Open to: everyone punching each other. Elsewhere, a toothpick-chewin' Star-Lord flies the two Reeds toward Castle Doom, despite Hulk-related mishap.
From the preview: Maestro arrives on his helicarrier and boasts, until Shield-Thing appears and waltzes right through the ship. Sinister laments his lot in life. Something explodes within Castle Doom, and Black Swan goes to deal with it. Terrax appeals to Galactus, but gets stepped on, before the devourer and his master, Franklin, square off with Shield-Thing.
The downstairs explosion was the Reeds' plane crashing through the wall. They head off to find Molecule Man's basement digs while Quill hangs around talking to himself.
The appearance of the Annihilation Wave, with Thanos at its head, spurs Doom to join the battle. Hearing Franklin refer to Doom as his dad, Shield-Thing realizes he's fighting Sue Storm's son and can't bring himself to keep going. Franklin has no such qualms, and Galactus decapitates Shield-Thing.
Black Swan finds Star-Lord. Quill makes a boasting metaphor about sheep and wolves, and gets slapped silly for his trouble. Crawling away wounded, he slumps onto the Yggdrasil throne of Doom, and sticks his toothpick into it. The toothpick, it turns out, was a tiny fragment of Groot, who turns the world tree into a new, colossal body for himself and wanders off.
The Reeds find the entrance to Molecule Man's bachelor pad, and are met by Sue and Valeria. In the midst of battle, Doom and Thanos come face-to-face. Doom offers Thanos overall barony of the south if he'll stop, which Thanos considers an insult, and reiterates his point about Doom being a feeble god. Doom retorts via pulling Thanos' skeleton out of his body, then tells Annihilus to go eat the heroes.
Before any bugmunching can occur, though, a golden gateway appears and the hordes of the Deadlands come pouring through, much to Doom's distress. They're followed by Namor and Black Panther, who does a big Hulk Hogan point at Doom with the Infinity Gauntlet. |