squirrel Girl asks in a small voice. He’s thinking, Roberto replies.

In Tokyo, the Avengers hand the science thieves over to the authorities but are allowed to question them. Teddy asks Billy if he is ok. Billy replies that they need to get back to Avengers Island. It’s under attack. If he focuses, he should be able to build a space warp there. Attack by who? a confused Teddy asks. Smiling darkly, Demiurge replies, by people who want to disrupt things. Who want to destroy everything they’ve built, and they can’t have that, can they?