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Terribilità
This issue pieces together the actions of the Forever Man that we have seen fragments of in earlier issues.In 1502 Rome Leonardo da Vinci makes 1 of his many visits to Michelangelo Buonarroti to try to persuade him to join the Brotherhood Of The Shield. The sculptor, working on his statue of David with the finished Pietà in the background, turns him down again. (And  later on we also see a statue of Ikaris of the Eternals.) Leonardo tries to beguile him with hints of the important work the Brotherhood does and the secret history of marvels they know about (like attacks by the Brood and a Celestial (both v1#1) and a Kree Sentry (SHIELD: Infinity)). But Michelangelo professes to know all about this, and more that da Vinci is ignorant of.In 1960 civil war rages among the Brotherhood in the Immortal City beneath Rome. Leonardo has come to the future to oppose the immortal Isaac Newton, and the Brotherhood has split between them. Young Leonid watches the conflict with the glowing Forever Man who tells him not to intervene again (see v1#6). The situation will play itself out if he but waits.Now a flashback to the Deviant capital Ashomia in Japan in 1630. It is in flames and a mob is storming the house of Deviant Morda because her mate Newton has stolen their holy knowledge and left (v1#3). Morda barricades her door to protect herself and her baby when the Forever Man appears and offers to take the child to safety. She asks him to keep the babe from his father but FM can't promise that. So she lets the stranger take the bairn as her people break in to kill her.Forever Man takes the baby to the Sinkhole in Bendy Time. They see a glowing white pigeon which is attracted to them. The boy is already manifesting the starscape in his skin that will often appear later. He touches the bird which transforms into an equally-glowing pale woman. FM tells her she must look after the child until a man who hurls lightning arrives who will love them both. He gives her a key to look after for that man. (We have seen in v1#1 that this child is Leonid and the man is Nikola Tesla/Night Machine who will adopt him. In SH:Inf she gives the key to Tesla, and in v1#1 Tesla gives the key to Leonid to open the door that leads him to Leonardo.)In Rome in 1642 Newton kills Galileo Galilei the head of the Brotherhood, as we saw in v1#3. But this time we see the Forever Man witnessing the event. Newton draws a sword hilt and the sword self-assembles out of pieces as we have seen other Brotherhood weapons do (like the guns of Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark in v1#1). But FM just looks at him and fades away.Back in 1502 Rome Michelangelo mentions déjà vu and quantum mechanics, terms which don't exist in this era. Then he turns into the glowing Forever Man (which doesn't surprise *us* because FM told Leonid his identity at the end of v1#6) and touches Leonardo's forehead to impart knowledge of these subjects. He then claims that déjà vu is actually contact via quantum resonance (He may mean quantum entanglement, or this could be science beyond ours, or maybe it's just hand-waving gobbledygook) with a version of you in a parallel universe. And then multiple versions of the glowing man appear, saying "I am here now", "I have always been here" and "I will always be here".Leonardo recovers his poise and asks "What now?". Michelangelo says "I knew you were going to ask that." The assembled Forever Men tell him it's his job to save the world. He must design the Immortal City and get it built beneath Rome. He must create a door (the 1 called Iter in v1#1) within that leads to a seeing place (the observatory that floats above Rome in v1#1), and a single key to that door (see above). As must save the Dynamo (Leonid) who he will meet at that place. As an afterthought they tell him that there is a god growing in the Sun (the Celestial baby whose development da Vinci followed in the previous series). And Michelangelo hands him a small ball he calls the Human Machine (see lots of last series for this too).We next see FM with Nostradamus in Paris in 1645, continuing his visit from v1#4 where he gave the man a view of the future which informed his prophecies, and the 'prophet' agreed to suffer centuries of imprisonment by Newton. Nostradamus is drawing symbols on his skin which we have seen in later appearances. Now FM tells him that (I think because of his ideas of parallel worlds) while Nostradamus will endure captivity he will simultaneously be free.Back in the 'present' of 1960 the war still rages in the Immortal City. The schism is because Newton believes that mankind's end is fated (in 2060), while Leonardo believes man can choose his own future. Michelangelo/FM says they are both wrong and both right. Leonid has been looking for a 3rd way and FM is here to tell him that time isn't linear. "There is no great cause and effect. There is no final destiny. We must live our lives in between."Then he points to something which (in contradiction to what he's just said?) he claims "has always been coming". A globe of force appears, and when it dissipates it reveals Leonid's adoptive father Nikola Tesla and his pigeon companion along with Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark (all of whom have just returned from the future way beyond 2060 as seen in v1#5-6).There are 2 appendices to make things clearer (maybe) to new readers, and they also contain stuff that old readers don't know.The 1st appendix is 4 pages illustrated by Kevin Mellon and written I presume by Jonathan Hickman."Galileo's Gift" describes Galileo's Creation Engine which is the machine he, with help from the Forever Man, created and used in v1#3 to repel Galactus by creating a new world for him to eat. It says that Newton couldn't find the Engine or its plans after he killed Galileo, but it has been used 7 times since then. (Creation of various versions of Counter-Earth? What else?)The term Creation Engine wasn't used in v1#3. But in Secret Warriors #24, which was published between then and this issue, Red Webo is introduced with the portable Creation Engine he has built from Galileo's plans, which looks very similar to the machine here and in v1#3. But he and it are destroyed in the same issue.The machine is a combination of linked golden spheres. FM talks about them using terms mentioned in v1#1 describing the Human Machine. And the golden globe that FM gives Leonardo is called the Human Machine here and elsewhere. So is it 1 of the globes from the Creation Engine?"The Key" says that the door Iter and its key were made of Thin Space. In some later New Avengers issues, eg #32, Hickman will write that Thin Space lies between universes."The Death Of Morda" just says that the Deviants cooked and ate her."The Forever Man" tells us the Michelangelo 'ascended' in his late teens and now exists everywhen.The 2nd appendix is a set of Marvel Handbook-style character sheets for characters in this series using the Dustin Weaver variant covers for v1. The text is by Roger Ott, Rob London, Jeff Christiansen and Mike O'Sullivan.Leonardo da Vinci became head of the Brotherhood of the Shield and created the Immortal City. He noted the anomaly in the Sun, built the 1st spacesuit and travelled forward in time to 1956 to fetch the baby Celestial to Earth. Then he challenged Newton's leadership, leading to the civil war here. In passing it mentions a new bit of info, that before leaving the past he created a Life Model Decoy to live out the rest of his life. (This LMD was found in Secret Warriors #25 but not identified as Galileo's.)Isaac Newton joined the Brotherhood, went to Ashomia and mated with Morda to steal the Deviants' secret science. He gained immortality from the Elixir of Life and used a dilute version to bribe the Brotherhood to make him their master. He also killed Leibnitz (and several other rival scientists/philosophers) as seen in issue Infinity. He didn't know Morda's child survived but recruited Leonid into the Brotherhood in 1953 (presumably because of his powers). Then Leonardo turned up.Nostradamus wrote his prophecies and Newton came to him demanding particular knowledge of the future. He refused and Newton kidnapped him and held him chained in a dungeon (which contained the Well of the Elixir Of Life) below the Immortal City. Newton periodically injected him with a dilute Elixir which kept him alive for centuries but with his mind and body deteriorating. Leonid freed him after Leonardo arrived.Zhang Heng belonged to the Eastern branch known as the Brotherhood of the Spear. In 114 AD he met a pregnant Celestial. To prevent the birth destroying the Earth he persuaded her to leave her infant in the Sun to grow.Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark were recruited by the Brotherhood in 1951. They were sent to find Nikola Tesla and his (adopted) son Leonid. They accidentally killed Tesla (in 1955?) but he was taken out of time and restored to life by the Forever Man. Years(?) later (1953) they found Leonid and brought him to the Immortal City. In 1956 Tesla returned and fought them in the city. The battle sent them all into the future where they had to combine forces to get back (to 1960 and this issue).Nikola Tesla disappeared in 1943, and the FM recruited him to raise Leonid in Bendy Time with the bird-woman. They returned to Earth where Richards and Stark found him, and he fought them in his electrical suit as Night Machine. FM saved him by bonding him with his suit with a new power source built in to his body. He came back (to give Leonid the key to Iter) and fought R&S again and they all went 600,000 years into the future. The only new bit here is that Tesla was earlier a member of the Brotherhood.


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All together now
It's still 1960. Isaac Newton has fled to the future (2060 where he expects humanity to end) and the Star Child has followed him. And our heroes intend to follow them both.Night Machine/Nikola Tesla leads Howard Stark and Nathaniel Richards to the Zargos Mountains to a cavern full of translucent cylindrical chambers, with a secret chamber below containing 3 men in stasis tubes. (The Forever Man had directed him there before in SHIELD: Infinity.) Tesla raises the 3 men out of their hole and they connect them up to the other tubes which are already linked up. Then Night Machine supplies the power to wake the 3 up.Meanwhile captions explain to or remind us who these 3 are. There were 2 organisations from ancient times, the Brotherhood Of The Shield in the West and the Brotherhood Of The Spear in the East. In recent centuries the Western branch shrank to a secret society while the Eastern half broke apart. But these 3 Arabs were hidden away before the Spear disintegrated at the behest of the Forever Man to save the future. They are the Last Caliphate, the 3 Brothers of Causality.They all return to the Immortal City, HQ of the Brotherhood Of The Shield beneath Rome. There wait FM, Leonardo da Vinci, Nostradamus and Leonid. The Caliphate greet Michelangelo (the Forever Man). As they will always do they speak in sequence as if they know what each will say. Tesla tells Leonid that "They are the embodiment of branching time. What is, what has come before and what will be." (He said the last half in S:I too.) Leonid says "Huh?" (and I echo him).Leonardo's Human Machine has grown into a very large sphere, with the diagram from v1#1 drawn on the side. He depresses the diagram and it opens as a hatch. Then he ushers the others inside. There are seating or standing positions for them all, and when they take them up they mirror the diagram.Michelangelo is Section 2: the Engine, also described as the drive, total illumination and the agent of destiny.The Caliphate occupy the 3 circles in Section 3: the Navigator, which was even in #1 called what is, what has come before and what will be, the Last Caliphate.Section 4 holds Leonid as the Source, described as the water in the well, the generator and hope.The next 2 circles are side-by-side but described separately:-Section 5 is Howard Stark, the Mechanism, the short end of all possibility, practical application and the work.Section 6 is Nikola Tesla, the Conduit, the change medium and the measurement of progress.Finally Section 7 is the Path, the death of chaos, the single portion and tomorrow. It is 1 circle on the diagram but here contains 2 seats holding Nathaniel Richards and Nostradamus.Da Vinci will remain behind as Section 1, the Anchor, described as the sacrifice, the man left behind and the builder.Many of these assignments have been foreshadowed in the earlier issues.Leonid switches on his cosmic power and they're off through 100 years of Marvel history (some of which hasn't happened yet). We see:-Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the birth of the Fantastic Four.The young X-Men, Hulk, the Avengers reanimating Captain America and the new X-Men.The Kree-Skrull War, the death of Dark Phoenix and a Spider-Man.Then on into alternate futures:-Days Of Future Past, Hope Summers and Valeria Von Doom.Ultron, the Next Avengers and Maestro.And then destruction.Then the Human Machine 'lands' in 3 different 2060's labelled:- The Rebirth Of Man. The Height Of Modernity. The End Of The World.The Rebirth Of Man is a lush jungle (with inhabitants who are staying hidden) which Nostradamus calls "The rebirth, The beginning of all that can be. The broken loop. The eternal promise. This is how the world begins." The Caliphate describe it as "Paradise, but all knowledge lost."The Height Of Modernity is a futuristic city which Nostradamus calls "The next step. The arc of ascendancy. The feedback loop. Tomorrow's tomorrow. This is how the world could be." The Caliphate describe it as "Paradise. Centuries lost but millennia gained."The End Of The World is a wasteland which Nostradamus calls "The end. The end of all that was. The closed loop. The eternal promise. This is how the world ends." And the Caliphate describe it as "A wasteland. Centuries lost, for what?"Events transpire very similarly in all 3 scenarios. They spot a similar building - covered in plant growth, brand new or ruined. Night Machine flies to investigate and gets zapped. Stark generates 1 of his self-building guns, and tells Richards to arm the Caliphate. The symbol for 2060 appears on Nostradamus' forehead. Newton comes out of the building, and the Caliphate describe him as "Betrayer. Prophet. The man who remade the world", "Betrayer. Anachronist. The man who could not defeat the future" or "Betrayer. Apostate. The man who is going to destroy the world".At Newton's signal the building shakes off its outside to reveal the giant Star-Child. Our travellers attack (including Tesla's bird/woman companion, but excluding FM and Nostradamus) and Newton and the Celestial fire back. Across all realities Michelangelo prepares the Human Machine for the final task.


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I am the Sun
Our gang used the Human Machine to follow Isaac Newton and the Celestial Star Child into 3 versions of the future 2060. Last issue they fought and now in each timeline there only remains Newton, his estranged son Leonid and Michelangelo the Forever Man in his multiple golden bodies from different times and/or timelines. Forever Man has rebuilt the Human Machine for Leonid, merged from all 3 futures, to ride to where he needs to be.Now as Leonid departs in the Human Machine, Michelangelo (now reduced to 3 bodies) can no longer see the future(s). Leonid considers the 3 futures (the Height Of Modernity, the Rebirth Of Man and the End Of The World) and all the possibilities in between them and he wants the conflict to end. He generates his forcefield and there's a big explosion.We see the universe created out of nothing, evolving to contain stars. And in 1 of the stars is a pregnant female Celestial (ie a version of the 1 in v1#4 that gave birth to the Star Child). But this time she produces a different creature that looks like Leonid in his forcefield.Next we see Newton and the 3 Forever Men facing a very different Star Child (looking more like a version of a Nimrod Sentinel from X-Men, but with the Human Machine diagram etched on its face). Then it opens up and Leonid steps out, evolved into a humanoid with the universe as his body (like Eternity) but still with 3 overlapping bodies (like the end of last issue).Leonid greets his father and asks him to abandon his fixation on humanity ending in 2060 so that they can discuss things rationally. Newton still insists it is fated and blasts his son. The blast passes through the body which then reforms unharmed. Leonid says he's trying to save everything including his father, and Michelangelo asks Isaac to listen. Newton is adamant so his son takes a drastic measure to compel his attention - he splits 1 side of Isaac's body into anatomical components.The FM asks Leonid what the Human Machine did to him. Newton  joins in, possibly hoping that if understands what his son has become it might show him how to fight back. Leonid says the HM is designed to explore potential, but then so is life itself. Cue a montage of the history of life on (Marvel) Earth.We see simple cells, then amoeboid life, then fish and amphibians. At least the latter stages are watched by Celestials and possibly helped along. The space-gods certainly seem to affect the evolution of humanoids as do the Kree and their Sentry robots. And the Watcher watches super-powers emerge early on.Leonid says that now that man has conquered land, sea, air and space he inevitably asks "What now?" Newton states his position that all things, including species, have a finite span within which to do what they are meant to do. (And his Quiet Math proved to him that humanity's span ends in 2060.) Michelangelo on the other hand believes mankind has the free will to choose its own destiny.Leonid believes he can give both of them what they desire. He collapses all of time into an instant and shows them a god's-eye view of the universe. From this POV people are continually making free choices but the result is the foregone conclusion of all those choices. He asks if such a universe would satisfy them both, and they both agree.We see a montage of elements from the preceding issues of this 2 volumes plus 1 issue series (as Leonid rebuilds history?). Forever Man comments that time loops back on itself producing an evolving unified history. (This could be a description of the Marvel comics universe where retcons continually change the past and the sliding timescale keeps moving the dates but the whole still hangs together.) This is definitely a universe that *he* approves of.And now we see the moment in that universe (in v2#4) when the assembled characters set off from 1960 in the Human Machine to follow Isaac Newton and the Star Child into the future. But instead of going to 2060 they find themselves underground, and they step out into a tunnel dug by an excavation machine and Leonardo da Vinci welcomes them to a busy street in Rome (in our present or only a few years later?).Da Vinci asks Leonid what took so long, and he says he had a little problem to solve. (So all the chars who died last issue are alive in this version.) Nikola Tesla/Night Machine asks what happened to Newton? Leonid says he's given him and the Star Child another Earth where mankind has died as he wanted. (We see an image of Abu Musa in v1#3 trying to do a similar thing. He failed, but we know from the same issue that Galileo successfully used the same technique to save Earth from Galactus by creating another world for him to eat.)We finish with an epilogue of Howard Stark using his clunky voice-controlled typewriter to leave a message for his son Tony. He has already entered the history of these events (and of the Brotherhood Of The Shield) as we have seen in previous issues. He gives him advise on how to solve problems, and hence help the world. Visualise the problem and its solution in your mind's eye until you can see it clearly. "Everything begins with an idea. Everything begins with an image." And we see images from v1#1 where we 1st heard those words. Panels of the battle in 2620 BC against the Brood that kickstarted the Brotherhood Of The Shield. And the image on a shield that became the symbol of the Brotherhood. An image that resembles that of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s emblem to be.


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Yesterday, today, tomorrow
Last issue our heroes (except Leonardo da Vinci who stayed behind as the Anchor) in the Human Machine followed Isaac Newton and the Celestial Star Child from 1960 to 3 versions of 2060:- The Height Of Modernity (a technopolis); The Rebirth Of Man (a green jungle with possibly the remnants of mankind hiding in it); The End Of The World (a devastated wasteland). Now they somehow simultaneously fight in all 3 timelines at once.3 of the characters are the Last Caliphate, the 3 Arab Brothers Of Causality, the last representatives of the Eastern Brotherhood Of The Spear, who have been revived from suspended animation. Here they are given names Hasan, Hamza and Haider Ibn Al-Haytham. In earlier issues they have been said to represent what is, what was and what will be. Hasan in technopolis does a voiceover for the 1st half of this issue, and his statements suggest that Haider represents the past. It is less clear that Hasan is the future and Hamza is the present. All 3 exist in each timeline, but the wording seems to associate the future with the technopolis, the present with the green, and the past with the wasteland.The other heroes are Howard Stark, Nathaniel Richards, Night Machine/Nikola Tesla and his bird/woman companion and their adopted son Leonid (the actual son of Newton and a Deviant woman). They and da Vinci are part of the Western Brotherhood Of The Shield, and the 2 historical organisations are now reunited to oppose Newton's plan to ensure Mankind's fated doom in this future year.In each world they attack Newton and the Star Child, but the details of the battle vary. In technopolis the Star Child kills Hamza and crushes Stark to death, and the distraction allows Newton to down Richards. In the jungle the Child crushes the bird/woman, and *that* distraction allows Newton to defeat Tesla, but Howard builds a machine around Nathaniel. In the wasteland the Star Child kills Hamza and the bird and distracts Leonid from maintaining a defensive shield allowing the Celestial to damage lots of foes.The Forever Man accompanied them here, and now in all realities multiple chronal copies of him start dismantling the Human Machine vehicle. And Nostradamus utters his final prophecy "Between the gates of Heaven and Hell lost in a circling forever the faithful and faithless meet, steel on steel, blood on stone, crying to the Great Immortal - What will you do?" And he looks at the immortal Newton. In 2 timelines Isaac kills him, but in the wasteland he lets him live.The conflict continues. In technopolis as Night Machine assaults the Star Child the bird pecks Newton's right eye out and he kills her in revenge. In the green Haider tries to mentally control the Child as Newton continues to batter Tesla. In the desert the Celestial kills Hasan(?) while wounded Haider kneels over dead Nathaniel, and then Nostradamus brains him with a rock.Then in techopolis Newton kill Haider. Hasan takes a blast meant for Leonid and redirects it at the Star Child before dying as well. In the green world Newton finishes off Tesla and the Star Child's foot stomps Hasan and Hamza. Haider also dies (from the strain of trying to mentally control the Celestial or the shock of it killing his brothers). In the wasteland the Star Child kills Stark and Tesla. Future Hasan (and the others) being dead means his narration stops.Meanwhile the multi-Forever Man has been rebuilding the Human Machine in a new form which he shows to Leonid in all 3 worlds.In technopolis Tesla seeks revenge for the death of his bird/woman by flying into the Star Child and blowing them both up. In the green Stark has finished the special set of armour for Richards who flies to the Star Child and takes it away in a time bubble (like the 1 they used in v1#6). Newton retaliates by killing Stark. And in the desert the multiple Forever Men take the Star Child to pieces.If you've been keeping score (like I had to) then you should agree that basically the only people left alive are the Forever Man, Leonid and Newton in all 3 realities. Plus 1 of the Nathaniel Richards' maybe escaped into time to continue his life as a time-traveller (in  Fantastic Four). And we don't know what happened to Nostradamus in the wasteland timeline.Now Forever Man sends the 3 copies of Leonid into the new Human Machine where they coexist (shown in a pose echoing da Vinci's Vitruvian Man). And the boy takes it away on another time journey.


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Fire
Leonid, Forever Man, Night Machine and his bird/woman companion see the armoured Celestial Star Child now giant-size and knocking over tall buildings in the Immortal City of the Brotherhood Of The Shield below Rome. Leonid protects them with a force bubble.Star Child then causes deliberate damage with eye blasts. It sets its sights on Newton's large Century Machine clock, grabs it and smashes it. Newton's troops fire back at him. Leonardo da Vinci restrains them, but only to unleash his own firebolt which downs the Celestial. However it fires its own hand-blast back at him, and Leonardo has to defend himself and the troops with his own force field device.The Star Child rises but Nikola Tesla is dropped onto his back from the talons of his giant white bird. On contact Night Machine unleashes a ferocious amount of electricity. And the Celestial falls again (knocking over more buildings).Tesla regroups with da Vinci, Leonid and the Forever Man (Michelangelo). They rescue Nostradamus from some rubble. The Star Child was sent mad by studying Newton's Quiet Math last issue, and its most important symbol became etched on the brow of his armour (and that's where the eye-beam came from). Now that glowing symbol appears on Nostradamus' brow too.The Celestial rises again. Its head has reconfigured into an even more potent blaster, and Leonid's force bubble only manages to scatter the blast. Cue more destroyed buildings.Now Howard Stark and Nathaniel Richards enter the fray with a giant cannon they've just built. This damages the Celestial ... but it self-repairs and fires back at them. But Forever Man seems to deal with that.FM now starts a mathematical conversation with the Star Child. He multiplies his time bodies. And the chat leads up to the fatal symbol which Newton believed fated Earth to destruction in 2060. And the Star Child creates a very large force bubble around itself ... and vanishes. The force bubble enclosed chunks of some buildings. These chucks disappear along with the Star Child, and *these* buildings fall down too.Later the array of main characters get together. Leonardo believes the Star Child has followed Newton to 2060. And they will follow it (apparently in the now very large Human Machine from the previous series).


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[Assistant] This issue contains 4 stories from the history of the Brotherhood Of The Shield.Chapter 1:- ColossusPencils/inks by Nick Pitarra. Colours by Rachelle Rosenberg.It's Florence in 1497 and Leonardo da Vinci's assistants report that they have failed to convince Michelangelo to join the Brotherhood. Leonardo says maybe he should approach the young man himself. But for now he has students to teach.He goes down a spiral stone stairway and then enters a large chamber with statues ranged along the wall. He sits in lotus position in front of many similarly-posed young people and says he's going to tell them a story about Archimedes (holding up a small Archimedes' Screw enclosed in a clear block/case).But 1st he asks them what they know of the man. 1 boy recites his birth and death and his breadth of genius. Another says he was a leader of the Brotherhood Of The Shield like da Vinci. But Leonardo says his story will reveal more of the man.Rhodes in 226 BC is under attack by a giant-size Kree Sentry. Archimedes prepares to confront it by climbing inside the head of the equally-large Colossus Of Rhodes statue. He inserts the Screw/block from the previous paragraph into a mechanism and the Colossus steps down from his post at the harbour entrance.The 2 colossi battle it out in the water. The mechanism transmits Archimedes' movements into blows from his 'robot/armour'. However the Colossus quickly loses stone limbs and other chunks. But then with a supreme effort Archimedes punches the remaining stone fist through the chest of the mechanical Sentry. Both bodies fall into the Mediterranean, and Archimedes swims ashore.Leonardo now asks his class who Archimedes *was*. They reply (individually) "Who he had to be", "Who we needed him to be", "He held everything together", ending with a sentence that has become a Brotherhood mantra "He stood in the gap".Chapter 2:- The hidden messageAll art by Zachary BaldusIt's Rome in 1806 and 3 hooded men have decoded the works of Nostradamus to reveal a plan which appears to include their own names:- a data and time, a route into the Immortal City of the Brotherhood beneath Rome, a reason to go there, a way out, and a place to go afterwards.They stealthily make their way in and down to the dungeon below the Immortal City where they find Nostradamus chained to the wall (by Isaac Newton, see v1#2). He gives them a message. They leave but 2 of them are killed on the way out and the 3rd mortally wounded. However he manages to ride his horse to where the glowing golden Forever Man (who we know from the end of v1#6 is Michelangelo) waits. The message from Nostradamus is that "he perseveres".Chapter 3:- Life, the end of the world, and the keyPencils/inks by Kevin Mellon. Colours by Dan Brown.The Forever Man is using advanced tech to restore the life of Nikola Tesla/Night Machine (after he was blasted into 2 halves by Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark in a flashback in v1#6). He inserts the power source in Tesla's middle that we saw in v1#1-2. Michelangelo now tells Nikola that he and the Night Machine suit are now bonded together, and he/it is more powerful than before. He also tells Tesla that his 'son' Leonid will be the focal point of a coming conflict that will decide the fate of mankind. And Leonid needs his help.Later in Rome Nikola confides in his companion, the pale ethereal woman who can transform into a white pigeon. He says the Forever Man gave him 2 tasks. He has done the 1st, which was to discover something long-hidden in a chamber within a chamber at the end of the world. Now he tells her what he found there.It was in the Zargos (or Zagros) Mountains in Iran where he found the secret cavern containing ranks of empty cylindrical containers. Then he triggered the opening of a hole in the floor through which rose 3 more containers holding 3 Arabic men (previously seen in a Nostradamus prophecy in v1#4). Tesla now tells his friend cryptically that he found what is, what has come before, and what will be - those who mark the way and slowly wake from centuries of sleep. We will later know them as the Last Caliphate. (And the top chamber of cylinders was located again in Hickman's Secret Wars #25 in the previous month.)The 2nd task the Forever Man said was a secret that *she* knew about. The bird-woman hands him a hovering key to unlock a door that cannot be opened in the Immortal City. He must give it to their son Leonid to put him on the 1st step of his path. (And in v1#1 we saw Tesla give Leonid this key to Iter, the 'door' that would lead him to meet Leonardo da Vinci.)Chapter 4:- The appleAll art by Gabriel Hernandez WaltaIn the Immortal City Isaac Newton studies a diagram of the Solar System and looks at a red apple on his desk.In Hannover (or Hanover) in 1707 (probably a slight flashback) Gottfried Leibnitz finds a similar apple on *his* desk and deduces that Newton is here, so Isaac comes out from behind a curtained doorway. Leibnitz says he knows what Newton has been up to.We see:- John Flamsteed poisoned at his own dinner party, with the other guests unaffected. Robert Hooke stabbed to death in an alleyway. Blaise Pascal drowned in formalin. John Locke strangled. And at the death scene of each of these rivals to Newton's mathematical/scientific pre-eminence was found a red apple.Gottfried is ready to die but 1st wants to know if it is true that Isaac heads a secret scientific Brotherhood. (v1#3 showed him killing Galileo to take over the Brotherhood.) He wants to know if Newton's justification for the murders is anything more than professional jealousy.Angry Newton batters Leibnitz to death with his copy of Isaac's own Principia Mathematica, and leaves the apple behind.Now back to the original scene where Newton contemplates the other apple.


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Full spectrum diplomacy
This issue continues from GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #16.In GOTG#15 Dormammu, Lord Of The Dark Dimension, entered the Earth's universe by taking over the 'body' of Ego The Living Planet. So he's now manifesting in this realm as a planet-sized fiery head. In GOTG#16 he kicked off the Last Annihilation event by sending his Mindless Ones, and new versions dubbed Mindless Guns, to attack various significant planets (Earth not included).On the Kree Throneworld II, being built from the ruins of Hala, the Kree/Skrull Alliance Emperor Hulkling and the Kree forces have beaten the 1st wave of attackers. Now he's sent for the Kree traitor Captain Glory (he sided with ex-Empress R'Kll in the Empyre event) to be released from the Dreadrock Penal Colony and he arrives via a translocator. He reminds his Emperor that he told him he'd need him 1 day (in Empyre: Aftermath Avengers), but he didn't expect it to be so soon. Hulkling brings him up to speed with him what's going on, and that the Prince Consort Wiccan is defending Skrullos, the GOTG are fighting Dormammu directly, and he's sent a message to Alpha Flight on Earth but he's had no reply yet. Then more Mindless Ones appear through magic portals, along with some giant flying versions (new to us readers but apparently not to Teddy Kaplan-Altman). Glory flies up to fight 1 of those.Meanwhile in the Solar System the Hellfire Gala is winding down. During that event the Mutant Nation Krakoa unveiled a new metal Mysterium which they offered to the cash-strapped Galaxy as a new currency, which got the Solar System made a member of the Galactic Council. They also revealed that they were terraforming Mars and renaming it Arakko. Storm was made Regent Of Arakko and would represent the Solar System on the Council. Now she's invited Dr Doom to dinner on Arakko. They verbally fence during the meal. But then Victor Von Doom comes to the point - the truth about Mysterium.On Hala the battle is joined once more. Hulkling gets word that Wiccan and the Knights Of The Infinite are doing well on Skrullos. But Lauri-Ell The Accuser reports that things aren't so good on Hala's southern front. Captain Glory is caught between 2 Macro-Mindless as he calls them. They simultaneously fire at him, ignoring the fact that they will hit each other as well. The 2 Mindless fall out of the sky but so does the Captain plunging to his (apparent) death. Another wave of Mindless Ones destroy the translocator, cutting off the Kree forces' escape route. And their magic blasts break Hulkling's magic sword.Back on Arakko Doom reveals that he knows that Mysterium has magic properties. He also knows that the mutants have created it from primal kirbons, cosmic particles from the White Hot Room which is simultaneously outside the cosmos and at the heart of it. He warns Storm that by stealing fire from heaven and turning it into base matter they have altered the balance of things. And something evil will seize this opportunity, if it hasn't already.And then Storm gets a mental message message from Abigail Brand via Mentallo on the SWORD satellite to inform her about the attacks on Hala and Skrullos, and also on Spartax and in the Shi'ar empire. She's taking a team to Hala to find out what's happening. Doom guesses that his prediction is coming true and offers to 'help' the mutants which will put them in his debt. But Storm stops playing games and refuses him outright - the mutants don't need his help.On Hala we see the real-time version of the flashforward at the end of Empyre: Aftermath Avengers. Hulkling severely injured with his star-sword broken thinking that he's been abandoned by the Avengers and Alpha Flight. And Abigail Brand standing over him with Manifold and 3 other indistinct figures saying that she warned him that Alpha Flight was ineffective, which was why she quit to build something better. At the time it seemed like Brand had *caused* his downfall, but now we see that she's here to rescue him. And the extra chars are Frenzy and Khora of her SWORD team plus Paibok the ambassador from the Kree/Skrull Alliance.Manifold wants to teleport Hulkling to SWORD's med-bay but the Emperor doesn't want to desert his people. Brand says they can heal him instantly at the Peak and then he can come back with a SWORD team as backup. She offers this to heal a rift between Krakoa and the Alliance which apparently began when the mutants started calling Wanda Maximoff the pretender. Billy Kaplan-Altman hates that because she's his 'mother', so Teddy hates it too. He mentions that they've tried contacting her but Dormammu must be blocking them, and Abigail vaguely agrees. Teddy is still wondering why Alpha Flight didn't pass their request for help to the Avengers, and Manifold suggests that Henry Gyrich who's in charge of AF these days probably decided not to. Then some Mindless Ones drop in so Eden Fesi sends Teddy to SWORD's Peak HQ.But then we see in Brand's personal log what really happened. *She* intercepted the message and blocked it so her team could ride to the rescue and put Emperor Hulkling in her debt. Then when it eventually comes out that Scarlet Witch is dead she may have already cemented a Krakoa/Alliance alliance to go with their links with the Shi'ar and Zn'rx. (Her eventual goal is redacted because the Krakoan Quiet Council wouldn't condone it if they knew about it.)To be continued in GOTG#17.


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Chapter 2: Death proof
The issue opens with a WWII aerial dogfight over the Savage Land. Luftwaffe pilot Johan Richter is shot down (but 1 of his enemies runs into a pterodactyl and the other plane disappears through a space warp). He fights his way to an ancient city and meets its ruler Kulan Gath who accepts him as a student in the dark arts. That pilot is now the Priest Of Sickles.Last issue the Priest was killing selected folk to create a pool of blood to summon the Marrow God Jhoatun Lau. His latest victim was Doctor Voodoo, who Wolverine was too late to save. Now Logan strives for vengeance. The Priest tries to hold him back with the Crimson Bands, fails and teleports away. Wolvie slices open Jericho Drumm's chest, drips his own regenerative blood onto his heart and massages it back to life, at the same time fending off attacks from a few Hand ninjas. As Voodoo starts to breath Logan turns to killing the Hand.Conan of Cimmeria is also in the city searching for a rumoured mystic amulet to steal and sell. He finds it, the 3rd Eye Of Agamotto, resting on the body of Kulan Gath. But the wizard awakes and remembers Conan from previous encounters. During the ensuing duel Conan smashes open a jar which contains a Klyntar symbiote with which Gath intended to lure the related symbiote called Venom. But this symbiote attacks Gath, and the sorcerer's retaliation causes it to scream (which *will* be detected by Venom). And Conan gets away with his prize.Kulan Gath and the Sickle Priest meet to compare complications. The Eye is necessary for summoning the Marrow God, and Wolverine is too much for the Hand to handle.We see Logan still fighting despite being a pincushion of arrows and swords. Dr Voodoo helps with a spider-web spell. They are both weak when Kulan Gath arrives with more ninjas.Last issue ended with Punisher finding his family's bodies had been stolen from their graves. He touched a bag lying there ...... which transports him here. Groggy from the teleportation he's easily knocked face down by some Hand. But he was expecting some such reception. He has a claymore mine strapped to his back. He triggers it and the directed blast kills the ninjas.


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Chapter 1: Once upon a time in the City Of Sickles
Famous opera singer Saviano is kidnapped by Hand ninjas and transported through a gateway to the City Of Sickles in the Savage Land. The Sickle Priest beheads him (with a sickle of course) and pushes his body into a literal pool of blood with corpses floating in it. He says they are filling the bowl with the finest artists, thinkers, etc. What he really wants is more warriors, but he'll make do for the moment with a bewigged judge who is the next victim. This is all done to summon Jhoatun Lau to Earth at the upcoming celestial conjunction.In a mountain above the city Conan the Cimmerian is fighting more Hand ninjas. He's been in the Land for some weeks since the end of Avengers: No Road Home, and he's lured here by the rumours of a treasure. Dodging swords and throwing-stars he's killed most of the ninjas when his own sword strikes metal. He's embedded it in the skull of a man we know as Wolverine, who comments that *he*'s just killed the last of them. Retrieving the weapon begins a battle of sword and adamantium claws.Conan loses his own iron blade but continues with a ninja's sword. Logan isn't trying to kill the stranger but Conan has no hesitation in running him through. But Wolverine just removes the blade and hands it back. The battle continues until both men fall off a cliff to the city below. They slow their fall and survive.Conan grabs another sword from a handy rack. The 2 warriors part with mutual respect, Conan to find his treasure and Wolverine to look for Saviano. (We learned in Free Comic Book Day 2019 Avengers that Saviano used to smuggle oppressed mutants for Wolvie in his private jet. Now Logan has followed the trail of the Hand here to repay the debt.)(FCBD 2019 Av also mentioned that the cult has found the 3rd Eye Of Agamotto, which sounds like the amulet Conan is after.) However Conan merely comes across a caged Venom suspended over what appears to be a sleeping copy of the Sickle Priest.Meanwhile in Madripoor Doctor Voodoo is investigating the disappearance of powerful gang bosses. He's come to see Ma Yun whose son is 1 of them. But it turns out she's betrayed him to the Hand in return for the promise of her boy's return. However Jericho Drumm has come prepared with a Hand Voodoo doll ...... which doesn't do him much good because we next see him over the blood pool in the hands of the Priest, who takes time out to explain that there is a planet beyond Pluto which is in conjunction with Earth once in a millennium. The next conjunction is soon when the sect will summon Jhoatun Lau, the Marrow God to take them to his Temple In The Stars. When this was attempted at the last conjunction the sacrifice was not sufficient and all the summoners were slain.Then Wolverine bursts through yet more Hand warriors to save Jericho. But the Priest slits DrV's throat and Logan is assailed by a hail of arrows and stars. As the Hand restrain the mutant, even more Hand bring in 3 coffins as bait for another warrior ...... and we see Punisher discovering that the bodies of his wife and children are missing from their graves.


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Chapter 16: Let's go to Limbo
In #14 Dr Strange sent Conan and Magik to Bruges to get a 2nd Eye Of Agamotto, the Eye of power or strength, from the Asgardian dragon Sadurang. They recruited Black Knight and Juggernaut, and they all fought the dragon. That issue ended with Juggernaut unconscious after reducing Sadurang to his human form to face the other 3. Last issue mainly followed another team on another quest, but ended with a short scene in Bruges where Magik was the only 1 left standing against the dragon.However this issue doesn't start with either of those scenarios. Instead we have all 4 heroes facing the huge dragon (though Cain Marko does threaten to turn the Asgardian back into a man *again*). After a lot of bluster from both sides the dragon breathes fire at the 4, but Magik creates a stepping disc in the air to redirect the blast back at the blaster. As Juggy smashes into the foe Illyana Rasputin asks Conan and the Knight to create a hole in the dragon's scales so her Soulsword can pierce through to dispel the dragon-form again.The Cimmerian joins Dane Whitman on the back of his flying horse Galadriel but Sadurang throws Juggernaut at them, knocking BK off. Magik uses her stepping discs again to prevent Dane crashing to the ground. Conan continues the flying ride and chips a chunk off the dragon's chest (with the sword he got from DrS). Juggernaut swings the massive dragon by the tail to land on its back, and Magik stepping-discs into position to plunge her sword into the hole Conan made. It wrecks the magic that sustains the dragon, and their foe is a man again.But Illyana holds back from killing him because 1 of her best friends is a dragon (Kitty Pryde's pet/friend Lockheed). Sadurang says he'd welcome being sent to Valhalla for the peace. Maintaining his dragon form uses much energy and he needed to restore his chi. He only came to Earth for a long sleep but people won't leave him alone.Magik then comes up with a plan and takes them all to Limbo. She tells Sadurang he can sleep here in peace for as long as he likes. In gratitude he gives her the amulet they came for, but will come for it when he awakens again. Illyana promises to fetch him back from Limbo when he's ready - all he has to do is say her name 3 times. (Somehow I think she's lying.)She takes her 3 companions back to Greenwich Village, New York and invites them into DrS's Sanctum. Cain Marko declines and Dane Whitman just flies away. Conan and Illyana enter the house and hand the Eye over to Stephen Strange, who tells them that the other team successfully destroyed Kulan Gath's drug operation which was allowing him to gradually devour the demon-god Shuma-Gorath. He offers the Eye Of Power to Conan for the eventual battle against KG, but the Barbarian turns it down. He doesn't like sorcery, and neither does his god Crom. So the Sorcerer Supreme puts it away for later.Conan leaves to celebrate in a bar, and he chooses the villains' hangout the Bar With No Name. (And Juggernaut is there too.)


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Chapter 14: Enter the dragon
Last issue Dr Strange gathered together most of the heroes from previous issues for a combined assault on the Hyborian sorcerer Kulan Gath who has been the main villain throughout the series. He split them into teams for separate tasks, although they don't seem to be actually divided up the way he said.In this issue Conan and Magik have to get an Eye Of Agamotto from an Asgardian dragon Sadurang. (Supposedly Dr Voodoo and Elektra were to be with them. Elektra may have gone to help recruit Punisher, but I don't know what's happened to Voodoo.)Anyway, we start in Bruges, Belgium under an orange sky. An old woman cautions a drunk to keep quiet, but he drops his bottle and is incinerated by a blast of flame. A comment box tells us that a visitor came to town a few days ago seeking peace and quiet, and he doesn't like it when his rest is disturbed.Conan and Magik enter the Bar With No Name, the villains' haven in New York, looking for Cain Marko. As luck would have it Juggernaut *is* there, but he's not eager to team up with the girl who deprived him of the Crimson Gem Of Cyttorak and his powers (Uncanny X-Men (2019) #21) (however he's back on form as of his current series). DrS gave them a bag of jewels to help persuade Marko to join them, so he's in. Conan says they have 1 more team member to recruit.The scene changes to a Ku Klux Klan cross-burning, but inside 1 of the white cloaks and hoods is Black Knight. He starts laying about them with his sword, saying he'll go easy on them this time but he won't be so nice if he has to come back. The leader pulls a gun and does the "You brought a sword to a gun fight" line, but Dane Whitman also brought his new winged horse Galadriel who uses his forehooves to good effect, and the Klansmen flee.Our group of 3 show up via 1 of Magik's stepping-discs to witness the end of the fight. Conan hands over another bag of jewels from Strange, but BK hands it back saying he fights for free but only against tyranny. Magik shows him a photo (of someone turned into an avatar of Shuma-Gorath?) and Dane is in too.Another disc takes them to Bruges, and along the way they seem to have agreed on a plan. But Juggy thinks they need a name. He suggests the Frightful Four because no-one's currently using it. The others ignore him.Conan attacks the sleeping dragon with a sword and shield he got from DrS's armoury last issue. Meanwhile Cain Marko gets a run up and leaps through 1 of Magik's portals which takes him high above the city diving down towards it. Conan's blows wake Sadurang, and the Cimmerian asks the dragon to hand over his amulet and they'll leave him alone. Sadurang refuses so Black Knight on flying Galadriel slashes the back of his head with his Ebony Blade. Conan leaps onto the back of the horse as the dragon breathes fire. But by now the plummeting Juggernaut has reached ground zero.When the smoke clears there a 2 bodies in a deep crater. Cain Marko is unconscious and the dragon has been reduced to his human form facing 3 foes with big swords.


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Chapter 24: The defilement of all things by the cannibal-sorcerer Kulan Gath, part 1
An armoured and cloaked figure walks down a passage in what looks like an ancient Egyptian ruin and starts to use a knife to deface a sarcophagus with a word beginning 'sept'.Now we continue from the end of last issue where Conan and Dr Strange returned from mercy killing Shuma-Gorath to find Kulan Gath's City Of Sickles transported from the Savage Land to hover over New York City whose inhabitants have been possessed by him. The Priest Of Sickles has been partially resurrected to preside over the situation.Gath descends from on high to tell the 2 heroes to submit to him or suffer eternal torment. They both tell him where to go and Strange mystically summons allies the Avengers (Black Panther, Blade, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Ghost Rider, Iron Man, She-Hulk and Thor), some X-Men (Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Polaris, Rogue, Sunfire, Synch and Wolverine (Laura Kinney)) plus Spider-Man (Peter Parker). They attack. Gath catches Cap's shield and takes a bite out of it. He easily kills She-Hulk and then starts to strangle Conan.Then he's hit in the back by a blast from a big gun held by Dr Doom, who's arrived with another motley crew consisting of Black Knight, Black Widow, Daimon Hellstrom, Daredevil (Elektra), Dr Voodoo, Juggernaut, Magik and Wolverine (Logan).KG kills nearly all of them.Years later Gath rules the world. He has the Hulk at his feet trapped as Bruce Banner by Wolverine's adamantium bones. The Sickle Priest and his other minions scour the planet for remaining heroes and wiping out humanity as they go. The Priest has been promised that his resurrection will be completed once humanity is no more. Dr Strange is also a prisoner but Conan and Dr Doom have evaded capture.Strange is attached to a wooden X-frame with his hands and feet embedded in the wood. KG's priests taunt him by killing the last living horse in front of him. They also bring in the armoured corpse of Dr Doom. Who turns out not to be actually dead and kills the priests with a sword and then their own sickles. And he wasn't actually Doom because he removes his facemask to reveal Conan with his left eye missing. The Cimmerian reports that Doom has just died in battle in Latveria but his last 2 acts were to enchant his armour to hide Conan from Gath, and to send his surviving people to Mole Man's Subterrania. Conan took a drug to slow his heartbeat and Gath's minions brought him here.The Barbarian starts to cut Strange free of the wood. But DrS whispers a way to defeat the Wizard and tells him to go immediately. Kulan Gath arrives to find Conan gone. Stephen Strange won't tell him anything so the Wizard burns him alive.Still-armoured Conan goes to a ruined museum and descends into its depths and the passageway we saw at the beginning. It turns out that Strange had forestalled madness by keeping track of the date in his head. Conan now scratches September 15 2043 on the side of the sarcophagus. And Kang The Conqueror appears and angrily wants to know why he's desecrating the tomb of Rama-Tut.


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Chapter 18: The Night Flyer job
Last issue Conan battled some of Knull's black dragons with Deadpool and a new char Night Flyer, after they all 3 escaped from Ryker's Island prison. Conan was swallowed by a Klyntar symbiote dragon but the symbiote within him (since #5) awakened for 1 last time and made a pact with the Cimmerian to fight his enemies until they both can kill their common foe Kulan Gath.Still inside the symbiote mass that was a dragon Conan's symbiote tells his history. The Klyntar fell to Earth in the Hyborian Age but was captured in a bottle before it could join with a host. The merchant boasted it was a Jinni to impress customers of his other goods. However Mekri Ra, Sorcerer Supreme bought it with a huge jewel. But as we know (#11) the wizard Kulan Gath killed Mekri Ra and consumed his power. Gath tried to eat the symbiote's power too but failed. Instead he kept it and tortured it for millennia until Conan freed it in the City Of Sickles (#2). Conan agrees to their temporary partnership ...... and bursts free of the symbiote stuff clutching his own symbiote manifested as a black sword. They confront the other dragons and Conan gives them an ultimatum, go bother somebody else or be killed. They fly away.Deadpool suggests they retreat to Night Flyer's base because they're still in range of snipers from Ryker's. And to prove it he gets shot in the head. Night Flyer flies off and Conan picks up DP and follows on 1 of the police horses they stole last issue. NF says he knows somewhere nearer than his base ...... and they and the horse wind up in the villain-haven The Bar With No Name (where Conan was in #16 and got arrested for brawling between #16 and #17). Stanley (Night Flyer) meets up with his lawyer (and seemingly lover) Roger who has brought a necessary something from the freezer. With it Stanley says he can lead them to some treasure worth looting. Wade Wilson has recovered and makes 1 of his I-know-I'm-in-a-comic remarks about this being his 30th anniversary (1st app New Mutants #98 Feb 1991). And they set off.Night Flyer says the place was a club which made loads of money illegally. But now the owners have abandoned it and gone to live in the South Pacific. Deadpool recognises it as the Hellfire Club (who's owners are now the Hellfire Trading Company based on the mutant Krakoa island). NF uses a severed thumb to get them access. DP's antsy and mentions that "These are Logan's people". Conan has teamed up with Wolverine but once he's told that it's not Logan's money they're stealing he doesn't care.They start loading up with bags of paper money (Conan would prefer honest coins) which NF describes as the Club's slush fund. They are interrupted by Bishop, Callisto and Iceman entering via a Krakoa gateway, who are surprised to see anybody here. Deadpool confronts Callisto with his sword vs her 2 daggers, until she slashes his throat. Bishop draws his gun so Conan throws DP's body at him. Iceman tries to freeze NF who throws a grenade at him. DP fast-recovers and kicks Bishop back through the gate. Callisto stabs 'Pool through the back of his head so Conan punches her out. Iceman covers the Cimmerian with ice but it's nothing to this Barbarian from the frozen north. He commends the X-Man to the Frost Giant Ymir and shatters him with the symbiote weapon now in the form of a mace.


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Chapter 13: Bang, right to the Moon
Last issue Dr Strange gathered together a gang in Mexico to attack the sorcerer Kulan Gath, all of them from previous issues of this series:- Black Widow, Conan the Cimmerian, Daimon Hellstrom, Dr Voodoo, Elektra plus Magik and Wolverine of the X-Men.Now he's taken them to the Moon for a conference, hoping to evade Gath's view. Strange says his Orb Of Agamotto can't locate their foe (in #7 KG moved his base to a pocket dimension) who has amassed great power through the ages by killing Sorcerer Supreme's like himself. Hellstrom opines that killing an SS doesn't seem very hard, and Stephen Strange retorts that Hellstrom will fall long before he does. Elektra interrupts the wizardly macho posturing and suggest they pool knowledge.DrS relates how KG once took over and transformed New York, until he, the X-Men and the Avengers defeated him (Magik was instrumental in that in Uncanny XM #190-191). He is now many thousands of years old and absorbed the knowledge of many Sorcerers Supreme. Such men will die before letting evil-doers like Gath learn their secrets, but Dr Voodoo confirms that the wizard gains their knowledge by consuming their flesh. And while Jericho Drumm was his prisoner in #7 Gath told him he was going to get the power of the elder god Shuma-Gorath that way. Elektra adds that he ate the leaders of the Hand and an Egyptian death cult. Black Widow has been investigating his acolytes in Central and South America who have been killing drug cartel members.Conan now describes a recent incident. He had been hunting Gath's servants, branded with his sickle sign, who were selling tainted cocaine. After stealing and selling a great treasure he was celebrating with a bevy of prostitutes, 1 of whom had an artificial lower leg. Another of them took such cocaine which turned her head into that of Shuma-Gorath (who he recognised from Conan The Barbarian #260). Conan grabbed the artificial leg and battered SG's avatar to death with it ... then went back to bed. Voodoo adds that (#7 again) he was shown a vision of Gorath turning Earth's population into his avatars and Gath feasting on him/them. DrS believes that their enemy has to consume his latest victim slowly, avatar by avatar, to avoid magical indigestion.Strange has a plan which involves splitting into 2 groups. Gath had an amulet he called the 3rd Eye Of Agamotto, similar to the Eye that Stephen uses to fasten his Cloak Of Levitation, but that turned out to be a fake (#11). However there is another real such Eye held by the Asgardian dragon Sadurang, and they must get it before Gath does. He suggests team Spear (Conan, Elektra, Magik and Voodoo) goes to get that Eye by any means necessary, while team Shield (Hellstrom, Widow and Wolverine) go after KG's Earthly acolytes. Natasha Romanoff suggests that dealing with purveyors of poisoned cocaine is a good job for the Punisher (another guy from previous issues). Strange agrees she should bring him in to the team, but he wants her to stop him from killing *too* many people.Now the Sorcerer Supreme transports them all to his Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village to use as a base of operations. Wolverine asks Stephen which team *he* will be on. He says he'll monitor the other teams, but 1st he has to go warn Shuma-Gorath what's happening. We see him entering another dimension and facing the giant demon, an eye with tentacles.Back on Earth Wolverine greets an old friend, a talking ghost-dog called Bats. To Conan all the undead are enemies, and he frightens the dog away. Black Widow and Elektra use the Orb Of Agamotto to locate Frank Castle, and Daimon creates a portal to take BW to him. Magik looks up dragon-killing methods in Strange's library.DrS has returned from the SG-dimension and takes Conan into his armoury to choose some weapons. He tells the Cimmerian he believes the universe caused his arrival in the modern era (during the Avengers: No Road Home arc) to balance that of his old foe Kulan Gath. He asks the Barbarian to wound Gath rather than kill him, and bring a sample of his flesh for the SS to eat. But don't tell the others.But Kulan Gath is watching the conversation from afar. And we see him eating a tentacle of SG-avatar flesh.


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Chapter 12: It'll never last
Last issue Dr Strange discovered that Kulan Gath gained his phenomenal sorcerous power by  'eating' it from other sorcerers over millennia. But he also had a fling with Elektra which we find them consummating now floating above his bed. Afterwards she warns him not to expect this to become a regular thing, and he agrees that they probably won't survive long enough.Now they plan to go to Hell. They have someone alive in a locked trunk to trade, and Stephen Strange selects a magic tome as backup (which he doesn't get to use). A skeleton named Horace arrives with a horsedrawn carriage to take them to Kalfu, the Guardian Of The Crossroads in the Swamps Of Ogun. He leaves them there and Elektra sees shadowy figures in the surrounding woods, which Strange tells her are people who they've killed.Kalfu approaches them with Dr Voodoo (who was left there to recuperate in #10). Now Stephen has come to bring Jericho Drumm back to life by trading the man in the box for him. They let him out and it's Jericho's brother Daniel Drumm who used to be dead but made a deal with the evil Hand group to be resurrected and work for them. Daniel says that Kulan Gath took over that part of the Hand so now he'd rather take this option.Kalfu objects that he never accepts living offerings. DrS tries a different tack. They are going up against Kulan Gath and at the end either Gath will be dead of Strange will be, so he offers Kalfu the choice of those souls. However he admits that that there may be other contenders such as Mephisto for *his* soul. Kalfu doesn't like that option either. So Elektra solves the problem by stabbing Daniel dead. Kalfu applauds. But the outcome is that Daniel's soul is now tied to Jericho (as it was in their earliest apps). Kalfu tells dead Daniel that he has a debt to repay before he can return to the Crossroads.Horace returns to take the 3+1 back to reality. Daniel apologises for attacking his brother (Uncanny Avengers (2015) #14), Jericho says he's sorry that Daniel's life has come to this. The next task is to find Conan. Elektra says she planted a tracer on him (#5).We turn now to Mexico where we last saw Conan (in the Empyre: Savage Av 1-shot). 2 men release a naked man possessed by an avatar of Shuma-Gorath (you can tell by his head which is now green with a single large eye and tentacles for hair). The demon attacks a young woman who drops her groceries. But Conan grabs him by the tentacles and splits the head in 2 with his sword, and the woman flees without her food. Conan then kills 1 of the 2 men and maims the other. He asks the live 1 where Kulan Gath is, but the man says he can't tell him anything. And the sickle mark on his neck bursts into flame killing him. The Cimmerian discovers he likes peanut butter. Then he detects someone's approach. Elektra steps into view and compliments him on his keen senses, but she's just stoking the lust she knows he feels for her. Then Dr Strange magically joins them. Conan's not so pleased to see *him* after the sorcerer's magic sent him back to South America (after they and Dr Doom had battled Kulan Gath together in Egypt. But they agree a truce to fight the foe. Then a portal opens to disgorge Dr Voodoo with more allies:- Black Widow, Daimon Hellstrom, Magik and Wolverine (all from previous issues of this mag).


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Chapter 0: A retelling of the Kulan Gath saga
Dr Strange magically appears on a beach on Krakoa, the new mutant homeland, and greets Pyro who accuses him of trespassing. Strange hands him a bottle of wine as a 'housewarming' gift, and says that it's a TARDIS bottle and so contains enough for all the population. Young Cable joins them and reminds DrS that Charles Xavier has banned all humans from setting foot on the island. So the Sorcerer Supreme resolves that by using his Cloak Of Levitation to float above the ground.Stephen Strange reminds Cable in turn that *he* is charged to guard this whole dimension from magic attacks, and that includes Krakoa. Nathan Summers replies that *they* have the place guarded against such threats. As if on cue the resident sorceress Magik turns up via 1 of her stepping-discs. Illyana Rasputina and Stephen greet each other, and then DrS tells her that 'he' has returned.We are then treated to a reprinting of Uncanny X-Men #190-191 where Kulan Gath took over Manhattan Island and turned it into a Medieval kingdom. People within, including super-heroes and villains, were transformed also but didn't realise it. The Island was surrounded by a mystic barrier and anyone who entered was transformed too. Spider-Man was left unchanged because Gath wanted personal revenge on him (for the defeat when he 1st came to the modern world in Marvel Team-Up #79). Eventually a small band of Avengers and X-Men defeated him and then Strange and Magik changed the past to create a new timeline where KG wasn't brought back to this world (in UXM#188-189).Stephen now explains to Illyana that Kulan Gath is back but a barbarian warrior enemy of Gath's named Conan has been brought here from his time. Magik says she'll tell Charles, but she's not worried because they defeated the wizard before. Strange says that KG is now much more powerful. In #11 Stephen scanned the villain's past and has seen that he's spent thousands of years consuming sorcerers and their knowledge. Strange suspects that Gath will seek *her* out. Illyana replies that *she* has also grown beyond the child she was before, and she and her Soulsword are ready for him. DrS transports himself back to his Sanctum Sanctorum.


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Chapter 6: Blood brothers
Conan and Punisher are trekking through Antarctica from the Savage Land. Which isn't *quite* as bad as it sounds because the Savage Land is in the Antarctic Peninsular reaching out towards the tip of South America and that's hopefully the direction they're heading in. But on the other hand they *are* dragging the 3 coffins containing Frank Castle's long-dead family.And as we join them they're not even in snow and ice because they're still inside the Land wading along a small river in a jungle with the coffins on a raft. And of course that means they still get attacked by prehistoric beasts which they kill with sword and machine gun. At 1 point Punisher gets injured and Conan picks up the gun to continue the fight until it runs out of bullets and he uses it as a club. And on the plus side the dead animals provide meat and their skins provide extra clothing for when the pair *do* get out into the snow and ice, and some bone swords for Castle to use.Out on the ice penguins provide meat, but they still have to fight off a large white wolf (which the Marvel Fandom Wiki suggests is an Asgardian Dire Wolf, maybe left over from the War Of The Realms). Conan was known for his 'gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth' and he was born in the snowy land of Cimmeria. But here he sinks into 1 of his melancholies, until Frank sees a plane heading in to land and they follow it to the Halley Research Station. (Which means they've actually been travelling *away* from South America, as the map at the back of the issue shows.)Frank Castle has money to buy them passage on a freighter, and food and alcohol to pass the time. The ship takes them to Montevideo, Uruguay. But it turns out the captain of the ship is working for someone who paid for the ship to *go* to the Antarctic to pick them up, and for another ship that will supposedly take them to the US.However Conan elects to stay in Uruguay, the 3rd Eye Of Agamotto he stole from Kulan Gath in the 1st story arc his only asset. Then he meets a mounted policeman who demands to see the passport of this sword-bearing barbarian. And soon Conan has another asset, the horse he rides off on.Someone referring to himself as 'this unit' reports that Castle is on the ship and he will follow the unknown character (Conan). He also says that there's no sign of the wizard (Dr Voodoo), the mutant (Wolverine) or Elektra. He doesn't seem interested in the Venom symbiote. (All these of course parted company with our duo last issue.) Over the page we see the speaker is a Doombot and he's preparing for Conan's rendition, presumably to Latveria.


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Chapter 19: The sons of Ymir
Knull and his symbiote dragons have invaded Earth in the King In Black event. While battling dragons the Klyntar symbiote from our early issues re-emerged from within Conan in the form of a black sword. Conan then teamed up with Deadpool and a new char called Night Flyer to rob the abandoned Hellfire Club. But they were interrupted by Bishop, Callisto and Iceman on a mission of their own. A fight ensued during which Conan shattered Iceman with the sword ...... but now the mutant rebuilds his body from the pieces and attacks his attacker. Meanwhile Bishop explodes the bag of money Night Flyer is carrying while Callisto has Deadpool pinned down as he recovers from a slashed throat. Then Bishop calls a truce and offers to *hire* our 3. He explains that Knull has taken over Cyclops and Storm so now *he*'s in charge of a rescue attempt from the Empire State Building. Even Conan agrees to help the friends of Logan, the others just go for the money.Night Flyer takes to the air to distract the dragons guarding the ESB. The plan is to tranquillise their targets and spirit them away. Conan and Deadpool leap from a nearby building to smash through some windows and work their way up inside the skyscraper. Meanwhile Iceman takes Bishop and Callisto up an ice slide to the top where they find the transformed Cyclops. Conan and Deadpool get there at the same time and they all attack.Then they realise that Storm is up in the sky above them whipping up a storm. And her lightning strikes DP's 2 swords frying him. Bishop tries to trick Cyclops into firing his optic blast at him. But Cyke knows this will just charge the other mutant up with energy so he shoots at Callisto and Deadpool instead, sending them over the edge of the roof. Conan extends his symbiote to catch Callisto, but DP falls to the ground.Bishop realises the mission is futile, but now they have to figure out how to escape. Conan tries to persuade Iceman that he's actually a descendant of the Frost Giant Ymir, and inspires the mutant to create an ice bridge back to the ground (which he could easily have done anyway). And with 1 slide they are free. On the ground they find Night Flyer gathering up parts of Deadpool directed by his head. But then Iceman *does* take Conan's words to heart and tells the others to go (NF carrying DP in bits) while he stays and fights a horde of dragons on his lonesome.The others regather at the Hellfire Club. Wade Wilson has lost most of his uniform and has to dress in 1 of Emma Frost's old revealing outfits. The mutants give DP and NF the promised money, and the 2 X-Men go back through a gateway to Krakoa to organise an assault on Knull.. Wolverine arrives to see Conan, who announces that he's taking over this 'castle' as his base. Logan agrees to the deal, and goes out to support Iceman.


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Chapter 7: Bar hop
After the events of #1-5 in the Savage Land sorcerer Kulan Gath took the City Of Sickles into a pocket dimension and Doctor Voodoo followed him and is now his prisoner. As you do in such situations Jericho Drumm reviewed his life. When his houngan brother Daniel was murdered Jericho took his place and studied Haitian Vodun under Papa Jambo, becoming Brother Voodoo. (He doesn't mention that he briefly succeeded Dr Strange as Sorcerer Supreme and took the title Dr Voodoo, which he has never relinquished. But maybe he justifies the 'Dr' by reminding us he has a (psychology) degree.) Daniel's spirit helped him in the job but later they fell out and Daniel got the Hand to resurrect him as Jericho's foe.The wizard wants him to drink some poison, explaining that Jericho has to be 'dead' to see what he wants to show him 'on the other side'. As a Vodun priest Drumm can understand this and takes a pill (presumably something to restart his heart) before draining the drink. (After all, as he says, he's been dead once already this week (#1).) And his heart stops ...... and he finds himself and Gath before a warped version of the Eiffel Tower (or maybe the 1 in Las Vegas or 1 of many other copies) hearing strange music. Gath tells him this is a vision of the future and Shuma-Gorath is here to feast on the human population. (S-G is in humanoid form but with his trademark one-eyed, many-tentacled green form as a head.) KG says he's been building an 'infection' in the world for a long time (see previous issues and the Annual) and it will soon be widespread enough to allow the extra-dimensional demon to invade. And then Kulan will gain his power.Before he left Dr Voodoo told Elektra to contact Dr Strange and warn him about Kulan Gath. At the moment she's with his astral form while fighting Hand ninjas. She's also supposed to find Daniel Drumm who's working with the Hand (who are currently working for KG, at least this branch of them) and either rescue him or kill him, she's not sure which. Strange gives her a helping spell-hand, and then she tries in vain to get the last surviving ninja to tell her where to find Daniel.Stephen Strange admits that even he doesn't know how to beat Gath. In their previous encounter (Uncanny X-Men #190-191) he defeated him by separating him from his amulet of power. Elektra says she and her companions also failed to kill the sorcerer. He did have an amulet but he doesn't need it anymore. Conan's taken it and KG is still alive and kicking. She also says it's called the 3rd Eye Of Agamotto and looks like the similarly-named thing DrS wears round his neck. Strange swears to help her rescue DrV and kill Kulan Gath.We now turn to Conan the thief who's hacking his way through the Brazilian jungle. (Presumably he led the women he was escorting in the Annual to somewhere safe.) Now he reaches a settlement, enters a bar and demands a drink or a fight. Then after beating up 3 men and a dog he gets served a drink. Then he gets hit with a tranquilizer dart and slumps on the bar.When he wakes up he seems to be in the same place (but the 3 men and a dog have gone). But it doesn't *smell* the same. He accosts the barman who says *they* made him do it. Conan runs out into the 'jungle' and kills 2 soldiers who try to stop him. Throughout the darting and awakening we've had a military voiceover relaying reports and instructions, which refers to the sim(ulation).Then the barbarian breaks through the wall of what we see is a dome in the courtyard of a castle. More soldiers attack, this time in sort-of medieval armour. Conan wades through these until he is halted by the imperious command of Victor Von Doom. Conan threatens to kill him but Doom instead invites him to a feast. Conan agrees, and if the feast is good enough he won't kill him.(Last issue we saw a Doombot tracking Conan and talking about renditioning him to Latveria. Quite why he let him wander through a large fraction of South America 1st we may never know.)


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Chapter 22: A waking nightmare
Last issue New Yorkers were plagued by nightmares which made them violent. Conan tried to help some but was attacked by Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze) whose nightmares involved Kulan Gath and he sensed that the Barbarian had a connection with the wizard. During the fight Conan was seemingly transported back to Hyborian Age Aquilonia.There are young women with a sun emblem on their brow dancing in the streets and handing out flowers. Conan tries to establish what year he's in by asking 1 of them about the current ruler, but she doesn't seem to understand what he means. The flower is infested with spiders and smells bad.And then the Cimmerian is attacked by a man on a giant spider. Both of them have fiery heads and the man wields a chain. He accuses Conan of invading his nightmares and being an associate of Kulan Gath. And he is a Spirit Of Vengeance complete with Penance Stare - he's a Ghost Rider who the people seem to worship. Conan drags the man off his steed but the spider stabs him with venom and he falls unconscious ......and awakes trussed up in a spider-web with someone else hanging beside him. He breaks free and cuts the other loose as well, who turns out to be Johnny Blaze without his GR power. Grabbing a blade from a nearby skeleton he turns to face the werewolves which infest *his* nightmare. Conan's tame Venom symbiote takes the form of a black axe and battle is joined. But soon both men are bitten and overwhelmed ...... and in the next scene they're sitting on horses with hangman's nooses round their necks. And facing them is Nightmare on his steed Dreamstalker who claims that all of the above and the previous issue were his attempts to contact Conan. The Cimmerian says he doesn't fear dreams so Nightmare fires a pistol to spook their horses and leave the pair dangling by the neck. And he says that every man has fears ...... and we see that Conan's is to die old in bed with his boots off and unable to lift his sword. But then the youthful Barbarian confronts Nightmare who now explains that Kulan Gath has taken over his realm. But he knows that KG's nightmare is the Cimmerian himself who's killed him before and may be able to do it again. Now Nightmare lets Conan out of the dream, but with the advice to go see Dr Strange.Now he and Blaze really do wake up in an alleyway. Conan says he's going to talk to Dr Strange. Johnny asks to be included when Kulan Gath gets his comeuppance. Strange had already given the Cimmerian direct access to his Greenwich Village house. After knocking he enters the front door to see the Dr with Shuma-Gorath as a patient.


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Chapter 8: Dinner with Victor
Last issue Elektra told Dr Strange about the encounter with Kulan Gath in #1-5 and how Conan stole the 3rd Eye Of Agamotto from him. And also last issue Dr Doom abducted Conan to Latveria. Now Stephen Strange uses the Orb Of Agamotto to track the artefact and locates it in that country. He magically transports himself there.Doom treats Conan to a lavish meal. But the barbarian is insulted when his masked host doesn't eat with him. Victor Von Doom explains that his mask hides his facial scars, but Conan deems that mere vanity. Doom unmasks to eat. Honour satisfied, the Cimmerian asks what he will pay for the amulet. Before Doom can reply a footman announces a visitor.Dr Doom and his guest go to the battlements over the entrance and see Dr Strange who levitates up to join them. DrS tries to persuade them to hand over the amulet to him, but DrD wants its power and Conan demands a price. Stephen tells them that he has the 1st Eye Of Agamotto which grants knowledge and a dragon (Sadurang in Tony Stark: Iron Man #12-13) has the 2nd Eye which grants power. The 3rd Eye was lost in time so how do they know this is the real thing? And Kulan Gath may have cursed it.They test the Eye by hanging it from the neck of a goat, who seems none the worse for it. Doom analyses it and declares it Neolithic. Strange claims that his 1st Eye was found/created by Agamotto, the 1st Sorcerer Supreme, in the much earlier Paleolithic (see the 1 Million BC Avengers in the current Avengers series). He uses *that* Eye to scan the object and detects an evil energy, and he declares they must destroy it. Conan says he doesn't care what they do with it *after* they pay him for it. DrD leaves and returns with a large black broadsword which he gives to the Cimmerian.But Dr Strange tells them that earlier he detected the arrival of Gath's City Of Sickles in the Egyptian desert. He parts reality and leads them into a Ditkoesque realm so they can approach the City undetected. Conan says he's killed Gath several times but he won't stay dead. Strange says that when he faced the sorcerer before (Uncanny X-Men #190-191) he needed help from both X-Men and Avengers to defeat him. DrS's Cloak Of Levitation takes offence to the barbarian's disparaging remarks about wizards and has to be restrained from attacking him by Stephen. They reach a doorway to reality and the Sickle City. Doom ignores advice to be cautious. Conan follows him and suggests the cowardly wizard can stay behind. Strange says he'll come with them to protect them.Conan uses his 2 swords to slash his way through Egyptian cultist guards. The other 2 follow him into a building he recognises. DrD tells DrS the amulet appeared to him in a vision and led him to the Cimmerian. DrS tells DrD they must rescue Kulan Gath's prisoner Dr Voodoo (see last issue again) so he can help them. Doom of course spurns all aid.When he thinks Conan has guided them far enough Doom blasts him with technomagic and takes the 3rd Eye. Strange tries to stop him but Doom retaliates with the Crimson Bands Of Cyttorak. He dons the amulet but it's chain starts to strangle him and then decapitates him. And Kulan Gath appears now that the most dangerous opponent has been eliminated.


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Chapter 4: Stress test
The carnage wreaked by Conan the Barbarian has given the wizard Kulan Gath the remaining blood he needed to summon Jhoatun Lau, the Marrow God, into this this world in the City of Sickles in the Savage Land. (The MG looks like a large centaur with a demonic 'human' half.) Wolverine launches himself claws 1st into the side of the neck of the God, but the God seems to swallow him whole.Doctor Voodoo tells Conan and Elektra to attack Kulan Gath while he tries to figure out a spell to deal with Jhoatun Lau. But Conan chooses instead to make his own assault on the giant God with the black sword that formed from the Klyntar symbiote that staunched his otherwise-fatal chest wound. (It is the symbiote which prompts/commands him to do this, in revenge for being Gath's captive.)So Punisher just shoots Gath in the back while Elektra sticks a sai in his chest. However the sorcerer survives this and hurls the weapon back at its owner, only deflected by Conan's blade. Gath only now after several issues thinks to ask the Barbarian how come he's here so far from Cimmeria (much further in time than in space). And he hurls his long-time foe away with a gesture.Then the wizard turns to concentrate on Punisher, who hasn't stopped shooting at him. He grabs Frank Castle's head and pulls images from his mind of his wife and 2 young kids being killed by mob crossfire. Gath already knew about this because he stole their coffins to lure the vigilante here. But now he points out that Frank was protected by his wife's body, and suggests that Castle had instinctively used her as a shield. This possibility sends Punisher into stunned inaction.Gath forms a portal to take the Marrow God to a densely populated city where the he may feast. Elektra can't snap Punisher out of his funk so she grabs his assault rifle and empties it at the monster. And Conan leaps on its back as it exits.Kulan Gath says he's going for a kip but Dr Voodoo interrupts him for a mystical battle. While exchanging battle spells Jericho Drumm says he doesn't think the wizard *really* brought the demon god here to destroy the Earth. Gath admits it's actually a test of the world's defences which he can learn from. But now he exits via a secret tunnel ...... leaving Punisher a parting 'gift'. The 3 coffins burst open and Maria Castle and her children emerge alive. Frank walks towards their inviting embrace but Voodoo stops him and seals his mouth. He reveals the revenants as Xholtan skin-walkers and banishes them with a spell. Then he frees Castle and tells him that if he'd engaged them in conversation he would never have been free from them.Jericho thinks the grieving Punisher will be in no fit state to fight for a while. But Elektra tells Frank to save his grief for later - there are civilians that need protecting. Castle picks up his gun and takes Drumm's sunglasses, and he's grimly ready for business.Voodoo transports them to New York City where Conan is hanging on to the beast which has grown much larger by 'eating'. Jhoatun Lau smashes the Cimmerian down with a giant hoof. Conan's grunt of pain is accompanied by a shriek from the symbiote that shares his body. As Punisher and Voodoo fire at the Marrow God Elektra notes an new combatant. The cries have attracted the Venom symbiote (currently without a host) who joins the fight in the shape of a giant black dragon. (We are told that cosmic radiation emitted by the God from outer space was responsible for Venom's bigliness.)At this point Wolverine slashes his way free of the demon's body. The MG grabs a bus and breaks it in half in order to empty the passengers into his gaping maw. But dragon-Venom swoops in and carries the bus away. Logan starts trying to hamstring the legs of the 'centaur' and Conan and Elektra follow his example. Voodoo contemplates sending the demon to the Swamps Of Ogun, but that could be a bad move if he can eat the souls of the dead.Venom has finally noticed that the fellow-symbiote whose cry he heard is attached to Conan, or the nude weight-lifter as he calls him. He demands that Conan free the symbiote. Conan says he already *did* free it from Kulan Gath, and now it's chosen to join him. Venom says repairing Conan's body is killing it, and a symbiote black sword is too dangerous to leave in the hands of a human. (There's also a bit where Conan invokes his god Crom, and Venom thinks he's talking about Rom the Spaceknight.)Elektra parts them. Voodoo says the Marrow God's now too big for him to teleport anywhere. But they've proved the God can be cut so Elektra suggests they *hack* it to death. Punisher agrees but then he's going back to kill Kulan Gath.


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Chapter 20: The clothes do not maketh the Spider-Man
The King In Black event is over and Conan has gained possession of the abandoned Hellfire Club. But he and his Klyntar symbiote black sword have no idea how to pursue their revenge against Kulan Gath so he's spending his time drinking in the Bar With No Name.He complains to the barmaid Alisha about the pumpkin beer she's serving. She says the villains' hangout is having money troubles so they have to put up with what they can get. And they have to keep changing premises to keep ahead of the cops but she can't afford to move. But she's heard of a big score that could keep the cops paid off and the rent paid for a while. Rhino says he's in. Alisha says they'll need 4 others. Tatterdemalion offers his services but they ignore him. Conan says he's worth 10 men. Alisha suggests they split the dough 3 ways, and Conan and Rhino get their bar tabs written off.The target is a bank. Rhino provides a distraction by busting in demanding cash while Conan enters unobtrusively. (Conan's idea of unobtrusive is to wear a black suit from the Club's wardrobe, but his bare chest still draws attention.) While Rhino escapes with some bags of money Conan descends to the vault (which for some reason is wide open) and carries out 2 cases full of gold coins and bars.But then a cop car slams into Rhino, and Spider-Man shows up to web him up. However his Spider-Sense alerts him to Conan casually walking away. The Cimmerian easily defeats Spidey but assumes that it is his costume which enables him to stick to walls. Thinking this would be a useful item he offers to pay the hero for it. Peter Parker refuses to strip off.There's a little interruption where Rhino butts in demanding to know how Spidey always finds him. The hero claims to have attached a tracker to his hide years ago. Rhino stops astonished and SM slams his ears, adding that maybe he was lying.Then it's Conan's turn to attack, trying to rip Peter's costume off. He winds up mainly exposing Spidey's butt, which he quickly covers with webbing. Spider-Man assures the Barbarian that his Spidey-powers are in him, not the suit. Conan can't understand why someone with that power would work for the corrupt controllers of the city. (Given that Kingpin is the current Mayor he may have a point.) Parker gives him his "with great power comes great responsibility" speech but Conan replies that with great power comes great rewards, the strong take from the weak.Spidey webs up Conan's 2 cases. Conan responds by activating his symbiote sword, which of course Peter recognises as a Venom-like Klyntar. Rhino's back again and punches SM down through the street into the subway. Rhino exits with the cases while Conan deals with the cop from crashed police car. His symbiote sends out a tendril which drops the cop down the hole. Spidey catches him  and holds them both up against the roof as a train passes below. By the time he gets back to the surface the robbers have gone.For the final part of the issue we return to the Kulan Gath plot, starting with a flashback to #2 where German WWII fighter pilot Johan Richter flies through a spacetime warp to the Savage Land in the recent past and becomes Gath's Priest Of Sickles. Now in Mexico Gath finds the remains of Richter where Wolverine fed him through a wood chipper (#15). The Hyborian wizard resurrects him because he still has work for him to do.


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[Assistant]
Chapter 17: A cooler king
Last issue ended with Conan having fun in a drunken brawl in the Bar With No Name. Now while Knull's darkness and black dragons turn New York into a hell, the Cimmerian is bundled by kevlar-armoured guards into a holding cell in Ryker's Island prison with the other intake.1 among them is Deadpool who claims to be Conan's lawyer while lifting a guard's keys. He gets his wrist broken by a baton for his pains. Before Conan's astonished eyes DP puts his broken bones back together, only to find he stole the guard's personal keys not the keys to the cells. Wade Wilson says he heals like Wolverine but better. Conan says he'd like to get claws like Logan, but Wade assures him he doesn't want to be a Weapon X subject like Wolvie and him.Conan says he has an escape plan, and forces Deadpool through the bars of the cell. Wilson of course ends up a mangled mess, but starts to knit back together. A guard enters and slips on his blood and guts. DP knocks him out and tosses a real set of keys to the Barbarian. When the cell is open a guy calling himself Night Flyer persuades them to let him go with them.After battling through more guards they reach the lock-up where Deadpool retrieves his katanas and the Flyer gets his flying rig. Conan chooses a machete and sawn-off shotgun. The 2 non-flyers grab police horses to bust through a barrier to a bridge over to the mainland. A dragon takes Conan's horse, tipping him off the bridge. But Night Flyer swoops down to save him. Then the Cimmerian splits a dragon's head open. But it is composed of a swarm of Klyntar symbiotes which engulf him.Conan has a vision of being in snow-bound Cimmeria facing a black sword which talks to him. It is the Klyntar symbiote from #1-5 who was a tortured captive of this series' arch-villain Kulan Gath. Conan freed it and it took black-sword form then to help him fight the wizard. We thought it died in #5 but now it says it survived within the Barbarian and has now been revived by the presence of the Klyntar's god Knull. It offers a blood-pact until they kill Gath.Outside Deadpool (minus horse) and Night Flyer are still battling dragons and hoping Conan can fight his way out of the symbiote mass. We see bulges which indicate his struggle.