Squadron Roster
Avengers Roster
See Continuity Note
The Avengers roster consists of the Black Panther, the second Goliath, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, and the Vision, with Thor assisting as they come to the aid of the Black Knight in the previous adventure. Thor, the Black Panther and the Black Knight do not come into contact with the Squadron Supreme.
Arkon had brought the Avenger's Mansion to his dimension to trap the Avengers that were in it (Goliath, Quicksilver, Vision and Scarlet Witch) before the Panther could return with Thor so they could all enter Arkon's dimension at the time and place of their choosing. They ended the previous issue still in Arkon's dimension.
While returning from Arkon's dimension to their own the Avengers become seperated. Thor, Black Knight, Black Panther, and the Avengers Mansion all return to the time and place they started from (Black Knight to England, for example). Thor and Black Panther, outside Avengers mansion, assume that Goliath, Vision, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver have returned to the inside of the mansion, but are called away before they can check.
The four are actually in the street a few weeks in the future, where they intangibly watch citizens collapsing from the heat and the very asphalt melting under a sun much brighter and hotter than normal. Wanda casts a hex sphere and the four materialize in a more serene street scene under a normal-sized sun. Checking a paper, they see it is the proper date, but they do not notice that the news is not that of their world.
Entering what they believe to be their Mansion, Quicksilver is almost killed by a deathtrap in the ceiling. While they are discussing the fact that they never installed such a trap Nighthawk appears and announces that he did. Goliath recognizes Nighthawk as a member of the Squadron Sinister and they fight.
Noting he is outnumbered, Nighthawk escapes by a secret panel, which the Avengers know they never installed. Vision opens the panel and they follow the passageway to a room where waits Hawkeye (Golden Archer), Lady Lark, Tom Thumb and American Eagle. They fight again until a video message comes in from Dr. Spectrum in Atomic City for the Squadron Supreme in Cosmopolis.
Vision deduces that they are in a parallel world whose destruction they witnessed in the future. It further appears that that destruction will come from the solar probe Brain-Child One that Spectrum, Whizzer, and Hyperion are guarding before launch. The other members of the Squadron will not listen to them, and the Avengers must defeat them all in battle. Vision directs the unconsious Nighthawk to be brought with them on a Squadron aircraft for Atomic City. He hopes to convince Nighthawk of their plight so Nighthawk can convince the Squadroners at the launch site without a fight.
It may seem strange to speak of costume changes in the Sqadron Supreme's first appearance, but the Squadron Sinister had previously appeared modeled on them (with perhaps, some degree of inexactitude).
The current Dr. Spectrum, for example, has a black starburst on the forehead of his cowl. This Whizzer appears not to have blue lightning bolts down the sides of his pantlegs. Nighthawk has upswept eyebrow-like feathers rather than ear tufts. Hyperion has red tights. The Sinster Hyperion had been barelegged or had flesh colored tights ... or hose. (Hey, you ask him!)
A convinced Nighthawk is piloting the Squad-Ship to the launchsite of Brain-Child One, but the installation has gone under radio silence, so he cannot contact the other Squadroneers. He lands outside the restricted airspace and while he powers down the craft, the Avengers go to the rocket to try to stop the launch. They are unable to convince the others and Whizzer presses the launch button, but Scarlet Witch casts a hex sphere that prevents the rocket from taking off. Nighthawk arrives and vouches for the Avengers. They decide to ask Brain-Child, the designer of the probe, whether it could cause the solar explosion.
Brain-Child is Arnold Sutton, a mutant of great mental ability. When one year old he taught himself to read, and by four he was an expert in the sciences. Some time after this his brain started to grow to massive proportions, some say this was caused by Arnold himself. His grotesquely distended skull collected stares and further alienated him from the world. At the age of nine he began rocket design work for the military so he could ask the government for the secluded island where he built the isolated keep called the Dark Tower. Today, on his tenth birthday, he had planned to destroy the world.
Landing on the island, the heroes are warned off verbally and with an explosive blast. They decide to split into four groups to attack the fortress from each point of the compass. Only Hyperion and Goliath make it to the central chamber. There Brain-Child, fatigued from stopping the other three groups, has to mentally hurl the equipment of his Keep in order to down his last two opponents. Hyperion is caught in high power cables and electrocuted into unconsciousness, but Goliath is able to form the cables into a crossbow and fire Hyperion as an arrow at Brain-Child's control dias. The shock and defeat plung Brain-Child into mental and psychological childhood. The Dark Tower, its traps and devices, projections of his mind, all vanish. Dr Spectrum uses the power of his Prism to shrink Arnold's brain to its normal size. Arnold wakes with no memory of the holocaust he almost caused and with a promise from Hyperion to make sure that this time Arnold gets the good breaks in life.
The Avengers disappear as they are pulled back to their own dimension by a machine hastily built by Black Panther and Iron Man and powered by Thor's hammer. Vision ponders whether they are actually in their home universe, or merely a third one that is indistinguishable from it.
The ending in the Squadron's universe (on the next-to-last page) seems very much like something out of a Superman comicbook. While ending on the last page, in the Avenger's Universe, shows the existential angst that is the Marvel style.