The Ultroids hook the Avengers up to Ixar’s Ability-Assimilator to drain their powers. Deducing that the machine wasn’t designed to deal with his restored ability to change size, Goliath shrinks, escapes, and frees his teammates. They fight the Ultroids until Ixar absorbs his androids to create a powerful, metallic colossus. The creature defeats all the Avengers except Hawkeye, who deduces that Ixar’s other captive, the Burgomeister of Transia, is in fact Ixar himself. Ixar confirms that he took the place of the real Burgomeister and that the computer was a ruse. Ixar calls Hawkeye’s bluff to surrender or die, knowing the Avengers’ oath not to kill, but Black Widow convinces Ixar she is not bound by the oath. Ixar retreats, and Hawkeye chooses not to tell the Avengers how his gambit worked to ensure Black Widow’s chances of joining the team.
The Sirians wage a millennia-long, interstellar war with another alien race in which the only survivors are Ixar, the leader of his enemies, and android Ultroids on both sides –Ixar roams the cosmos in search of super-beings whose powers he can transfer to his androids to carry on the war.
Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch rejoin the Avengers. The Avengers implement “Plan D,” a fighting strategy or maneuver, against Ixar. The narration calls Transia a village rather than a nation.
