ProjectX2
Don't expect me to take you with me when I go to s
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2004
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More people should do this. I need to go back and work on my Marvel one. I've also got a DC one I need to type up.
The One Year Later Game
- Thread starter ProjectX2
- Start date
Zombipanda
My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
I want to go back, looking at where the Marvel characters are now, and redo my post-Civil War one.
I've had an idea. But it involves Bruce Wayne as president of the United States, Barry Allen and Wally West taking on the Gods of Olympus and Dick Grayson forming his own Justice League, New Titans style. Oh and Batman's secret Justice League (it's not the same as Outsiders).
Zombipanda
My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
Wait till you hear who the final villain is.
Zombipanda
My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
Donkey Kong?
DAMNIT ZOMBIE! STOP READING MY MIND!
Damn, I would have guessed a shape-shifting villain who WAS the bullet that killed his parents. All theses years he's been shape shifting to random things to try and defeat batman. Even going as far as to turn in to one of Jokers clown themed gadgets. Now he is revealing himself by turning in to the batmobile and kidnapping batman when he got inside.
Zombipanda
My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
so.....?
Zombipanda
My Boom-Boom's mostly gay
So, I got bored, and I figured it would be an interesting exercise now that we're already into the follow-up event, to retrospectively do a OYL Civil War thing. I've been scribbling here and there ever since this thread was resurrected, during stone-bored occupational downtime. The basic idea is that the missing year coupled with OYL bridges the gap between Civil War and Secret Invasion. 52 details the fallout of Civil War and culminates in the disastrous return of the Hulk. The OYL books that are published during this period cover the period of a few months leading into Secret Invasion and establish a new status quo for the characters, with the mystery of "how they got there" being revealed over the course of 52.
Spider-Man
After a months-long disappearance, Spider-Man has resurfaced in Los Angeles. Here, Spider-Man is being hunted by the California Initiative team while the CIA is working their own investigation to discover his new alias. The alias in question is Ben Reilly, a photography professor at Golden State University who looks nothing like Parker. Reilly takes a job as a paparazzi at DBE, the east coast sister publication of the Daily Bugle, which is flourishing even as the Daily Bugle's stocks plummet. But Reilly suspects the editor has insidious plans, and takes a job undercover with the publication. This version of Spider-Man harks back to the free-spirited younger Parker of the past, juggling work with a confusing and varied love life. He faces new villains born out of California sensibilities, as well as old villains who've come gunning after him following the relocation. Mysterio would become a recurring character, having adopted a new alias and started up an ambitious film production company. By hiring villains and former villains he manages to produce films on a shoestring budget, using a varied range of super powers to simulate big budget effects and using the rogues' capabilities to operate actual film shootings guerilla style. The film budgets are supplemented by various small thefts and robberies.
Tony Stark: Agent of SHIELD
Stark's resigned as Director of SHIELD and is secretly operating as their preeminent international field agent. The focus is on the confusing and duplicitous spy game and cool gadgets developed by SHIELD and Stark Enterprises. He keeps an Iron Man tech team on hand, but the focus is really on the dark nature of espionage and the other cutting edge technologies outside of robotics. Meanwhile, it appears he's being stalked by a rogue Nick Fury, who's operating his own skeleton intelligence agency without government funding and with unclear motives. The recurring plot thread would be the cat-and-mouse game between Stark and Fury, played out across the canvas of Tony Stark dismantling a variety of international terror groups.
Hulk
An amnesiac Bruce Banner washes up on the shore of an island resort village in the Mediterranean. Soon he's on the run from a collection of competing international law enforcement and military agencies. He has to uncover the secret behind the manhunt and unravel the mystery behind the beast inside. Also on the hunt are the various remaining members of the Illuminati, fractured after the events of the last year. Some want to capture him, some to help him, and some to use him for their own ends. Stark's got SHIELD at his back. Xavier and Richards' goals are more academic. Namor is cagey, seeing the international climate and the looming threat of war between Atlantis and surface, and is worried that the Americans are going to exploit him in the same way they did the Hulk. He's currently in negotiations with both Latveria and Wakanda for a mutual protection alliance. All in all, the international world is pretty damn scared of the post-registration America.
Fantastic Four
Operating on the moon, with the Baxter Building relocated to the decimated downtown of the Inhumans' city. Here they are helping relief efforts in the city while watching the skies for threats to Earth, and watching the Earth for threats within.
Doctor Strange
Living out of Las Vegas, where the bizarre and supernatural are just an everyday occurrence. The various themed hotels, meanwhile, seem to be privately maintained by dueling demons and extra-dimensional entities, all which seem to be competing over control of the city.
The X-Men
In San Francisco. 'cuz that's awesome. Messiah Complex probably happens as per usual.
Everything else is pretty much untouched. The Thunderbolts' still go through Warren Ellis' story. Runaways are still dragging their asses through Whedon's story. Captain America is still following through Brubaker's story. The New Avengers are still doing their thing, but are now operating as a series of defiant cells spread throughout the United States, with Daredevil serving as a sort of international ambassador. Mighty Avengers are around minus Iron Man.
52 would seek to bridge the gap between Civil War and Secret Invasion, while using World War Hulk as the climactic event in the bridge. We'd see the fallout from the Civil War, and how it gets from the new world of superhuman registration to the onslaught of Skrull Invasion. The secret of 52 would reveal the devastating attacks on the post-Civil War climate as being the opening salvo in the alien war.
Spider-Man: One More Day
would introduce a new Spider-Man antagonist in the form of a ruthless CIA agent who's trying to redeem his agency from underneath the shadow of SHIELD, by covertly creating a new iteration of the Secret Six to bring Peter Parker into government custody. The imprisoned Wilson Fisk is the reluctant financier, with the agent using his frozen assets to fund the new project. Norman Osborne is the leader, promised revenge and a shot as leader of the Thunderbolts. The team is fleshed out with Mysterio, Bullseye, Chameleon, and Shocker. Bullseye tracks down Aunt May and shoots her in the spine, leaving her in critical condition. When Peter Parker goes to visit her in the hospital, the Six are waiting for him, and he barely limps out alive. With a baby on the way, and his family in imminent danger, he stops *****footing around and finally plays hard ball, deciding to secure an escape route for his family and hunt down the criminals. Over the course of the story he breaks into Ryker's Island to visit with the Kingpin and explores an under-construction Thunderbolt Mountain. It all leads into a final showdown overlooking Times Square. Mysterio, who Parker has bought off with sums of money stolen from Fisk's account, turns the booby traps in the high rise against his team mates. Spider-Man mercilessly beats Bullseye within an inch of his life. A battle royale between Osborne and Parker spills into crowded Times Square. Chameleon has bolted in the confusion, but Spidey tracks him casually slipping away with a planted tracker. After some mean threats, Chameleon is coerced into forging identity papers for Parker's family. He shuttles the pregnant Mary Jane and the bed-ridden Aunt May off to Canada promising he'll follow shortly after. With them gone, he takes the fight back to the CIA agent, using the documents he's gathered on the Sinister Six operation to threaten the agent into leaving his family alone. An epilogue shows Mary Jane stopping over in Las Vegas to visit Doctor Strange. She knows that Peter can't keep going on without Spider-Man, and that the United States as it stands can't go on without Spidey to help, so she begs Strange to find a way to make Peter forget, until a time when the political climate has settled enough for them to be together again. Essentially what Strange does is take the thread of Mary Jane's marriage with Peter and plucks it out of alignment with the tapestry. It's still there, but essentially misaligned with the machine of reality, so reality doesn't read her presence for that stretch of time, instead just filtering reality to fill in the gaps without her. All that history is still there, it's just waiting for Strange to click it back into place. Peter Parker moves to LA to let the heat die down, using Chameleon's technology to create a false identity, while May and Mary Jane raise Peter's baby secretly in Canada.
Ghost Rider: Ghost Trails
The Ghost Rider finds a small town in the heart of Texas annihilated, and at its heart is the corpse of Damian Hellstrom, the ousted Lord of Hell who's been drowning in his sorrows ever since. What follows is a cross-country bounty hunt as the Ghost Rider follows the trail of the mysterious killer, who seems to be butchering his way through the mystics of the Marvel Universe. On the Ghost Rider's trail are the Initiative teams who's jurisdiction he's passing through, convinced that he's the killer. The trail brings him in contact with the various demonic lords of the DCU (and Magik!), who seem very concerned about the threat this mystical serial killer poses to their domains. The trail brings him to an end at Las Vegas, where the killer seems intent on neutralizing Earth's Sorcerer Supreme. The killer is Hiroim, from the Hulk's retinue. The wiki space for the character describes him as one of the "shadow people", who apparently channel the gods of their home planet. With the rest of his people dead and his planet destroyed, Hiroim is a reservoir for these disembodied gods, vying for control of his body. Hulk sent Hiroim to Earth to get revenge on the sorcerous Illuminati who sent him into space, but the lost gods of the dead world are looking to coopt the mystical realms of Earth as their own.
Doctor Strange: Neon City
Doc Strange, conflicted over how the Civil War went down, wants to make up for his indecision to the New Avengers. Luke Cage suggests he investigate a new villain called the Hood, who's been appearing regularly in town, and meeting up with a wide array of super criminals. Strange is immediately onboard, as the villain's appearance resembles a powerful demon he's tangled with in the past, the Nisanti. Clint Barton, who's been crashing on Strange's couch and drinking all his beer while he tries to make sense of the new world he's been born into, tags along. They learn shortly that this "Hood" is operating out of Las Vegas, commuting to cities throughout the US and abroad (but primarily New York) to assemble a society of super-villains based out of the neon city. To further complicate matters, Strange and Burton run into two other Hoods. Parker Robbins is being hunted by a demonic entity known as the Nisanti, after stealing the monster's artifacts. That answers that, but who's this mysterious third Hood? The three travel to Vegas to find out, with the Nisanti hot on their trail. Here they find a desert oasis for Marvel villains. Barton infiltrates the organization, while Parker and Strange investigate it from other angles, all the while being hunted by the demon. From here, it dovetails with the Ghost Rider story into a climactic free-for-all in the headquarters of this villainous society - a superhero themed casino-resort. The New Avengers square off against the society. The Nisanti reveals himself, intent on destroying both of his imposters, recovering his talismans, getting revenge on Dr. Strange, and making this new city his home. The devastatingly powerful and possessed Hiroim seeks to assassinate Strange, with the Rider hot on his trail. Blaze gets an opportunity to pull off some Evel Knievel-style Vegas stunts in the process. Amidst the battle, the imposter Hood is murdered, reverting to the form of a Skrull. Parker holds up the revealed "Messiah" for all of his followers to see, and the Avengers and society both turn to face the dual threat of Nisanti and Hiroim.
X-Factor: New Brood
An unidentified object crash lands in Canada. The nation is ill-equipped to investigate the threat, but rebuffs attempts by the US Initiative to help. Xavier, worried about the psychic emanations from the threat, clandestinely sends X-Factor in to investigate. They find evidence of the Brood at the site, but there's startling evidence that this new variety of Brood seems to have somehow evolved. The hive-alien army is undergoing a roundabout migration that leads them to New York. This new breed of Brood (heh) is the result of a union between the nameless Brood Queen in Hulk's crew and the insectoid Warbound known as Miek. They've been sent to Earth to raze the X-Men's Westchester mansion, imprison Professor Xavier, and consolidate the compound as a base of operations for Hulk's assault on New York City. X-Factor splits their forces, to Westchester to help the X-Men fortify their mansion against the impending threat, and to M-Town, to rally the few remaining mutants to join in the fight.
The Fantastic Four
Reed, Susan, Ben, and Johnny have taken a leave of absence from the Four to pursue family therapy with Doc Samson. Meanwhile a first family of Black Panther, Storm, Wyatt Wingfoot, and She-Hulk take over the mantle. It goes disastrously. They seek to work on international relations with the classic diplomatic fronts of the Four, to little effect. Doom seems to be astutely isolating his country from the rest of the world, settling in to fortified positions as he senses a massive threat looming. Namor holds unstable reign over Atlantis, which is teetering on the brink of war with the United States. The Inhumans are isolationist as always. While the real Fantastic Four work their way through therapy, the Faux Four go through team members like tissues.
The Winter Soldier and Team Hulk
Amadeus Cho is suspicious of Hulk's notable absence over the last year, and makes it his mission to discover where his friend has gone. This investigation forces him to break into increasingly dangerous security systems to start unraveling the complex tangle of conspiracies that surround his friend's disappearance. In the process, he enlists Hercules and Archangel. Soon, agents of SHIELD are on their trail, flexing their full military might against the hacker and his superhuman friends. Their investigation eventually brings them into contact with the Winter Soldier, operating under the supervision of Nick Fury. The two are looking into the murder of Captain America (at the end of Civil War), which they suspect to be a cover-up. Convinced that the two investigations intersect, the two groups grudgingly align with each other. Infiltrating the lead SHIELD helicarrier, they uncover the secret of the Illuminati and discover that a recovered Captain America is being imprisoned in the detention wing of the carrier. While Bucky Barnes goes to liberate Cap, Cho transmits the evidence of the Illuminati manipulations internationally. The transmission is what's playing in Times Square during Spider-Man's climactic rumble. But their missions are interrupted as Hulk's assault swings into full gear.
World War Hulk
The Hulk, with his Warbound personal guard and his queen Caiera at his side, is in an inconsolable rage. Banner is nowhere to be seen, and the Hulk is driven only by a desire to destroy those who betrayed him, no matter the cost of life. At first the reader is unaware of the threat. They know that a giant stone ship is hurtling towards Earth, but not who it belongs to, teased only by a countdown to arrival timer. Stone pods that have broken off of the ship hurtle to Earth far ahead of the stone ship,. One contains Miek and Brood, who are sent to reproduce to take out Xavier and establish a terrestrial assault point. Hiroim is sent to take out Strange, but he goes a little crazy in the process. As we close in on the ship's arrival, we discover it's the Hulk. His ship crash lands on the surface of the moon, where Arch-E-5912 (their robotic navigation buddy) activates the ship's defense mechanisms, mutating it into the Warbound's lunar fortification. While Hulk storms the Inhuman city, the remainder of his Guard is left behind to protect their Queen. Hulk rages on the city, going toe-to-toe with Black Bolt and beating him to death. The monarch's screams decimate downtown.. The act of war galvanizes the Four as a family, and they immediately travel to the moon to combat the threat. The Hulk catapults himself to Earth, and the Four are left to assault his fortification on the moon. They fight their way through the Hulk's Guard and defeat Caiera only to have her revealed as (you guessed it) a Skrull. The Hulk, meanwhile, lands on SHIELD's lead helicarrier, where Barnes and Cho's crew are pulling an infil, and Tony Stark is flying in to take them out. In the chaos of the attack, Bucky Barnes is racing to Captain America's cell, even as the helicarrier is being evacuated. He squares off briefly with Tony Stark, only to slip away when the Hulk comes in after Iron Man. Barnes slips away. Iron Man is flicked away like a rag doll. Steve Rogers is recovered as the ship is going down, and while his former sidekick tries to save him, Steve Rogers coerces him into leaving, into taking over the Captain America mantle. And then Steve heckles the Hulk. With the ship going down, Captain America baits the Hulk, using the detention block he's been imprisoned in for a year to keep the Hulk contained while the two beat the living **** out of each other. The helicarrier sinks into the Atlantic with the two dueling superhumans buried in a watery grave, bringing Captain America's story full circle and saving America from the threat of the Hulk.
Aftermath
Caiera had been placed by the Skrulls on Skaar as a deep undercover, to preen the Hulk to his full potential, to reprogram the Illuminati's ship to collide with Skaar, and then to foster and nurture the hatred in the Hulk until he could be used as a rampaging pitbull to make the Skrull invasion easier. The public is outraged at being soundly manipulated by the Illuminati. Tensions increase between Atlantis and the United States, Xavier is hated for reasons altogether more valid than "He's a mutant", and Tony Stark is discharged as head of SHIELD (only to be secretly reinstated as an agent). The Fantastic Four settles on the moon to help rebuild and to worry over why the Hulk was attacking Earth with a Skrull in tow. Spider-Man resettles in Los Angeles under the cover of Ben Reilly, all the while worried by the ambiguous feeling that he's lost something along the way. Mysterio follows, under a new cover identity and career path. So does the Hood, looking to make a new life (setting up BKV's Hood as an antagonist for BKV's Runaways). The X-Men are swept up in the Messiah Complex and eventually move West under increasing pressure of hatred. Dr. Strange similarly resettles into Las Vegas, a crossroads for demonic activity. Bucky dons the mantle of Captain America, and him and Nick Fury pursue the mystery of what other threats the Illuminati has been hiding from the public.
Spider-Man
After a months-long disappearance, Spider-Man has resurfaced in Los Angeles. Here, Spider-Man is being hunted by the California Initiative team while the CIA is working their own investigation to discover his new alias. The alias in question is Ben Reilly, a photography professor at Golden State University who looks nothing like Parker. Reilly takes a job as a paparazzi at DBE, the east coast sister publication of the Daily Bugle, which is flourishing even as the Daily Bugle's stocks plummet. But Reilly suspects the editor has insidious plans, and takes a job undercover with the publication. This version of Spider-Man harks back to the free-spirited younger Parker of the past, juggling work with a confusing and varied love life. He faces new villains born out of California sensibilities, as well as old villains who've come gunning after him following the relocation. Mysterio would become a recurring character, having adopted a new alias and started up an ambitious film production company. By hiring villains and former villains he manages to produce films on a shoestring budget, using a varied range of super powers to simulate big budget effects and using the rogues' capabilities to operate actual film shootings guerilla style. The film budgets are supplemented by various small thefts and robberies.
Tony Stark: Agent of SHIELD
Stark's resigned as Director of SHIELD and is secretly operating as their preeminent international field agent. The focus is on the confusing and duplicitous spy game and cool gadgets developed by SHIELD and Stark Enterprises. He keeps an Iron Man tech team on hand, but the focus is really on the dark nature of espionage and the other cutting edge technologies outside of robotics. Meanwhile, it appears he's being stalked by a rogue Nick Fury, who's operating his own skeleton intelligence agency without government funding and with unclear motives. The recurring plot thread would be the cat-and-mouse game between Stark and Fury, played out across the canvas of Tony Stark dismantling a variety of international terror groups.
Hulk
An amnesiac Bruce Banner washes up on the shore of an island resort village in the Mediterranean. Soon he's on the run from a collection of competing international law enforcement and military agencies. He has to uncover the secret behind the manhunt and unravel the mystery behind the beast inside. Also on the hunt are the various remaining members of the Illuminati, fractured after the events of the last year. Some want to capture him, some to help him, and some to use him for their own ends. Stark's got SHIELD at his back. Xavier and Richards' goals are more academic. Namor is cagey, seeing the international climate and the looming threat of war between Atlantis and surface, and is worried that the Americans are going to exploit him in the same way they did the Hulk. He's currently in negotiations with both Latveria and Wakanda for a mutual protection alliance. All in all, the international world is pretty damn scared of the post-registration America.
Fantastic Four
Operating on the moon, with the Baxter Building relocated to the decimated downtown of the Inhumans' city. Here they are helping relief efforts in the city while watching the skies for threats to Earth, and watching the Earth for threats within.
Doctor Strange
Living out of Las Vegas, where the bizarre and supernatural are just an everyday occurrence. The various themed hotels, meanwhile, seem to be privately maintained by dueling demons and extra-dimensional entities, all which seem to be competing over control of the city.
The X-Men
In San Francisco. 'cuz that's awesome. Messiah Complex probably happens as per usual.
Everything else is pretty much untouched. The Thunderbolts' still go through Warren Ellis' story. Runaways are still dragging their asses through Whedon's story. Captain America is still following through Brubaker's story. The New Avengers are still doing their thing, but are now operating as a series of defiant cells spread throughout the United States, with Daredevil serving as a sort of international ambassador. Mighty Avengers are around minus Iron Man.
52 would seek to bridge the gap between Civil War and Secret Invasion, while using World War Hulk as the climactic event in the bridge. We'd see the fallout from the Civil War, and how it gets from the new world of superhuman registration to the onslaught of Skrull Invasion. The secret of 52 would reveal the devastating attacks on the post-Civil War climate as being the opening salvo in the alien war.
Spider-Man: One More Day
would introduce a new Spider-Man antagonist in the form of a ruthless CIA agent who's trying to redeem his agency from underneath the shadow of SHIELD, by covertly creating a new iteration of the Secret Six to bring Peter Parker into government custody. The imprisoned Wilson Fisk is the reluctant financier, with the agent using his frozen assets to fund the new project. Norman Osborne is the leader, promised revenge and a shot as leader of the Thunderbolts. The team is fleshed out with Mysterio, Bullseye, Chameleon, and Shocker. Bullseye tracks down Aunt May and shoots her in the spine, leaving her in critical condition. When Peter Parker goes to visit her in the hospital, the Six are waiting for him, and he barely limps out alive. With a baby on the way, and his family in imminent danger, he stops *****footing around and finally plays hard ball, deciding to secure an escape route for his family and hunt down the criminals. Over the course of the story he breaks into Ryker's Island to visit with the Kingpin and explores an under-construction Thunderbolt Mountain. It all leads into a final showdown overlooking Times Square. Mysterio, who Parker has bought off with sums of money stolen from Fisk's account, turns the booby traps in the high rise against his team mates. Spider-Man mercilessly beats Bullseye within an inch of his life. A battle royale between Osborne and Parker spills into crowded Times Square. Chameleon has bolted in the confusion, but Spidey tracks him casually slipping away with a planted tracker. After some mean threats, Chameleon is coerced into forging identity papers for Parker's family. He shuttles the pregnant Mary Jane and the bed-ridden Aunt May off to Canada promising he'll follow shortly after. With them gone, he takes the fight back to the CIA agent, using the documents he's gathered on the Sinister Six operation to threaten the agent into leaving his family alone. An epilogue shows Mary Jane stopping over in Las Vegas to visit Doctor Strange. She knows that Peter can't keep going on without Spider-Man, and that the United States as it stands can't go on without Spidey to help, so she begs Strange to find a way to make Peter forget, until a time when the political climate has settled enough for them to be together again. Essentially what Strange does is take the thread of Mary Jane's marriage with Peter and plucks it out of alignment with the tapestry. It's still there, but essentially misaligned with the machine of reality, so reality doesn't read her presence for that stretch of time, instead just filtering reality to fill in the gaps without her. All that history is still there, it's just waiting for Strange to click it back into place. Peter Parker moves to LA to let the heat die down, using Chameleon's technology to create a false identity, while May and Mary Jane raise Peter's baby secretly in Canada.
Ghost Rider: Ghost Trails
The Ghost Rider finds a small town in the heart of Texas annihilated, and at its heart is the corpse of Damian Hellstrom, the ousted Lord of Hell who's been drowning in his sorrows ever since. What follows is a cross-country bounty hunt as the Ghost Rider follows the trail of the mysterious killer, who seems to be butchering his way through the mystics of the Marvel Universe. On the Ghost Rider's trail are the Initiative teams who's jurisdiction he's passing through, convinced that he's the killer. The trail brings him in contact with the various demonic lords of the DCU (and Magik!), who seem very concerned about the threat this mystical serial killer poses to their domains. The trail brings him to an end at Las Vegas, where the killer seems intent on neutralizing Earth's Sorcerer Supreme. The killer is Hiroim, from the Hulk's retinue. The wiki space for the character describes him as one of the "shadow people", who apparently channel the gods of their home planet. With the rest of his people dead and his planet destroyed, Hiroim is a reservoir for these disembodied gods, vying for control of his body. Hulk sent Hiroim to Earth to get revenge on the sorcerous Illuminati who sent him into space, but the lost gods of the dead world are looking to coopt the mystical realms of Earth as their own.
Doctor Strange: Neon City
Doc Strange, conflicted over how the Civil War went down, wants to make up for his indecision to the New Avengers. Luke Cage suggests he investigate a new villain called the Hood, who's been appearing regularly in town, and meeting up with a wide array of super criminals. Strange is immediately onboard, as the villain's appearance resembles a powerful demon he's tangled with in the past, the Nisanti. Clint Barton, who's been crashing on Strange's couch and drinking all his beer while he tries to make sense of the new world he's been born into, tags along. They learn shortly that this "Hood" is operating out of Las Vegas, commuting to cities throughout the US and abroad (but primarily New York) to assemble a society of super-villains based out of the neon city. To further complicate matters, Strange and Burton run into two other Hoods. Parker Robbins is being hunted by a demonic entity known as the Nisanti, after stealing the monster's artifacts. That answers that, but who's this mysterious third Hood? The three travel to Vegas to find out, with the Nisanti hot on their trail. Here they find a desert oasis for Marvel villains. Barton infiltrates the organization, while Parker and Strange investigate it from other angles, all the while being hunted by the demon. From here, it dovetails with the Ghost Rider story into a climactic free-for-all in the headquarters of this villainous society - a superhero themed casino-resort. The New Avengers square off against the society. The Nisanti reveals himself, intent on destroying both of his imposters, recovering his talismans, getting revenge on Dr. Strange, and making this new city his home. The devastatingly powerful and possessed Hiroim seeks to assassinate Strange, with the Rider hot on his trail. Blaze gets an opportunity to pull off some Evel Knievel-style Vegas stunts in the process. Amidst the battle, the imposter Hood is murdered, reverting to the form of a Skrull. Parker holds up the revealed "Messiah" for all of his followers to see, and the Avengers and society both turn to face the dual threat of Nisanti and Hiroim.
X-Factor: New Brood
An unidentified object crash lands in Canada. The nation is ill-equipped to investigate the threat, but rebuffs attempts by the US Initiative to help. Xavier, worried about the psychic emanations from the threat, clandestinely sends X-Factor in to investigate. They find evidence of the Brood at the site, but there's startling evidence that this new variety of Brood seems to have somehow evolved. The hive-alien army is undergoing a roundabout migration that leads them to New York. This new breed of Brood (heh) is the result of a union between the nameless Brood Queen in Hulk's crew and the insectoid Warbound known as Miek. They've been sent to Earth to raze the X-Men's Westchester mansion, imprison Professor Xavier, and consolidate the compound as a base of operations for Hulk's assault on New York City. X-Factor splits their forces, to Westchester to help the X-Men fortify their mansion against the impending threat, and to M-Town, to rally the few remaining mutants to join in the fight.
The Fantastic Four
Reed, Susan, Ben, and Johnny have taken a leave of absence from the Four to pursue family therapy with Doc Samson. Meanwhile a first family of Black Panther, Storm, Wyatt Wingfoot, and She-Hulk take over the mantle. It goes disastrously. They seek to work on international relations with the classic diplomatic fronts of the Four, to little effect. Doom seems to be astutely isolating his country from the rest of the world, settling in to fortified positions as he senses a massive threat looming. Namor holds unstable reign over Atlantis, which is teetering on the brink of war with the United States. The Inhumans are isolationist as always. While the real Fantastic Four work their way through therapy, the Faux Four go through team members like tissues.
The Winter Soldier and Team Hulk
Amadeus Cho is suspicious of Hulk's notable absence over the last year, and makes it his mission to discover where his friend has gone. This investigation forces him to break into increasingly dangerous security systems to start unraveling the complex tangle of conspiracies that surround his friend's disappearance. In the process, he enlists Hercules and Archangel. Soon, agents of SHIELD are on their trail, flexing their full military might against the hacker and his superhuman friends. Their investigation eventually brings them into contact with the Winter Soldier, operating under the supervision of Nick Fury. The two are looking into the murder of Captain America (at the end of Civil War), which they suspect to be a cover-up. Convinced that the two investigations intersect, the two groups grudgingly align with each other. Infiltrating the lead SHIELD helicarrier, they uncover the secret of the Illuminati and discover that a recovered Captain America is being imprisoned in the detention wing of the carrier. While Bucky Barnes goes to liberate Cap, Cho transmits the evidence of the Illuminati manipulations internationally. The transmission is what's playing in Times Square during Spider-Man's climactic rumble. But their missions are interrupted as Hulk's assault swings into full gear.
World War Hulk
The Hulk, with his Warbound personal guard and his queen Caiera at his side, is in an inconsolable rage. Banner is nowhere to be seen, and the Hulk is driven only by a desire to destroy those who betrayed him, no matter the cost of life. At first the reader is unaware of the threat. They know that a giant stone ship is hurtling towards Earth, but not who it belongs to, teased only by a countdown to arrival timer. Stone pods that have broken off of the ship hurtle to Earth far ahead of the stone ship,. One contains Miek and Brood, who are sent to reproduce to take out Xavier and establish a terrestrial assault point. Hiroim is sent to take out Strange, but he goes a little crazy in the process. As we close in on the ship's arrival, we discover it's the Hulk. His ship crash lands on the surface of the moon, where Arch-E-5912 (their robotic navigation buddy) activates the ship's defense mechanisms, mutating it into the Warbound's lunar fortification. While Hulk storms the Inhuman city, the remainder of his Guard is left behind to protect their Queen. Hulk rages on the city, going toe-to-toe with Black Bolt and beating him to death. The monarch's screams decimate downtown.. The act of war galvanizes the Four as a family, and they immediately travel to the moon to combat the threat. The Hulk catapults himself to Earth, and the Four are left to assault his fortification on the moon. They fight their way through the Hulk's Guard and defeat Caiera only to have her revealed as (you guessed it) a Skrull. The Hulk, meanwhile, lands on SHIELD's lead helicarrier, where Barnes and Cho's crew are pulling an infil, and Tony Stark is flying in to take them out. In the chaos of the attack, Bucky Barnes is racing to Captain America's cell, even as the helicarrier is being evacuated. He squares off briefly with Tony Stark, only to slip away when the Hulk comes in after Iron Man. Barnes slips away. Iron Man is flicked away like a rag doll. Steve Rogers is recovered as the ship is going down, and while his former sidekick tries to save him, Steve Rogers coerces him into leaving, into taking over the Captain America mantle. And then Steve heckles the Hulk. With the ship going down, Captain America baits the Hulk, using the detention block he's been imprisoned in for a year to keep the Hulk contained while the two beat the living **** out of each other. The helicarrier sinks into the Atlantic with the two dueling superhumans buried in a watery grave, bringing Captain America's story full circle and saving America from the threat of the Hulk.
Aftermath
Caiera had been placed by the Skrulls on Skaar as a deep undercover, to preen the Hulk to his full potential, to reprogram the Illuminati's ship to collide with Skaar, and then to foster and nurture the hatred in the Hulk until he could be used as a rampaging pitbull to make the Skrull invasion easier. The public is outraged at being soundly manipulated by the Illuminati. Tensions increase between Atlantis and the United States, Xavier is hated for reasons altogether more valid than "He's a mutant", and Tony Stark is discharged as head of SHIELD (only to be secretly reinstated as an agent). The Fantastic Four settles on the moon to help rebuild and to worry over why the Hulk was attacking Earth with a Skrull in tow. Spider-Man resettles in Los Angeles under the cover of Ben Reilly, all the while worried by the ambiguous feeling that he's lost something along the way. Mysterio follows, under a new cover identity and career path. So does the Hood, looking to make a new life (setting up BKV's Hood as an antagonist for BKV's Runaways). The X-Men are swept up in the Messiah Complex and eventually move West under increasing pressure of hatred. Dr. Strange similarly resettles into Las Vegas, a crossroads for demonic activity. Bucky dons the mantle of Captain America, and him and Nick Fury pursue the mystery of what other threats the Illuminati has been hiding from the public.
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