To Save Valhalla!

SPIDER-MAN

Seeing Thanos, Spidey tosses a spidey-tracer on Thanos' big blue back. If the distance seems too far for a toss, Spidey will stick a tracer on his webshooter, and shoot a line of webbing across the distance, so that the web will carry the tracer to Thanos.

Then he will acrobatically jump, swing and stick to the side of the giant boat of the dead, waving his arms at the giants and shouting in an annoying teen voice: "Run, run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me! I am your friendly neighborhood SPIDER-MAN!!" (He is hoping they will rush at the boat, and he can nimbly leap aside at the very last microsecond, allowing them to crash into it.)

"YES WE CAN. WE CAN CATCH YOU AND GOBBLE YOU UP!"

They can't. They run headlong into the boat and knock themselves out, denting the boat in the process.

STORM

Can a wind help slow or move ths ship? If so, Storm will try to aid in keeping it from colliding with Valhalla.

Well, it's a SAILING ship ... so yes. A hundred times yes. Wind is what it's FOR.

A mighty wind bellies out the sails of the Grave Ship, slowing its ponderous progress. Indeed, it would have reversed it altogether, had not the grave-cobweb sails torn apart under the gale, snapping the masts with them.

ANT MAN

Ant Man will jump in between the ship and the mead hall of Valhalla and try to catch it. He thinks of his daughter, Cassie, and thinks, "If I don't live through this, sweetie, I hope you will be all right!"

You know, maybe she will. Her new dad isn’t such a jerk. But she’ll be better off if Scott’s watching over her!

Ant-Man does indeed get between the ship and the hall.

He does indeed catch the ship.

STOPPING it, though, is pretty darn near impossible. But he does slow it down, and also lift up the bow so it's pointing upward, not level. In fact, if he let go right now, it might pass harmlessly OVER Valhalla, not INTO it.

INVISIBLE GIRL

Sue puts up a force field shaped like a inclined plane in front of the mead hall, so that if the ship of the dead makes it so far, the prow will be gradually turned aside.

The force field catches the bow of the ship just as it elevates beyond Ant-Man's reach. The ship continues up the plane, over the spired tops of Valhalla, and off into the air. The strain is incredible, but Sue can hold it until it's safely over the Mires of Despair, and then either slant it back downwards, or just drop it.

(Sue knows exactly what it feels like moments before she can't hold it any more and lets go. It feels like the Hulk straining against her forcefield. She's not there yet.)

She asks the Vision and Wanda if either can tell where Thanos went or what happened inside the Falling Tower.

Wanda says, "I shall see."

She has seen beyond the edge of the Universe. Perhaps something there will be visible to her now. Her eyes probably get that strange, zoned look and her hands semi-involuntarily make arcane gestures, as if summoning powers beyond mortal space and ordinary time.

Thanos has two minions, red and green, who are receding through folded space. The red one is headed for a distant world orbiting a triple yellow star, while the green one plunges into the Sun, Earth's Sun, then out the other side! Wanda cannot see through the Sun, and for some strange reason cannot see AROUND it, either.

Thanos, meanwhile, retreats to the Andromeda Galaxy, very much like our own, and angles his course to home in on a sun much like our own, circled by seven concentric asteroid belts, which is not like our own. Six of the belts are rocks, with glinting bits of metal and ice mixed in, but the third one out from the star is all metal and ice, shaped not like jagged rocks, but like smoothly curved teardrops, as though not shattered, but melted ...

Thanos alights on a massive black stone throne spinning slowly on a chunk of ivory in asteroid-choked space. Figures, male and female, emerge from the stark, airless shadows, bowing their cloaked heads and gathering about the throne. Thanos holds up his massive golden glove, with the Blue Cube radiant upon the third knuckle, and chuckles.

Then he looks to the heavens, pans around, and settles directly on the Scarlet Witch, looking right into her eyes from a distance of two million light-years.

His gaze flicks a few meters away. It's where the Vision stands ...

And the mad purple Titan smiles.

Ant-Man Goes To Town

Storm will fly out of the way of the arrows, if possible, before deflecting the winds.

Looking at the field of battle, she thinks that even a super angry Hulk would be a benefit here...but how to get him here.

But there is no time for that now. Storm will continue to concentrate on the giants....

Until they appear right around Wanda. Sending a storm there seems...problematic.

Storm continues to blast giants if it looks possible, otherwise, she looks for opportunities to help

Wanda or Spiderman, if they need rescuing...or merely flying to a different place.

They do not appear to need rescuing, which is as well, because the giants are stubborn. But as Storm has practiced evading missiles while controlling the winds literally a hundred times (it's Danger Room setting Seven, Missile Madness!), she keeps out of their sights until they are all writhing with cold or heat as the case may be. Also, the Warriors of Asgard, who fight very well in a thunderstorm, are mopping them up.

INVISIBLE GIRL

Sue turns herself, Vision, and the Scarlet Witch invisible, and places a protective force field around the three of them, holding them in place while the cart and Spider Man continue onward, bravely drawing the enemy fire.

She sort of wishes she had asked Spider-Man to volunteer for that, but, then again, she perhaps still
harbors a bit of resentment that time he broke in to the Baxter Building looking for a job.

Still enveloped in rage, Wanda aims the Evil Eye at the hand holding the blue cube.

The Evil Eye shines its malignant light of suffering at Thanos' hand, passing through Sue's force field with ease (although the field shimmers, and Sue feels a surge of formless dread overtake her. Is Reed all right? Is Namor all right? Is Reed fighting Namor? For her? Does he ever? WILL he ever?)

Thanos clutches his hand in pain, squeezing the Cube randomly. The portals to other worlds blink out.

Curling his fist against his chest, Thanos coats himself in a blue glow and warps himself somewhere else. His ink-black eyes are locked on a spot slightly to the left of the Scarlet Witch ... because she's
invisible. But he's looking daggers NEAR her, if not exactly AT her.

SPIDER-MAN

Spidey leaps into action, and mugs the monsters that just appeared around Wanda. He will use his spidey-sense to dodge any incoming attacks, use his super spider reflexes to run up giant arms and shoulders, use his clinging powers to stand on their faces, shoot webbing up the nose or in the eyes, and use his proportionate spider strength to judo throw giants by yanking on webs binding any giant heads he webs, and using webs to form a club and a shield and the like.

Spider-Man is SUPER annoying to the giants, and they're such serious types that they just can't DEAL with it! They stop to swat Spider-Man, and he ends up backflipping off a cyclops' face right before another two-headed giant slaps him with a giant club! BONK! (The club hits the cyclops, of course, making Wolverine snarl with envy.)

Therefore, and Spidey being so darn fast, TWO of the four groups menacing Wanda, the Vision, and Sue are stopped in their tracks! And tripped by webs, blinded by webs, slapped by Spidey, etc. Most are not down, but they're definitely not threatening anyone else.

THE VISION

The Vision's eyes glow yellow. He floats up, transparent, through Sue's field, and activates the gem on his brow. Turning in place, he tracks the irresistable energy blast through ninety degrees of arc,
cutting down all the dead men who are attacking the Scarlet Witch.

And Sue Storm, too, of course. And the Vision himself.

Of course.

All four mobs attacking the ladies have now been vanquished. But still one invader, the Grave Ship, looms a mortal threat to all of Asgard!

ANT-MAN

Ant-Man will shrink down until he is small enough to slip his head out from between the wolf's teeth. He will then slip free of the wolf, hit the wolf with a shrinky disk, and at the same time grown back to giant size. He punches the wolf with his patented growing-punch which he throws as he grows, adding the momentum of the growth to the force of the blow.

WHOPP! Ant-Man's fist travels sixty feet in a quarter-second, arriving with the momentum of a truck. A big truck. With knuckles.

The wolf, shrinking, collides with Ant-Man on the way up. The Fenris Wolf, who will one day literally eat the Moon, is knocked unconscious. By ANT-MAN.

He also discovers from his ant radio telepathy helmet what is going on around the battle field, and sends giant ants to go rush to help Spider-Man, Machine-Man, and he sends another few giant ants to mug the queen of the dead.

This means fewer ants to fight the beasts, but there aren't as many beasts moving around as before. Wait, strike that. Seeing the Fenris Wolf go down and stay down tears the heart out of the beasts. They howl and flee, fighting to pile through the portal into their Beast World.

The Beasts are OUT! And that, by the way, includes those beasts sent after the Scarlet Witch. Once the panic gets going, they catch it too. Because they're beasts.

Which, mathematically, leaves ALL the giant ants free to help Wanda, Sue, and Vision, and to mug the queen of the dead.

Thor has put his hammer down on the deck of the grave ship.

"I will not slay thee, Balder, thou who hast the terrors of the grave e'en erenow suffered. Strike me
down if thou wilt; I shall not resist thee."

Balder, although enslaved by despair to the Queen of the Dead, can't do it. He drops to his knees.

Thor takes Balder's sword from his limp hand. He hands it to a giant ant, which clamps it in its jaws
like a piece of leaf and carries it back to the hive. Other ants are helpfully cutting all the ropes
which allow the Grave Ship to steer across the sky, and using their proportional ant-strength, tossing
dead sailors who resist right over the side.

Hela says: "No ... NO! Balder the Brave was my greatest conquest, arrogant Thunder God! Thou shalt not turn him from my side, while Death yet lives!"

(Spider-Man is tempted to point out that Death doesn't live. Can't. By definition. But he can't quite
connect up the punchline to the next level, and besides he's bouncing around one step ahead of a horde of quite legitimately angered giants. Comedy is hard.)

Thanos appears beside Hela, the Death Goddess.

"Does she yet live?" Thanos demands. "We have much to talk about, my lady."

And he warps away with Hela, using the blue cube, with a big carpenter ant chewing on his leg. The ant goes too.

Thor consoles brave Balder, and wonders why all the dead sailors are leaping over the side, to plummet hundreds of feet to their doom.

The shadow of a rotating sphere falls across the cobwebbed decks of the Grave Ship. Thor turns.

The ship is seconds away from crashing into Odin's mead-hall Valhalla! And the ship is actually bigger than Valhalla. The collision will surely wreck them both!

Thor's eye twitches involuntarily. An ant, beside him, waves its antennae in support.

Next issue: will the Grave Ship destroy Valhalla?

Will the giants finally catch Spider-Man?

Will Reed EVER stand up to Namor and tell him to keep his eyes off his girlfriend?

Stay tuned, True Believers! The most BOMBASTIC is yet to come!

The Battle of Six Armies (one being ants)

INVISIBLE GIRL

Before going anywhere, Sue slaps the Collector on the nose and says, "Keep your hands to yourself,
greedyguts! Besides, this is a spare back-up rocket. The original one we used to fly into space is in the Smithsonian. Now, we have to leave this here because we are going off the save the universe so YOU are going to put it safely and immediately back into the Baxter building with your superscientific teleportation machinery, because you are NOT an evil villain, NOT greedy and NOT dishonest! Now straighten up and fly right! Remember, the Watcher is Watching!"

THE COLLECTOR

"Hmph. One of a series, then ... and the Watcher IS watching, of course ... "

He tries to look innocent, striking a pose eerily similar to that of Spider-Man a page before.

INVISIBLE GIRL

Once through to Asgard, and seeing Ragnarok happening, Sue says, "This is a distraction. Thanos is using this opportunity to sneak to some place the gods normally watch, and steal something or do something. Remember, his main motive is to kill nine tenths of all living things. So we need to find someone here in Asgard who knows all the secrets in Asgard, and where the magical infinity gems are stored. Is there one here? Maybe in that giant untouched tower with the two hemispheres floating around it?"

She pouts, thinking that if Reed were here, he could whip up a gizmo to close these dimensional portals.

"Is anyone here a super scientist?" She looks at her comrades

THE VISION

"I understand science rather well," he says. "And I believe your theory is correct. Thor has told the
Avengers that the Cosmic Cube, also known as the Tesseract, is kept in safekeeping within the Falling Tower. And that may be the tower in question, since, as Old Norse has no word for "orbiting", the Aesir might have translated it to their Viking followers as "falling."


ANT MAN

When Ant Man sees the end of the world, he turns to Spider Man and says, "You stop the Undead! I'll stop the Beasts!" And he jumps off the goat cart impetuously. He will grow giant, release his ants, which are now giant like in the movie THEM, and throw a shrinking disk at the endless world-serpent. He commands his ants to attack anyone who is not either an Asgardian or someone he came here with.

(See, the thing everyone forgets is how darn many ants you can fit in a belt capsule. And when they grow giant-sized, Ant-Man's got a respectable little army going!)

The ants attack the beasts. They battle the beasts to a literal standstill, grappling and clamping and
squirting formic acid from their acid-pods.

The big beasts, though, ignore the ants and wade through. Which is how Scott Lang, mostly successful burglar, finds himself squaring off for a Godzillian fistfight with a blood-jawed Death Wolf.

The shrinking disk reduces the World Worm to one-one-thousandth of its infinite length. Which means it just has to unspool more coils through the gateway, eventually adding up to its former bulk. If he'd done it in the Serpent's own dimension, dividing infinity by 10,000 would have no effect at all, but here, the part which has already coiled into Asgard is effectively neutralized. And, as the Serpent cannot slither into Asgard at an infinite rate, Ant-Man (yes, Ant-Man!) has bought the gods some time.

Which makes it totally worth it when the wolf Garm clamps his helmet in his jaws and starts tearing it left and right, heedless of Ant-Man's connection to his neck.

"Ow, ow, ow!" Ant-Man finds himself exclaiming, but very deep and in slow motion.

SPIDER-MAN

Once in Asgard, when the firegiants are there but not anyone else, Spidey will scream inside his head, and thinks, "Okay, Spidey, calm down. This is not the end of the world. It is only one fourth of the end of the world, so only one fourth of the universe is going to be destroyed. Earth, most likely, might be in the three fourths that survives. Seventy five percent chance!"

Then, when the rest show up, he will revise his estimate accordingly. "We are all gunna die. Best not to tell anyone. Don't want to make the women nervous."

Aloud, Spidey says, "Don't worry. We'll all be fine as long as nobody does anything rash. So don't just jump off the..."

His white oval mask eyes get bigger as he sees Thor jump off the cart....

"And as long as no one else...."

He watches as Ant-Man shouts out something and jumps off the cart.

"Did--did he just tell me to go fight the undead?" Leaning over the side of the goat cart, Spidey shouts down after the retreating form of Ant-Man,"What precisely in our past relationship together leads you to believe I can DO that?"

Spidey straightens, and asks, "Uh, guys! Thor is gone. Who is driving the cart?"

He mutters to himself, "I am gunna die on a goat cart. And I had a date with Mary Jane next Friday .... wait a minute, I also have to drive Aunt May to the hospital then ...! Oh no!"

(An abridged summary: Spider-Man does not impede the risen dead.)

The risen dead finish, therefore, hauling their gigantic Grave Ark into Asgard! Made from the fingernails of dead men, it carries literally every warrior in Hel, the Norse Hell, clashing swords and spears made from their own bones!

MACHINE MAN

Machine Man stilt-walks over the zombies with his extensor-legs.

"I got this!" he says, and descends to punch them with his metal fists.

The tide of zombieness closes over his purple chassis, leaving not a trace.

INVISIBLE GIRL

Sue says to Spider Man: "Use the Serpent Crown!"

ANT MAN

Ant man thinks, "Huhn. Why DID I think that Spidey could take on hordes of undead?"

STORM

Storm flies into the air. She summons up a fog on the battlefield to confound the forces. She also calls up a storm, sending cold driving rain toward the Fire Giants and warm driving rain toward the Ice Giants.

(Y'know, of all the places in the Marvel Universe, which contains all the planets and galaxies of the
real universe, plus Atlantis and so on, Asgard would probably be my ABSOLUTE NUMBER ONE PLACE to summon storms! -- Smilin' Steve)

Krak-KOOM!

No, that doesn't really do it. How about ...

KRAKA-KA-BOOOOM! krak krak krak krak ...

Everybody is dazzled by sky-splitting blasts of icy lightning which rage about the fire giants and swollen clouds of fury which rain down fire on the ice giants! Both hordes rage and moan and shake their misshapen fists at the sky, until a bunch of ice giants start shooting arrows at Storm. She can reshape the winds to make them miss, but then the storms lashing the giants on the ground will let up for a moment.

At this moment, from her elevated vantage, Storm can see that three of the four invading armies have been stopped, contained even, near the portals which admitted them. Except for the undead. They're going strong, and Hela, Goddess of the Dead, is on the prow of the Grave Ark, shouting something about being Queen of the World.

Sure would be a good time for a Hulk ...

THE SCARLET WITCH

Scarlet Witch says, in what she hopes is a reasonable voice--not rattled at all by the doom around her--no, not at all, "Surely he would have sent the unusual scourges--and I would expect him to be standing behind them, observing with great joy."

She looks to the area from whence they came. Is Thanos there?

And then she looks at the Evil Eye. I think she is still wearing the fantasy-lounge singer outfit. Sigh.

Why do all of her powers and her physical presence seem trademarked by Hades? Ah, well. To work.

But how does the Evil Eye work?

She is clearly trying to suss it out while being ready to attack with crazed nightmares (not that anything could be more crazed than this!) if the situation turns rapidly.

The Evil Eye is wrath-directed. Wanda can easily tell, with her hex powers, that willing it to cause pain to others activates it to cause pain to others. Then, presumably, one aims it like a flashlight.

Anyone else would not see Thanos behind the invaders. But because she has seen outside the Universe, once, she does see him, "around the corner" from third-dimensional space.

He is in the tower of rotating spheres, as the Invisible Girl and the Vision had surmised. He has a blue cube in his hand, and is using blue energy from the cube to hold the portals open. Beside him is a man who looks like a skeleton soaked in blood, wearing a Nazi leather coat and holding two scepters topped with skulls. Skulls with TENTACLES.

Then he turns the blue stone in his hand, so you can see the back of his immense golden glove -- which has two stones, red and green, mounted on the knuckles. The red stone is the Wrath Stone, also called the Aether-stone. The green one is teardrop-shaped, like a serpent's head. Both are glowing furiously with power.

And there are three more slots on the glove for three more gems. One slot is square, so the Blue Cube will clearly go there once he's done.

Now Thanos pops loose the Red Stone and hands it to the bloody skeleton Nazi, who flies off with it THAT way.

Thanos then hands the green stone to a green-cloaked armored man whom the Scarlet Witch, like literally everyone on Earth, recognizes right away as Doctor Doom.

Doom flies away THE OTHER way. That is, in the opposite direction to the Nazi.

Then Thanos snaps the blue stone into his glove and spreads his fingers wide. The tunnels to the invading planets grow wider, letting more stuff through.

Behind him, Wanda can see vast shadowy whale shapes stirring ...

Oh, she is angry. We're talking an orphaned psychic girl who lost her dearly beloved brother in just one of these fights, and she will be hanged if she isn't going to make an impression on these monsters before they end the world. She directs the Evil Eye at Thanos. And this time, she isn't holding back.

(As it happens, the angrier you are, the better the Evil Eye works ...)

BZZZIZIZIZBZZIZIZIZOW!

The Evil Eye shines a ray of absolute suffering at Thanos. Boosted by the Scarlet Witch's own powers, it has JUST enough force to pierce the protective blue glow around him and sting him good.

Thanos bellows in pain and rage. His first instinct is to attack!

The Blue Cube warps the tunnels so that Fire Giants, Ice Giants, Fell Beasts and the Living Dead all appear right next to Wanda! All around her, in fact.

The Vision and Invisible Girl are near the Scarlet Witch. They are now at the center of four torrents of enemies.

Ant-Man's ants are winning against the beasts. Ant-Man is losing against the Big Wolf. The Serpent is out of play for a while.

Spider-Man has not halted the zombie ship of doom. Hela the Death-Goddess imperiously commands, and the ship tacks to starboard, aiming for a collision course with Valhalla, Odin's high hall.

The giants ... well, Storm's got them beaten down.

Thor has successfully rescued Uller and Tyr from the scrum of villainy. Glancing around just once, the veteran of a thousand wars hurls himself, literally, at Hela's Grave Ark. Tyr and Uller go with him.

But there, on the deck, defending Hela from the maddened Thunder God, is his old friend Balder the Brave ...

Doom of the Gods

Scarlet Witch says to the Collector:

"While it is to be understood that you would not wish to leave your museum unattended, perhaps there are some things here you could loan us that would help save the Universe--and thus preserve the rest of your collection?"

The Collector seems intent on the Pogo Plane, and does not give any sign that he has heard.

Hmm. Storm does not free the bat-winged optopod humanoid at this time.

To Thor, she says, "I am eager to do what I can to help maintain order and protect the universe. I will
come."

INVISIBLE GIRL

Sue becomes visible, and says, "Hello, Thor! You remember the many times you dueled the Thing. And the time Reed lost his powers and was replaced by a parallel time version of himself that looked like the Thing? And you remember that time the version of Reed from the Counter Earth of High Evolution known as the BRUTE attacked the Avengers? Well, Reed is feeling a little under the weather right now, but this is a dangerous job that needs to be done, so I'd like to come along."

She turns to Ant Man and says "Can you get your ants to pilot Reed's absurdly expensive one of a kind spaceship back down to a landing pad on top of a Manhattan skyscraper without causing any burn marks on the neighbor's buildings? Because I am going with Thor and we need someone to put the Pogo-Plane away."

ANT MAN

Ant Man will turn to Invisible Girl, "Good question! No .... no ... no!"

Ant Man then turns to Thor, and says, "Good question! Yes!"

Scarlet Witch, says, with lingering, sibilant consonants, "Perhaps there is an automatic pilot setting?"

"Oh," says the Collector, "I can see to restoring the rocket to its proper place. One of a kind, you say
... hm, slight yellowing from cosmic rays ... original paintwork ... still, one of a kind."

SPIDER MAN

Spider man will add more webbing to the Serpent Crown to make it look the size and shape of a football.

Then he will say, "Sure, Thor! I'll help! Everyone needs a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!"

And then he will think to himself sarcastically, "Yes, little old me, the teen hero barely able to hold
his own against the Three Enforcers, clearly will be a great help against a power mad Titan who is only rivaled by Asgardians! Maybe we should get Daredevil and the Night Thrasher to help too!"

He cradles the webby football casually in his arm.

"Let's roll! Let's swing! Let's rock! Let's, uh, jazz! Let's use another lame musical metaphor for
beginning the adventure!"

There is a clap of thunder which smites the ears and stuns the senses! It's Thor, shouting.

"SO BE IT! Gainst which Asgard, the fabled Realm Eternal, threatens, shall Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder, the perpetually-angry star goats whom mine own Goat Chariot pull, convey us!"

A full-blown thunderstorm rages in the Collector's harbor, while the Collector runs about using gestures of pure force to catch flying debris and put it back safely.

Out of the heart of a lightning flash leap two colossal star goats, dripping foam from their maddened
jaws and glaring murder from their reddened eyes. They are hitched to a chariot, which swings and weaves wildly behind them, as they are fighting each other.

Thor fondly clouts one of the goats on the jaw, while pinning the other one's head under his arm and
knuckling its horns.

"Ho, Toothgnasher! Ho, Toothgrinder! Your master has need of thee this day!"

Machine Man points out, "I'm not made of meat," to the slavering goats.

The Vision fearlessly floats into the goat-cart. Everyone else follows, barring a last-minute rush of
prudence.

"Oh, Scarlet Witch," says the Collector, "take this. It may aid you in preserving my storage area."

"You mean the universe?"

"Yes, that."

The item is a cone of reddish chrome ridged metal, topped with a hemisphere about the size of a
basketball. The hemisphere's forward surface is capped by a pair of clamshell doors.

"The Evil Eye," says the Collector. "Scourge of civilization since the dawn of Atlantis. That ought to do the trick!"

With a crash of thunder, the goat cart leaps free of the Collector's ship and gallops clatteringly into the stars!

"Exactly where are we going?" says the Vision, believing this to be a 'moment of calm' in which fundamental questions may be asked without risk of irrelevancy.

"Asgard lies beyond the fields e'en you, wise Vision, have seen!" says Thor. "Farther than the stars, yet nearer than thy touch! For the home of the doughty Aesir forms the spire triumphant of this material cosmos, rising from the firm foundations of space and time to surmount the heavens empyrean themselves, and look down at once on all places, all times, all manner of men and gods!"

"So once there, we can travel to any point," says the Vision.

"Aye, e'en so!"

"And once there, Thanos can travel to any point."

"Aye, verily, but thou dost not reckon with the mighty Heimdall, seer of all things, nor the Warriors Three, dashing Fandral, grim Hogun, and voluminous Volstagg! Nor the Lady Sif, patroness of shield-maidens, nor the legion of Valkyries who choose the virtuous dead from the battlefields of a hundred worlds, nor those selfsame legions of eternally-youthful Einherijar to whom the lightest whim of All-Father Odin is the law of gravitation itself ..."

"... nor, if all these stalwarts and more beside should fall before the conqueror, dost thou reckon with the hard-won wisdom beyond Death itself of that selfsame patriarch of the heavens men call Odin The Lord of Valhalla!"

With a rainbow kaleidoscope effect, the goat cart breaches the walls of space and bypasses the cold light-centuries with but a single hoofbeat!

There, below, glows golden Asgard, primordial home of the gods since time was new.

It glows quite a lot, in fact, owing to the huge cracks in the green fields and brooding hills, through which boiling lava, flames, and skeletons armed with axes are pouring, smoke-stained, to darken the streets of the Realm Eternal with blood!

"The Fire Giants!" Thor exclaims! "One-fourth of the scourges prophesied to sack glorious Asgard at the end of time! Well, they have never come in such numbers before, but we have beaten their fire into ashes many and many a time, and shall do so anew ..."

Indeed, warriors in complicated headdresses and armor, no two even slightly alike, are leaping, stabbing, wielding mighty spells, invoking earth spirits, or just plowing forward crushing every fire giant in their path. Though death and destruction flare on every hand, still it appears the gods have this invasion well on the way to grim defeat.

But that is not why Thor trails off. No, the Thunder God has been struck mute by the shimmering adventition of three writhing trails of blue-green lightning, forming into cones like unto hurricanes of electric force.

And through the eye of those space-storms, now pour three armies, one of Ice, one of Beasts, and one of the Risen Dead!

"Were we expecting the end of time?" says the Vision.

"All things now perish in battle!" Thor exclaims in answer. "Tis now the time of the burning of the halls of the Gods. It is an ice-age, an axe-age, a storm-age. Henceforth no man shall know peace until he lies in his gore, nor woman know safety lest it be in the homely grave! RAGNAROK, the Last Day, has begun -- and none shall live to see the dawn!"

The ICE GIANTS head for the hall VALHALLA, home of the excellent dead and of Odin in his role as Master of the Slain. Valkyries, riding winged horses, rush to oppose them.

The FELL BEASTS comprise three colossal, Godzilla-sized monsters, a wolf with bloody jaws, a bear with claws of fire, and an endless snake whose body keeps unreeling from some hidden depth beyond the storm-portal. The beasts are accompanied by thousands of lesser beasts, mansized or slightly larger, who orbit them like flies around a crocodile. They stream directly toward the shores of a Crystal Lake, where several larger-than-life gods leap skyward to confront them.

The RISEN DEAD don't attack anybody. They spread across the picnic grounds, hauling on rusty chains, straining their bones to pull something very large, very heavy, through the portal into Asgard. There are quite a lot of them.

And the FIRE GIANTS, seeing their opening, surround two gods, one black with an iron hand, one golden with an ivory bow, and swamp them. The heaving masses of fire giants throw up showers of dead, torn bodies, but more fill the holes before the entrapped gods can escape.

The floating cylindrical golden tower, orbited by two golden hemispheres in perpetual harmony, is yet untouched.

THOR leaps to fight the Fire Giants.

"Ho, Tyr! Ho, Uller! You shall die this day -- but not yet! Not while THOR, the master of Mjolnir, has yet one unbroken bone! HAVE AT THEE!"

MACHINE MAN's head revolves 360 degrees to take in all the carnage.

"I'm suddenly glad I don't have a stomach," he says.

The VISION looks around.

"What would Thanos be doing during this battle," he asks, "and where would he need to be in order to do it?

But Thor's gone, into the scrum.

The Vision hopes someone else will answer. He's literally the least experienced hero present.

A Note To Contributors

As in John's Superworld game from 1984, as in the comics from which we draw our inspiration, talking takes no time. So any amount of conversation, nay, e'en USEFUL conversation, may occur between the punches and cosmic energy blasts!

I Demand Justice!

Wanda the Scarlet Witch to Thor: "In truth, it is another being who threatens the Valkyries. The one who has just seized the Blood Stone of Fury from the Collector. This other being stands beyond the Universe and adores Death. But he said he was seeking the Valkyries next. Perhaps we may intercept him?" She shakes her head. "Though what we will do once we meet him, I am not at all certain."
"Though I am willing to try. As my brother said, 'It is not so bad..."

Storm: "Does Thanos mean the Valkyries harm? Choosers of the Slain, right? One would think he would want to hire them."

Thor declares:

"Knowing him not, yet wary of the things your brother may have said to you, be thou, I say."

"Of Thanos, the mad Titan, whose consuming passion to embrace the fleshless lips of Death is, dost thou speak?"

The Scarlet Witch says,

"Doth ..."

She shakes her head. "DOES he have six chins, dress in blue and gold and is he built like Bruce Banner on a rampage?"

THOR: "Aye, the very same! Though Banner be green, but Thanos is purple."

"Thanos?" says the Collector. "I have not seen Thanos for fifty years. Not since he fought his fellow Titans, the Inhumans, and the Eternals for control of the Twilight Sword. He has great ambition, that one. And by killing all those races of superhumans, he is close to being the only entity in his power class ..."

"..oh. Apart from the Aesir of Asgard, of course."

Scarlet Witch says delicately to Thor, whom she really doesn't know very well: "Perhaps we should all accompany you to Asgard to fight him?"

Storm moves off into the collection, looking around to see what else is here.

In particular, she looks for living things that might need freeing.

There is a miniature African veldt, with inch-high lions, elephants like teacups, and little shrunken trees. And an aquarium with lots of miniature sea life, none of it Earthly.

An octopus-faced humanoid with batlike wings turns from its pyramid and regards Storm balefully through lidless green eyes.

Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl, turns invisible and walks over to the Serpent Crown. She plans to turn it invisible, too.

She wonders if Namor will let her wear it if she becomes his queen....

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However, before Sue can gather up the Serpent Crown, Spider-Man steps between the Collector and the crown. Behind his (Spidey's) back, Spider-Man yanks on the webline leading to the crown and yanks it (the crown) into his (Spidey's) suction-fingered sticky hand.

Behind his (Spidey's) back, he places a spider-tracker on the crown.

He will then (also behind his back) web up the Serpent Crown, and then tiptoe backward without showing what is behind his back to the Collector. Whistling innocently. Because Peter Parker is SUBTLE.

Ant-Man grows and returns Spidey to normal size. He calls his ants back into his belt.

He then turns to the Collector and says, "Are you the Collector or are you The Stealer? You stole that Serpent Crown! Let us take it back, and we'll be fine. There will be no more fuss."

The Collector says,

"Rubbish! The Serpent Crown is the property of the kings of Lemuria. They are gone, and so are all of their grandchildren. No one owns the Crown by right, and I own it by virtue of possession!"

He looks around.

"Or I did. Someone is hiding my Serpent Crown! The centerpiece of my collection of serpent-themed royal regalia!"

"I do not want to become angry ... I have had my fill and more than my fill of the bitter dregs of wrath, these latest hours. But should you steal from me, within mine own demense, then truly, I shall show you what the fury of an Elder of the Universe is!"

THOR interrupts with,

"Aye, but the Realm Eternal endangered stands! Shall the Rainbow Bridge shed its radiance on a scene of devastation and despair? I say thee NAY! More, I say thee NEVER!

"Come thou, Scarlet Witch, wise Vision, brave Ant-Man, vociferous Spider-Man, and not least by any means, Ororo, who bids fair to match mine own title of the Master of the Storm!"

"You also, purple robot man, may come if thou dost desire a battle beyond mortal understanding!"

Why, you may ask, has Thor not invited the Invisible Girl?

Oh, right ... INVISIBLE.

DeCrowned!

Wanda reaches out her fingers forlornly. "Pietro..." she murmurs.

Her eyes shining with tears, she tells the others:

"A being outside this Universe who is in love with Death. He has taken the anger stone beyond the Universe. He is ... trying to prove himself worthy of Death. And with one's hand on the stone, one may see death. And those who will die. You all appeared to have died. As did I.

"I tried to seize it, but my brother pushed me away."

Her throat gets tight.

"This being, he is seeking the Valkyries next. We should contact Thor."

"How does one contact Thor?" says the Vision reasonably. "I was given to understand that he is like the thunderstorm -- he comes when he wills and none shall say him nay. Actually, he told me that."

Wanda shrugs expressively, "I do not know. In our last . . . " (squad/hit team?) ". . . group they kept very good tabs on us. I assumed you were the same. But . . . are you not of the same magic as Thor? Perhaps there is a connection. . . "

"Am I, indeed, of the same magic as Thor?" the Vision says. "Perhaps I am. What I have been told about the moment of my creation is incomplete and contradictory. Thor and I have never spoken on the subject, although I doubt he is avoiding it."

"Can I, by thinking, contact Thor directly? It's a fascinating thought, and I cannot see any reason not to try."

He stops, noticing Wanda. He has been halfway talking to himself.

"Can you?"

Wanda: "There are several possibilities. He might develop a paranoia about your contact. Or he might come in swinging his hammer. Is he prone to fits of temper? If not," she watches the Collector break through the force field,"or even if so, he might be hAndy to have atound."

VISION:

"All right, then." He places a finger to the jewel on his brow.

"Thor. THOR. This is the Vision. You are soon to be attacked by an entity from beyond the Universe. He is seeking the Valkyries."

The Vision looks mildly self-conscious.

"I've no idea if that succeeded," he admits.

JINVISIBLE GIRL

As the Collector turns to flee, but before he makes it up the stairs, Sue will put an invisible wall of force on the stairs, blocking the egress.

THUMP.

The Collector rebounds off the forcefield as though he'd run smack into a bouncy castle.

Irritably, he snaps his fingers, coating them in ethereal energy, and peels open the force field, stepping through.

Sue feels dizzy when her forcefield is disrupted.

She clings grimly to consciousness. "I can't -- can't faint now! Reed is not here to catch me, so there would be no point!"

She takes a moment to daydream about Reed catching her when she faints...

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Storm will blink after the Collector (who had been collecting dust) in astonishment.

(Even Jove housekeeps.)

ANT-MAN

Ant Man has such a brilliant idea that he doesn't bother to explain it until it is too late.

Using a shrinky disk, he shrink Spider-Man to spider-size. Ant-Man whistles for Antonio the flying ant and places Spidey on his back.

Then explains the plan: "Okay, Spider-Man, we are going to fly over the Collector's head and you are going to web the crown off. We then will ran back, I will collect my ants, and we will get the heck out of here!"

SPIDER-MAN

Responding to Ant-Man, he says, "You know, Anty, I see nothing at all wrong with this plan. Except for one tiny thing. The Plan."

Spidey mounts the flying ant and flies toward the Collector's head. Spider-Man webs the crown.

Spider-Man thinks, "Let me see. I have the proportional strength of a spider when I am man sized, and Ant-Man has the disproportional strength of a man when he is ant-sized, so if a spider is ant sized, and by the communicative property .... are we in a communicative property state? ... I've lost track of what I was thinking... Go, Spidy! Go!"

Thwoosh! Off comes the crown. Which weighs far more than Ant-Man, Spider-Man, and Antonio combined, so it drops right to the floor, dragging the heroes with it.

CLUNK!

Once it's down, of course, Antonio can maintain lift. But it's definitely off the Collector's head ...

KATHUNK.

The Crown, lying on the edge of one of the steps of the staircase, falls down a step.

KATHUNK. KATHUNK. KATHUNK.

Antonio and his riders are jerked downward in a predictable but unsettling series of bumps.

INVISIBLE GIRL

Driving back the desire to faint as not romantically useful at this point in time, Sue places a slanted forcefield invisibly on the stair just in front of the Collector's front foot. She places a second force field right at clothe-line level for him to bump into when and if his footing fails.

THE COLLECTOR

Rushes after his crown, saying "NO! The Serpent Crown ... it's one of a kind!"

And slips, falling forward into a forcefield that clocks him in the chops.

This causes him to fall backward, onto his back, and slide down the stairs, bumping the back of his head each and every time.

And also come bearing down on Ant-Man like, well, like a colossal blue whale thumpeting down a staircase.

Oh, and Spider-Man, too. Just because.

Just before they are erased from existence, the insect-guys are saved!

A rainbow-tinted tornado explodes at the foot of the stairs, and Thor leaps through.

The Collector, one of the Elders of the Universe, is not knocked out by falling down a flight of stairs. He's actually rather ticked off, although not as psycho as the last time you saw him.

"Collector!" hails Thor. "How comest thou the brave Valkyries, who the valorous among the slain choose, to threaten?"

For Love of Death

ANT MAN:

Ant Man releases his ant army from his belt, telling them to scout for the Collector.

He rushes the duck, shrinking down, making a long leap punching him in the face.

This way, his ants do not get eaten by a duck.

Howard the Duck is knocked silly by the Ant-Punch.

SPIDER-MAN:

Spider-Man takes a photo of duck. "What a FOWL temper you have!"

He webs the duck from his two wrist cartridges. "Don't pay me now! I'll send you the BILL! You should have DUCKED!"

Howard is now unconscious and webbed up. But the webbing strands are almost 3mm apart, so Ant-Man can easily slip between them.

VISION:

"Why is Spider-Man emphasizing the very words which have double meanings? That seems certain to increase the chance of misunderstanding. Is he doing it on purpose?"

INVISIBLE GIRL

Sue looks alarmed. "Look out! That is a mysterious space duck! He may have dangerous powers! Good thing we do not have any rash teenagers like my brother Johnny here in the group!"

She looks around in wonder. "This is the first fight I have ever been in when the fire alarm was not going off. How odd!"

An alarmed look:
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SCARLET WITCH:

scans the cases for interesting weapons as she keeps an eye also on the interior door.

She doesn't think she can help the duck's madness. And something about him . . . repels her.

STORM:
Shred the spacesuits! Oh...wait. Wrong game. (No one shred their space suit!)

Storm flies upward, away from the ruckus, to begin searching for the gem.

She frowns. She cannot think of a way to use her storm-related powers to make this either. She settles for employing the sight power from her mark-one standard eyeballs!

Scarlet Witch and Storm spy the liquid red crystal at the same moment. This must be what Machine Man called the Aether Stone!

Machine Man's extensible arms grab the Aether Stone and bring it back to the Scarlet Witch.

"Can you fix this?" he asks.

She brushes her fingertips over the Stone, trying to wipe away its rage as she did with Machine Man.

Instead, the Scarlet Witch sees a vision of all her friends lying dead. Not just the six people she came up with, but everyone she knows: the Avengers, her family, her brother Quicksilver ... everyone but the Vision, actually.

The Vision frowns at all the death surrounding.

"I do not know how to repair this," he says. But he places a finger to the jewel on his brow, which Thor referred to as the Life Stone.

"But I have to try," he says.

The Scarlet Witch concentrates on seeing the Aether Stone. She sees it balanced on one point of a geometric solid, with other colorful stones balanced on the other points. The geometric solid is black and filled with stars, or on closer inspection, galaxies.

Holding onto the Aether Stone is a purple glove. The hand in the glove tries to rotate the Stone in a precise way, like turning the tumblers on a combination lock.

The Scarlet Witch tries to interfere with the mind of the owner of the purple glove.

This mental contact causes her to see the fellow clearly. He's big, like the Hulk, and has purple skin. He wears a golden Merlin-like skullcap and blue tights, has a cape, and eyes like dark pools.

He's grinning.

She tries to cool his rage, but he isn't angry. Just determined, and entertained.

"Who are you?" she asks.

"You know me," he rumbles "All who fear Death know my name."

"I do not know your name," replies the Vision. "Are you Death?"

"I am not worthy," the purple man says.

"Why are you doing this?" the Scarlet Witch wants to know.

"For love of Death."

The Scarlet Witch conjures in her minds images of death's gorgeous handmaidens, hoping to distract the man.

"Yes .. the Valkyries," he agrees. "I will see them next. How badly do you want the Wrathstone?"

And he pulls on the stone, trying to take it from her grasp.

The Scarlet Witch pulls back. She sees not only all her friends dead, but what it would be like for she herself to be dead.

Pietro, her brother, rushes up to her.

"You don't want this," he says. "I have been here, you have not. You don't know what you're risking."

And he pushes her, gently, but with great speed, so she lets go of the Aether Stone.

"How are you?" she asks her dead brother.

He grins.

"Is not so bad," he says. "I've"

And then her fingers slip from the stone, and she can no longer see the dead.

When she can once again see the Collector's ship around her, the Aether Stone is gone.

Everyone else saw her touch it, the Stone ripple and warp, the Vision say some words, and then the Stone slipped from her grasp and was gone.

Ant-Man's ant scouts return. He's coming!

The Collector, a large white-haired man wearing a turban in the shape of metallic snakes, comes down a staircase with a broom and dustpan.

"Burglars?" he says, a little confused. Then,

"BURGLARS!"

He turns and runs away, up the stairs, carrying his broom and dustpan with him.

Space Museum

The sky darkens, deepens from blue to black, and grows innumerable stars. High above and off to one side, a single auburn star grows and resolves into a rectangular prism, a brick-shape if you will, blotting out many stars.

The Richards Rocket is not headed to the Space Museum, or so it appears, but Sue Storm explains that the ship has to match velocities before it blends its orbit with that of the Collector's ship. Otherwise the intercept becomes less of a meeting and more of a collision.

Machine Man indicates a doorway; there are many. It will flood with air automatically once the rocket is inside.

Fortunately, the Collector is not the Astronomer, the Watcher, or the Recorder. The Space Museum has few sensors and fewer windows. He is likely not aware of the Earthlings' stealthy (well, blatantly obvioius: the rocket is even white) approach.

The rocket docks with the massive Museum Ship. In the cavernous entry bay is another ship, brass and gold along its entire length, with spikes tapering from every surface except the top, which mounts three masts and three sets of mirror-mesh sails.

"That's a Shi'ar starjammer," Machine Man explains. "The Collector bought it off Corsair when he traded up."

The air inside is cool but healthy. Except for Ant-Man, no one should retain his space suit, because their colorful costumes will not be visible if they do.

"The Aether Stone is in the jewelry section," says Machine Man. "It's right along here, past the rainbow of Kryptonites ..."

As he leads the group through a doorless archway, a feathered tornado knocks him sprawling with a clang!

"Howard ... it's me! Abel!" insists Machine Man to the humanoid duck who has just kicked him across the room.

"I know!" quacks the duck. "An' I been listenin' to your yap all I'm gonna take! Whip out those arms, Robby, because I'm gonna open up a whole can of Quack-Fu on you!"

Behind Howard the Duck, the jewelry area extends, vast and resplendent. It has high ceilings with overhangs, excellent for swinging, and lots of lights and polished mirrors for ants to climb on.

And it's huge ... which means it can sustain its own weather system.

So huge is the Space Museum, in fact, that Machine Man's clattering fall onto the metallic deck was probably not heard in most of the vast ship's area. Which means there's only a small chance the Collector is now on his way down here with fire in his eyes, almost literally.

Does Whatever A Radar Can!

Storm can fly a plane. She will fly back down from where she had tried to follow the Collector and fly whatever vehicle is  needed. She will find if Iceman and Colossus can meet them, or can be picked up on the way.

They can. However, they have not actually left yet, because they're trying to capture Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, the Beast, etc. at the X-Mansion. Because they're all insane with Professor-X rage. So no X-Men reinforcements are coming. On the other hand, Iceman assures Storm they got this!  No need for her to come rushing back. She can go into space.

Oh, and Kitty Pryde. She's not insane with rage. 

Once they arrive at the Baxter Building, we all get in the spaceship. Storm puts Spiderman in front and tells him to use his danger sense as radar, so they can avoid unseen dangers.

The expedition is:

Storm

Sue Storm

Spider-Man

Scarlet Witch

Ant-Man

Machine Man

the Vision

Anyone left out? Anyone else going? Anyone NOT want to go into space?

Space And Beyond

New York City is about sixty miles away. Since the Fantasti-Car is here, that's a trip of a few minutes. But it only seats four, duh.

This, however, is Avengers Base. Quinjets are present in plenty. One of those could carry seven or ten people.

 Sue can fly a plane, as can Storm. Pretty sure Ant-Man and Spider-Man can't, although Spider-Man could learn, given time.

The Scarlet Witch cannot fly a plane.

The Vision has never learned to fly a plane.

Machine Man ... who knows?

But the bottom line is, getting to the Baxter Building, and then Space, is no problem.

Once there, however, the assembled heroes will face The Collector, with rage powers AND the Serpent Crown of Lemuria. On the upside, Machine Man knows the layout of the Star Museum ship, so if you need armor, weapons, refreshments, maps, gifts, gift wrap, fashions, games, toys, books, oddities, curiosities, ephemera, miscellanea or etcetera ... got you covered.

If we count Machine Man and the Vision in on this, that's seven heroes. Do you have any particular way you want to fight the Collector, or shall we just wing it? That's seemed to work so far.

Spider-Man's spider-sense is faintly tingling. There is danger.

He moves left. Still danger.

He moves right. Still danger.

He moves all across the airbase, swinging and jumping. Still the exact same level of danger, on both sides of the sprawling facility.

Is it New York State that's in danger? Or the whole Western Hemisphere, maybe?

The Madness Returns ...

Machine Man says:

"Guys, I don't want to be hit in the face for this, but the anger's coming back. It's not too strong yet, but it's definitely there, and it's not mine. You might want to remove my arms and legs -- I'm sure Mr. Stark can put them back on -- just to be sure ..."

The Scarlet Witch brushes her fingertips across his head in a spidery fashion.

"And it's gone," says Machine Man. "Great! But this means everyone touched by the Collector's power is going to get angry again."

"I think it's the Aether," he adds. "It's sort of a liquid jewel, like red transparent ink diffusing through water, except there's no water. He's had it for years, at least. It's one of the six Infinity Stones, which are sort of like the focal points of reality. He wanted to collect all six, but he never got more than two."

"Anyway, the Aether Stone lit up on his ship, and that's when we all got so angry. So either someone snuck onto the ship and activated it, or it turned on all by itself."

mimimimimi, squeaks Namor.

"Ant-Man, can you re-biggify Namor so we can tell what he's saying?"