Mentored by Agatha Harkness, Scarlet Witch augments her mutant hex power with actual mystical training. In Limbo, Immortus offers to reward the Avengers for Kang’s defeat by showing Vision and Mantis the secrets of their origins. The heroes accept, and one talking, time-traversing synchro-staff guides Vision into his past while another synchro-staff guides Mantis and the other Avengers into the roots of her past. Meanwhile, in space, the Avengers’ ally Moondragon hears the team’s long-unanswered call for Captain Marvel and, acting on instinct, heads for Earth to respond in Marvel’s place. The Vision travels back to 1939, where he sees the origins of his past self, the android Human Torch; along the way, Vision realizes why a Sentinel once identified him as a decades-old construct, and why he has suffered panic attacks regarding airless or enclosed spaces, due to his past self Torch being buried in cement and trapped in water. Back in the present, the glowing green Swordsman figure assures Libra that Moondragon, Mantis and the others are all acting according to plan, but Libra worries that the plan is too precariously elaborate. Elsewhere, the second synchro-staff guides Mantis and the Avengers millennia into the past, where they see the early history of the Cotati, Kree and Skrull alien races, how the Kree massacred the Cotati and slaughtered a starship full of Skrulls so they could have the planet Hala and the Skrulls’ advanced technology for themselves. Mantis asks how this relates to her origins, and the synchro-staff assures her this will be made clear as their journey continues.
While abducting Scarlet Witch and battling Avengers, the Sentinels identify Vision as a decades-old construct (Av #102, ’72). Human Torch recognizes Vision as a rebuilt version of himself (GSAv #3, ’75). Phineas Horton creates the Human Torch and encases him in cement to pacify fearful reporters, but the Torch escapes, goes on an accidentally destructive rampage since he cannot yet control his flame powers, and is trapped in a swimming pool by gangster Tony Sardo and his lieutenant Red (MC #1, ’39). In the first year of the Kree’s recorded history, their homeworld Hala was shared by the barbaric humanoid Kree and the more enlightened telepathic plant beings known as the Cotati. The Skrulls, already an advanced interstellar race, offered Hala a place in their empire and proposed a contest to decide which of Hala’s races would be partnered with the Skrulls. 17 Cotati and 17 Kree were stranded on two deserted planetoids for a year with some basic Skrull supplies and technologies, challenging each group to create something impressive in time for the Skrulls’ return visit. The 17 Kree were left on the barren satellite later known as Earth’s Moon, where the Skrulls created a small region of life-supporting atmosphere for the Kree to inhabit. Living in this area and using the Skrull supplies, the Kree constructed a fabulous blue city within a year, greatly impressing the returning Skrulls; however the Skrulls seemed even more impressed by the Cotati, who had used their powers to awaken dormant seeds within their barren planetoid, which they transformed into a lush garden. Jealous, the Kree massacred their world’s Cotati population, eliminating the competition. The Skrulls’ diplomatic party, outraged, said Hala would be forever excluded from their circle of favored worlds and stripped of Skrull technology, but the Kree responded by slaughtering the Skrull visitors and keeping the slain Skrulls’ starship to loot its technological secrets. Kree leader Morag vowed his people would become starfaring conquerors and someday destroy the Skrulls.
The “synchro-staffs” guiding the Avengers and Mantis in this issue are revealed to be shape-shifting Space Phantoms (servants of Immortus) in AvFo #8, ’99.
