Chapter Summaries

Dane and the researchers developed plans for Cortana’s synthetic body, while Shangqi learned of Xu Wenwu’s death and was forced to become the new leader of the Ten Rings. The chapter left Shangqi asking which Avengers had fought his father.

• Dane explained how Adamantium and Eternal-like biology could form the basis of Cortana’s synthetic body and considered adding mental powers.
• Jane Foster proposed using Aether particles to preserve Cortana’s digital abilities, but Helen Cho and Dane rejected relying on an Infinity Stone instead of scientific research.
• Doctor Banner suggested unfolding Adamantium into a sheet and etching circuits onto it, and Jane proposed doing the work in space using solar heat.
• Dane, Helen Cho, Bill, and others developed plans for Cortana’s synthetic body, including a biological quantum brain, with Ava as a reference and Arnim Zola as an experimental subject.
• Shangqi returned to Ten Rings headquarters, learned Xu Wenwu had died, and was declared the organization’s new leader despite his protests.
• Shangqi asked how Xu Wenwu had died and learned that his father had fought the Avengers.

Shangqi learned that Xu Wenwu’s death was linked to Captain America, Jessica, and S.H.I.E.L.D., while his allies identified James Buchanan Barnes as a possible lead. In Wakanda’s jungle, Barnes attacked a deal between Grant Ward and Ulysses Klaw, fought Erik Killmonger, and prepared to kill him.

• Shangqi’s warriors said Captain America, Jessica, and two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were connected to Xu Wenwu’s death and showed him a photograph of James Buchanan Barnes.
• Grant Ward negotiated with Ulysses Klaw over Vibranium, accepted Klaw’s demand to double the price, and warned Erik Killmonger that he knew his true identity.
• Barnes shot one of Ward’s men, but Ward and Klaw took cover as Erik and the others returned fire toward the sniper’s position.
• Barnes fled through the jungle while Erik pursued him and intercepted him.
• Barnes blocked Erik’s burst of bullets with his metal arm, smashed Erik’s rifle, and punched him in the chest.
• Barnes knocked the injured Erik aside, drew a pistol, and prepared to kill him.

Bucky fought the Black Panther after being mistaken for a Vibranium smuggler, then pointed him toward Klaw. T'Challa pursued Klaw but failed to catch him, and returned to learn that the injured Erik was his cousin and had royal blood, raising questions about Wakanda's succession.

• Bucky and the Black Panther fought until Bucky explained that Erik was the smuggler and Klaw's associate.
• The Black Panther left Bucky and chased Klaw, whose men escaped after knocking the Black Panther off their SUV.
• T'Challa returned to the landing site, where Nakia and Okoye had found the injured Erik.
• Nakia revealed that Erik's glowing lip tattoo and ancient ring identified him as a Wakandan with royal blood.
• T'Challa learned that Erik was his cousin, while Okoye worried that Erik's claim might threaten T'Challa's succession.

Dane sought access to Hank Pym’s Pym Particles to continue Umbrella’s Quantum Realm research and arranged to meet him at Tony Stark’s banquet. He arrived with Pepper, but Hank had not yet appeared, leaving Dane to greet Otto and wait for his chance.

• T’Challa decided to bring the unconscious Erik to Wakanda for treatment, and Nakia and Okoye helped carry him onto the cloaked aircraft.
• Dane’s Accra facility launched rockets equipped with improved antigravity systems as he worked on a quantum brain for Umbrella’s artificial-life project.
• Dane learned that Bill could not produce Pym Particles, and Pepper told him that a Stark Industries banquet might let him meet Hank Pym.
• Dane and Pepper attended Tony Stark’s banquet, where they found Otto present but Hank Pym absent.
• Tony greeted Dane, and Dane told Otto that Stark was a good choice after he had declined to join Umbrella.

Dane met Hank Pym at Tony Stark’s banquet and secretly learned the details of Pym’s research and personal history. After leaving the gathering, Dane used that knowledge to manufacture Pym Particles and confirmed that they could shrink objects while preserving their function and drastically reducing their weight.

• Dane reassured Otto after he chose to work with Tony, and he discussed possible space-project cooperation between Umbrella and Stark Industries.
• Tony introduced Dane to Hank Pym, and Dane learned Pym’s memories during their handshake before impressing him with scientific insights.
• Pym told Tony that Pym Technologies wanted to join Stark’s space development program to conduct research that required a space environment.
• Dane returned home with Pepper and Wanda, then used Phastos and Pym’s research to produce a tube of red Pym Particles.
• Dane tested the particles by shrinking a sports car to thumb-size, finding that it still worked normally and weighed a thousandth of its original amount.

Dane’s research into Pym Particles was interrupted by Pepper and Wanda, who persuaded him to leave the laboratory for dinner. At the Ten Rings’ headquarters, Shangqi discovered that his sister Xu Xialing had returned, and she questioned whether he intended to avenge their father.

• Dane concluded that Pym Particles could bypass multiple physical laws, then agreed to leave the laboratory and eat with Pepper and Wanda.
• Xu Xialing broke into the Ten Rings’ headquarters and fought the Face Mask Warriors until Shangqi ordered them to capture her.
• Xu Xialing revealed herself as Shangqi’s sister and attacked him, but Shangqi disarmed her and had the warriors seize her.
• Xu Xialing said she had returned to learn who killed their father, and Shangqi told her the Avengers were implicated.
• Xu Xialing challenged Shangqi over whether he wanted revenge, while he claimed the Ten Rings had more important matters to handle.

After Shangqi made Xu Xialing his Saintess, she used the Golden Daggers to consolidate power within the Ten Rings and located Bucky. Bucky destroyed a Hydra base but was ambushed by the Golden Daggers, who captured him with sedatives.

• Shangqi appointed Xu Xialing Saintess and gave her real authority within the Ten Rings.
• Xu Xialing formed the Golden Daggers, used them to eliminate dissidents, and won the support of Ten Rings veterans.
• Bucky infiltrated a Hydra base, fought through its forces, and set off its self-destruct program after letting Grant Ward escape.
• After leaving the destroyed base, Bucky was attacked by snipers and masked Golden Daggers warriors who drove him into a trap.
• The Golden Daggers shot through Bucky's metal arm, restrained him with chain blades, and subdued him with three injections of sedatives.

Steve traced Bucky’s last signal to Wakanda while Erik Killmonger woke in Wakanda and learned that T’Challa was his cousin. At the Ten Rings base, the Winter Soldier remained silent under torture as Xu Xialing’s men held him captive.

• After the Golden Daggers reported that they had secured the Winter Soldier, Xu Xialing ordered them to bring him back unharmed.
• Steve received Bucky’s emergency signal and asked Natasha to trace it; Natasha located the final signal near the Wakandan border and began investigating Wakanda.
• Erik woke in a Wakandan hospital, became consumed by a desire for power, and recognized the advanced technology around him.
• T’Challa introduced himself to Erik and revealed that Erik was N’Jadaka, son of N Jobu, and his cousin.
• At the Ten Rings base, the old interrogator tortured the weakened Winter Soldier, who refused to speak.

Xu Xialing had the Winter Soldier taken to a Ten Rings laboratory to study his super-soldier strength, while Dane pursued a way to locate Janet in the Quantum Realm and learned Bucky might have been captured. Dane let Natasha continue investigating with partial Astartes authority, then prepared to enter the Quantum Realm himself.

• Xu Xialing questioned the Winter Soldier about the Ten Rings and Steve, then realized he had secretly sent Steve a message.
• Xu Xialing decided the Winter Soldier could help her gain super-soldier strength and had him transferred to a Ten Rings laboratory.
• Dane calibrated a quantum shuttle and searched for Janet's signal using clues from Hank Pym's memories.
• Dane learned Natasha had traced Bucky's disappearance to a destroyed secret base and suspected Wakanda might have captured him.
• Dane told Natasha to stop pursuing Wakanda for his sake, but granted her partial Astartes authority when she chose to continue helping Steve.
• Dane put on his homemade Ant-Man suit and prepared to enter the Quantum Realm.

Dane entered the Quantum Realm to trace Janet's signal, where a dangerous glowing creature damaged his test suit and disabled its enlargement function. He realized he would need Kang's territory to repair it, then spotted ten masked inhabitants approaching the site of the explosion.

• Dane shrank through the microscopic and Subatomic Realms, tracked the Wasp suit's signal, and entered the Quantum Realm.
• Dane adapted to the Quantum Realm's atmosphere, followed Janet's signal toward an abyss, and jumped in to investigate.
• A glowing tentacled creature attacked Dane, but he enlarged himself and crushed it in an explosion.
• Dane survived the blast, discovered that his suit's enlargement function was broken, and concluded that he would need Kang's technology to repair it.
• Dane hid and watched ten masked people arrive on strange finned mounts.

Dane entered a floating continent, where a field suppressed his mental powers and forced him to fight off an armed local before meeting the tribe’s leader. After drinking Wuzhi and learning the locals’ language, he told the leader he came from the same place as Janet and Kang, leaving the tribe wary that he might lead them to their settlement.

• Dane followed ten tribespeople onto a floating continent, where a membrane erased his influence over their minds and an energy field confined his mental powers.
• A local soldier attacked Dane with a living rifle and an explosive device, but Dane disarmed and defeated him before the tribe’s leader intervened.
• Dane communicated with the leader through physical contact and agreed to stop reading his mind in exchange for Wuzhi.
• Dane drank Wuzhi, which altered his brain and allowed him to understand the tribe’s language.
• Dane confirmed that he came from the same place as Janet and Kang, and the leader feared that he would bring them to the tribe.

Dane left the tribe with directions toward Kang and traveled through the shifting worlds of the Quantum Realm. After stealing a patrol captain’s money and buying navigation, he headed toward Kang’s headquarters, while the captain alerted Yi and accused Dane of being with the Rebel Army.

• The chief gave Dane transportation and directions toward Kang, then prepared to move his tribe again after Dane departed.
• Dane crossed into a nested world and arrived at a trading district, where armed personnel tried to detain him for entering without an introducer.
• Dane used telepathy to search the patrol captain’s memories, learned the district enforced Kang’s screening rules, and took the captain’s wristwatch.
• Dane used the wristwatch to buy a new navigation device, then left the trading district as the patrol captain discovered his money was gone.
• The patrol captain reviewed surveillance footage, suspected Dane belonged to the Rebel Army, and ordered his team to notify Yi.

Janet learned that Dane might have come from Earth carrying Pym Particles and ordered the Rebel Army to stop him before he reached Kang. Kang’s Legion intercepted Dane, but after he destroyed its fighters, Janet arrived just as a massive explosion engulfed him.

• Kayla showed Janet intelligence about Dane, and Janet concluded he was not Hank but might have come from Earth with Pym Particles.
• Janet feared Kang could use Dane’s Pym Particles to restore the Time-Space Orb, so she ordered the Rebel Army to find and intercept him.
• Kang’s Legion dispatched fighters to capture Dane, who evaded their laser barrage and made their systems collapse by altering an electromagnetic constant.
• Dane destroyed the first wave of fighters, then abandoned his frightened shuttle as reinforcements arrived and attacked him with varied weapons.
• Dane dodged the assault and crushed or redirected enemy craft and weapons, but a fighter self-destructed near him in a massive explosion.
• Janet arrived after the blast, mourned Dane’s apparent death, and felt relieved that Kang might not obtain the Pym Particles.

Dane survived Kang’s Legion’s assault by absorbing its energy with the Ten Rings, then unleashed a blast that devastated the battlefield and distorted the spatial field. He captured Janet and searched her memories, leaving him with her knowledge of the Quantum Realm and the need to find a new route to the gateway between worlds.

• Janet and Kayla believed Dane had died in the explosion until they detected a life sign on the battlefield.
• Dane used the Ten Rings to absorb heat and energy from Kang’s Legion’s attacks, drawing more fighters toward him as Janet feared Kang’s power over time.
• After gathering enough energy, Dane reversed the Ten Rings’ flow and released a blast that blinded witnesses, destroyed nearby aircraft, and scattered the Rebel Army’s fleet.
• Dane discovered that the blast had distorted space, preventing immediate reinforcements and shifting the gateway between the worlds to a new location.
• Dane caught Janet while she was tiny, controlled her mind, restored her normal size, and searched her memories for her knowledge of the Quantum Realm.

Dane repaired his armor at the Rebel Army base while Kang began slaughtering civilians to find him and Janet. With the base endangered and the Rebel Army weakened, Dane revealed a device resembling Hank’s shrinking machine, leaving his plan unclear.

• Dane controlled Janet and demanded that she take him to Kang in exchange for helping her return to Earth.
• After regrouping the surviving Rebels, Janet led them back to their base with Dane, while Kang examined the destroyed battlefield and ordered his forces to interrogate and execute civilians for information.
• Dane repaired his armor using Quantum Realm science, and three days later a messenger warned Janet that Kang’s Legion was searching for Dane and killing people across its territories.
• Janet explained that the Rebel Army was too weakened and disorganized to confront Kang, and she urged Dane to avoid him and relocate.
• Dane rejected Janet’s suggestion and showed her a machine resembling Hank’s shrinking device.

Dane brought Janet from the Quantum Realm to the real world, studied its time laws, and prepared Umbrella’s forces for war against Kang. After returning to the Quantum Realm with a small Astartes force, he relocated the Rebel Army and began attacks that left Kang struggling to respond.

• Dane took Janet through the quantum shuttle to the real world, where she lost consciousness and he sealed her in a container for Cortana to study.
• Dane researched the Quantum Realm’s time laws, confirmed he could choose when to reenter it, and planned a war against Kang.
• Dane assembled an army and built a large quantum shuttle on the Moon to prepare for the campaign.
• Dane returned to the Quantum Realm almost immediately, sent a hundred Astartes through the small shuttle, and ordered the Rebel Army to relocate to a hidden base.
• Dane led the Astartes in attacks that overwhelmed Kang’s troops, while Kang failed to capture them or locate the relocated Rebel Army base.
• Kang realized the enemy had taken the initiative, despite having only about a hundred soldiers.

The Astartes lured Kang away from the Time Sphere by attacking his forces, then engaged him in a costly battle while another squad infiltrated his forbidden zone. Kang realized their real target was the Time Sphere, leaving its fate uncertain.

• Kang sacrificed an industrial zone to destroy eight Astartes, but the surviving centurion learned that Kang cared most about the Time Sphere.
• Dane ordered the centurion to exploit Kang’s need to protect the Time Sphere, and another company of Astartes arrived three days later.
• The centurion’s company drew Kang away from the Time Sphere by appearing at one of Kang’s military bases, where both sides began fighting.
• Kang’s energy shockwave failed to seriously injure the Astartes, and one warrior’s wrist blade cut through his battle suit.
• As the Astartes wore Kang down, he received word that another squad had broken into the forbidden zone and realized the Time Sphere was their true target.

Kang the Conqueror returned to his base and fought the Astartes as they tried to seize the Time Sphere. The Astartes made the Sphere expand, and it swallowed Kang; afterward, they subdued the remaining servitors and found his spacecraft.

• Kang realized the Astartes had raided his base and returned while a hundred of them fought their way toward the Time Sphere.
• Kang entered the Sphere's chamber, where the Centurion and other Astartes ambushed him while their squads moved into the Sphere.
• The Astartes triggered the Possibility Storm, and the Time Sphere began expanding as Kang pulled the remaining warriors out.
• An Astartes shot Kang in the chest and collapsed his spatial gateway, leaving him to be swallowed by the expanding Time Sphere.
• The Astartes killed the remaining mechanical servitors and discovered Kang's spacecraft, which the Centurion ordered them to take back.

Dane learned that Kang had severed his headquarters world’s navigation links, so he planned to seek the Merchant Alliance’s help finding another route. The Alliance debated whether Kang’s apparent setback was a chance to attack, while its leader weighed the danger of confronting Kang’s Legion.

• The Astartes destroyed Kang’s base, escaped with his spacecraft, and reported that Kang was trapped inside the Time Sphere.
• Dane ordered the captured spacecraft hidden, but discovered that Kang’s headquarters world had disappeared from the navigation system.
• Dane explained that Kang could have destroyed the Merchant Alliance’s signal towers and proposed relying on the Alliance’s older methods for finding passageways between worlds.
• The Merchant Alliance argued over Kang’s missing world, with one magnate urging an immediate attack and the leader recognizing his interest in seizing Kang’s Legion.
• The Alliance’s members reviewed the mechanical servants’ strength, loyalty, and ability to receive Kang’s orders through a quantum link.

Dane met with the Merchant Alliance and asked for help finding Kang’s world so he could reach Kang. The alliance agreed to guide him using its ability to track void creatures, and Dane stayed with them while they searched.

• The Merchant Alliance leaders argued over a mysterious guest until Dane arrived and identified himself as the new leader of the Rebel Army.
• The alliance leader recognized Dane’s imposing presence and offered him the seat of honor, while the others questioned whether Janet knew he had taken over.
• Dane said Janet had returned to her homeland and asked how to enter Kang’s world; the alliance agreed to help.
• Dane tested the leaders’ protective shields with his psychic power and found that their intricate barriers had exploitable gaps.
• The alliance leader explained that the Merchant Alliance could locate void creatures drawn to the boundaries between worlds and use them to find Kang’s world.
• Dane remained at the Merchant Alliance while its members intensified their search for the void creatures.