While sparring, something happens to Knight’s sword, causing an anomaly catching Terminatrix’s attention. Unable to scan the sword and with Chronopolis threatened, the Anachronauts travel back to when the starstone first landed only to find it intercepted by robots. Invading their ship, they find Prof. Justin Gamble. They free him and he explains the robots’ desire to incinerate all time, using the stone as a power source. The Anachronauts attack the Incinerators until Gamble is able to eject them all from the ship. The Anachronauts return home while Gamble presents Merlin with the stone, suggesting the making of a sword.
The starstone crashes on Earth. Merlin forges a sword and dagger from it (BK #1, ’55). He gives the sword to Sir Percy and Mordred gains the dagger, killing Percy (MSH #17, ’68). Kang defeats the fake Merlin (ST #134, ’65). An incinerator takes over Gamble’s ship and copies itself into a virtual army before capturing Gamble to probe his mind (p).
Gamble and the Incinerators homage British SF’s Doctor and Daleks, both from Dr. Who; the story title matches Dr. Who serial “City of Death”s working title; Jean-Marc L’officier, credited with his wife Randi as RJM Lofficier, is a Who historian/reference writer. 2014-04-27 Edit: Added Professor Gamble to Characters list; added Brideshead per Avengers: Terminatrix Objective character listing showing last appearance as this issue. Added Book of Skelos and Ebony Blade to Items list.
