Chapter Summaries

Reed learned that Doom had anchored their already-destroyed universe and that Galactus’s abnormal hunger threatened to end it again within years. Doom revealed the Big Bang Cannon and asked Reed and Miles to help finish it, but Reed chose to meet Galactus first, while Miles planned to gather intelligence.

• Reed confronted Doom in Latveria and demanded an explanation for the universal apocalypse and the World Anchor.
• Doom said Galactus’s hunger had intensified and would accelerate the universe’s destruction, then led Reed, Susan, Ben, Johnny, and Miles to the Big Bang Cannon.
• Doom revealed that the World Anchor had only about two thousand Earth hours left and that Galactus would arrive in forty days.
• Doom invited Reed and Miles to help complete the Big Bang Cannon and kill Galactus, but Reed refused until he had met Galactus and investigated the cause of his aberration.
• Miles agreed to fight for the universe’s survival but said he would first seek out Galactus and gather intelligence; Doom let the group leave.

Reed explained that Victor had used the World Anchor to restore the destroyed universe to a past state, leaving its continued existence dependent on the device. As Johnny investigated Miles over soda, the Mad Thinker prepared a scheme targeting Reed’s unborn child, and a hijacked police van carrying Puppet Master drew Johnny away while Miles decided to help.

• Reed explained that the World Anchor had anchored the universe to a past historical moment, and Susan worried about her unborn child’s fate during the apocalypse.
• The Mad Thinker, Rene Rodan, watched Puppet Master get arrested and activated a project aimed at Reed and his unborn child.
• Miles gathered information about this universe as Johnny reassured the panicked New Yorkers that the Fantastic Four would handle Galactus.
• Johnny found Miles, invited him for soda, and questioned him about his universe-hopping and his cooperation with Doom.
• After Johnny and Miles discussed the woman Miles was searching for, an explosion revealed that Puppet Master’s police van had been hijacked.
• Johnny flew toward the hijacked van, while Miles decided to help so Reed could focus on the larger threat.

Johnny and the Fantastic Four struggled to contain chaos caused by Puppet Master while Mad Thinker tested his ability to predict them. Miles stopped the controlled civilians, captured Puppet Master and Mad Thinker, and left the suspects for Johnny to hand over to the police.

• Johnny arrived at the overturned police convoy and tried to protect the officers from civilians controlled by Puppet Master Philip Masters.
• Reed, Susan, and Ben encountered Mad Thinker's traps, which attacked the Fantasticar, endangered civilians, and sent vehicles careening through the streets.
• Miles found Puppet Master in a van, incapacitated him, and spread his psychic power across the city, stopping the controlled people and vehicles.
• Miles opened a portal into Mad Thinker's hidden room, pulled Rene Rodan through it, and knocked him unconscious.
• Johnny found Miles with Puppet Master and Mad Thinker in an alley, and Miles asked him to handle the police.

At the Baxter Building, Miles explained that he had been raised as a weapon in Alkali Laboratory, prompting Susan and the others to reconsider their judgments of him. He revealed his Negative Zone and the Leviathan as a faster way to investigate Planet Eater, while Susan, Johnny, and Ben concluded that Miles was deeply lonely and accustomed to having no home.

• Susan challenged Miles over using Mind Control on more than a hundred people, and Miles explained that he had been born in Alkali Laboratory as the result of genetic weapon experiments using Charles Xavier's genes.
• Ben, Reed, and Johnny reacted to Miles's account of being trained as a weapon, and Miles described how a nurse rescued him and the other children.
• Reed showed evidence that Planet Eater had destroyed at least five planets and said the Strive for Excellence could launch within a day.
• Miles opened a portal to his Negative Zone and showed Reed the Leviathan, which he offered for their deep-space investigation.
• Reed eagerly began discussing departure with Miles, while Susan and Johnny reflected on Miles's isolation and Ben said he seemed used to being homeless.

Miles and Reed redesigned the Leviathan’s engine systems, then joined the Fantastic Four as they prepared the Strive for Excellence to search for the cosmic threat. The ship launched successfully, while Doom watched from Latveria and reflected that Reed had not changed.

• Reed identified flaws in the Leviathan’s engine matrix and created an improved design with Miles, who agreed to continue the refit during their journey.
• The Fantastic Four prepared the Strive for Excellence, and Miles warned Reed that the Negative Zone could not shield people from the universe’s destruction.
• Johnny admitted to himself that he feared losing everyone, then realized the Silver Surfer’s recording used the same language as signals received from beyond Earth.
• Reed completed new spacesuits for the team, and Johnny thanked him with a hug.
• The Fantastic Four and Miles launched the Strive for Excellence from New York to investigate the cosmic threat.
• Doom watched the successful launch from Latveria and remarked that Reed had never changed.

The Strive for Excellence docked with its orbital jump module and traveled through a wormhole toward the binary star system LHS-275. During the journey, Miles was afflicted by an anomalous force that rusted his body and the ship around him, and he woke after the others helped him hold on to his identity; the name Feirotus left him with a disturbing sense of familiarity.

• Reed guided the Strive for Excellence to its jump module, and the crew activated the Superluminal Engine to travel through a wormhole toward LHS-275.
• Miles fell into a trance as rust spread across his body and nearby equipment, while Reed detected an energy field from outside their universe.
• Johnny urged Miles to remember his identity, and Miles woke as the rust on him, Ben's spacesuit, and Reed's scanner vanished.
• Reed revealed that he had heard Miles repeatedly say, “I am Feirotus,” and the name triggered strange memories in Miles.
• Aurora told Miles that she had also been affected, and Miles noticed a crack in the Homecoming Knot before going to rest in the ship's cabin.

The Fantastic Four and Miles reached Galactus as he devoured a planet, and he demanded Susan's unborn child in exchange for sparing Earth. After Miles showed Galactus a vision of his own death, Galactus began losing control, his energy readings declined as his hunger intensified, and he ordered them to give him the child.

• Reed brought Strive for Excellence into the planet's interior, where the team discovered Galactus's enormous machinery devouring the world, and Miles helped them escape its lock-on.
• The Silver Surfer boarded the ship and brought Reed, Susan, Johnny, Ben, and Miles to Galactus, who offered to spare Earth if they handed over Susan's child.
• Johnny questioned the Silver Surfer about his earlier words before rejoining the group as they approached Galactus.
• Galactus induced Susan's labor and demanded her unborn child, but Miles projected memories that showed Galactus's corpse and made the cosmic god recognize his own death.
• Galactus's feeding accelerated while his measurable energy declined, and he lost control, blasted the Silver Surfer away, and began tearing the planet apart.
• Galactus succumbed to hunger and demanded that the group give him Susan's child.

Galactus's out-of-control hunger tore apart the planet as his robots pursued Susan and the Fantastic Four. Miles unleashed the Phoenix Avatar to protect them, but strange whispers weakened him as the robots began a suicidal assault.

• Galactus's energy stripped the planet's atmosphere and tore a continent from its crust, while Miles and the Fantastic Four failed to open a portal and fled toward the Strive for Excellence.
• Galactus's robots attacked and targeted Susan; Reed, Susan, Ben, Johnny, and Miles fought to hold them back as Susan's labor worsened.
• Miles tried to retrieve the Kang Taijun Core but learned from Aurora that it had vanished, then remembered something and looked at his palm.
• A larger robot wielding Miles's Adamantium Spear charged Reed, but Miles appeared with the Phoenix Avatar and melted it before confronting the remaining robots.
• Miles heard whispers identifying him as Feirotus, and the robots switched to a self-destruct attack that engulfed the corridor in cosmic energy.

Miles and the Fantastic Four escaped the collapsing planet after the Silver Surfer agreed to give them 854 Earth hours to investigate Galactus’s abnormal hunger. In the Negative Zone, Miles discovered that the missing Kang Taijun Core had left Feirotus’s corruption inside him, and though Phoenix Fire burned away the visible rust, a speck of it began growing again.

• Miles destroyed a pursuing Punisher robot, then restrained the Silver Surfer while Reed and Johnny convinced her that Galactus’s feeding and energy loss were abnormal.
• The Silver Surfer stopped attacking and gave Reed 854 Earth hours to find the cause before Galactus reached Earth, then let the group leave as the mechanical structure collapsed.
• Ben piloted the Strive for Excellence out of the doomed planet while Susan’s labor began, and Aurora materialized to help deliver the baby.
• Miles entered the Negative Zone and found the Kang Taijun Core’s sealed chamber empty, realizing that some part of it had transferred into him and was linked to Feirotus.
• Miles used Phoenix Fire to burn away the rust and silence Feirotus’s whispers, but then detected a new speck of dark red rust growing deep within his fingertip.

The Fantastic Four returned to Earth with newborn Franklin after Galactus demanded the child in exchange for sparing the planet. As Galactus weakened and his former heralds awoke, Miles argued with the team over revealing the bargain and proposed testing Franklin for an X Gene.

• The Fantastic Four landed in New York Harbor, where Susan presented Franklin to the cheering crowd.
• Reed told reporters that Galactus had demanded Franklin and admitted he did not know whether Earth was safe.
• Galactus consumed the star in the LHS-275 system, but continued to weaken as Terrax and Air-Walker emerged from Taa II.
• Miles criticized Reed for disclosing Galactus's demand and offered to erase the public's memories, but Susan refused.
• The Fantastic Four discussed Victor's Big Bang Cannon and the risks of killing Galactus, while Reed said he lacked enough information to understand Galactus's nature.
• Miles asked whether Franklin had been tested for the X Gene, suggesting Galactus might have recognized something in the child.

Miles explained the X gene and gave Reed a reference model, and Reed’s tests revealed that Franklin had a complete X gene expression system with an unprecedented, undifferentiated pattern resembling Galactus’s cosmic energy. With less than three hundred hours to understand Galactus, Miles activated the Archon Platform and linked his parallel thinking with Reed’s, beginning their analysis.

• Miles described the X gene and supplied Reed with a reference model, prompting Reed to begin sequencing Franklin’s genes.
• Johnny comforted Susan about her fears for Franklin and accompanied her to see Reed’s test results.
• Reed and Miles found that Franklin had a complete X gene expression system, but its many active regulatory regions did not match any known mutant pattern.
• Reed and Miles noticed similarities between Franklin’s unusual gene expression and Galactus’s cosmic energy, then Reed proposed building a model from the energy data they had collected.
• Miles summoned the Archon Platform and used Spark of the Heart to create tens of thousands of parallel thought processes.
• Reed connected his mind to Miles’s and directed their calculations toward modeling Galactus’s power depletion.

Susan confronted the crowd demanding Franklin, urging them to face Galactus together, while Reed realized Galactus’s missing energy might be traveling through time. As Reed and Miles returned to the lab to investigate, Terrax threatened to kill Reed if he could cure Galactus, and Air-Walker confirmed that Earth remained the ship’s target.

• Susan took Franklin outside and told the crowd she would neither sacrifice her child nor the world, calling on everyone to face the crisis together.
• Ben explained to Miles that family could offer belonging and safety, and Miles admitted he had stayed with the Fantastic Four for his own reasons.
• Reed connected Galactus’s energy loss to the spacetime disturbance and proposed that the energy was being transferred to another time; he and Miles rushed to the laboratory to reexamine the data.
• Terrax accused Silver Surfer of obstructing the Earth mission and vowed to kill Reed if he could end Galactus’s hunger, while Silver Surfer defended the effort to find an answer.
• Air-Walker stopped Terrax and Silver Surfer’s confrontation and stated that Galactus’s orders to find food remained in effect, with Earth still the next target.

Reed and Miles traced Galactus’s missing energy to an unknown influence connected to the future, and Reed identified Miles as an outside variable who might disrupt the universe’s established causal history. They devised a way to suppress Galactus’s energy leakage, but a crimson cosmic figure approached Earth ahead of schedule, prompting them to rush into action.

• Reed and Miles found that Galactus’s unexplained energy loss flowed toward future boundary conditions, suggesting a temporal causal anomaly.
• They theorized that observing Galactus’s ending had strengthened a self-reinforcing causal loop, and Reed concluded that Miles’s origin in another universe made him an external variable in the restored history.
• Miles noticed rust returning on his palm, but the Phoenix Brand still suppressed it; he and Reed chose to continue their dangerous research rather than leave the universe’s fate to Victor.
• Their analysis revealed an unknown factor was constraining Galactus’s cosmic energy, and Reed proposed reducing its coupling with matter and spacetime to slow the leakage.
• A deep-space warning detected a crimson cosmic lifeform with energy like the Silver Surfer’s, approaching Earth rapidly with an estimated arrival in 147 seconds.
• Reed and Miles headed out to meet the approaching figure, and Miles retrieved the Archon Platform’s reassembled units into the Negative Zone.

Terrax arrived on Earth to question Reed about his plan to stabilize Galactus, then attacked him to prevent Galactus from recovering. Reed, Susan, Ben, Miles, and Terrax gathered at an abandoned test site in New Jersey, where Terrax raised a forest of stone and prepared to kill them.

• Terrax told Johnny and Reed that Galactus would arrive in three days and demanded to know what Reed had discovered about Galactus's abnormal energy loss.
• Reed explained that a future causal influence was draining Galactus's energy and proposed reducing the loss long enough to find its cause.
• Terrax attacked Reed, but Ben shielded him and Susan caught them as they fell; Johnny unleashed compressed heat, while Terrax later knocked Miles out of the air.
• Reed directed the group to an abandoned weapons testing site at Sandy Hook, and Miles agreed to let Terrax follow him there.
• Terrax revealed he wanted Reed dead because he feared Reed's plan would restore Galactus, then used his power over earth to raise stone pillars and target the group.

The Fantastic Four and Miles battled Terrax at the abandoned testing ground, combining their powers to keep him from escaping. They launched him toward Johnny’s superheated attack, and the chapter ended as Johnny’s blazing strike engulfed Terrax.

• Terrax attacked Reed, Susan, and Ben with stone spears and a collapsing fissure, but Susan restrained him with her force field.
• Miles used Temporal Annihilation against Terrax, who resisted it with cosmic energy and escaped by raising the surrounding rock.
• Ben, Reed, Susan, and Miles coordinated their attacks, but Terrax broke free and battered Ben into the ruins.
• Johnny compressed his flames into incandescent white light while Ben, Susan, Reed, and Miles held Terrax in place and launched him skyward.
• Johnny greeted the airborne Terrax as his attack erupted in a massive burst of heat and light.

Miles killed Terrax after the Silver Surfer intervened to stop him, then preserved part of Terrax’s remains to study Cosmic Energy. Back at the Baxter Building, Miles learned that Galactus’s ship would reach Earth in three days, while Susan questioned why he had killed Terrax.

• Susan shielded Reed, Ben, and the others from the shockwave as Johnny’s attack badly injured Terrax.
• Miles restrained Terrax with telekinesis and tried to destroy him with Aurora’s Temporal Annihilation, but the Silver Surfer arrived and stopped the attack.
• Miles used the Phoenix Avatar to overpower the Silver Surfer and killed Terrax with a spear of Phoenix Fire.
• The Silver Surfer warned Miles that killing Terrax had made him an enemy of Galactus, then asked Reed about his master and the universe.
• Miles returned to The Void, burned away the rust-like traces linked to Feirotus, and kept Terrax’s remains and Stone Axe for research.
• At the Baxter Building, Miles told Reed and the others that he had killed Terrax; Reed said Galactus’s ship would arrive on Earth in three days, and Susan questioned Miles’s reason for killing him.

After Miles defended killing Terrax, Reed urged him to consider how his choices affected the trust and support of others. Miles returned Terrax’s remains to Silver Surfer with evidence that something was specifically affecting Galactus, while Air-Walker remained suspicious of the humans’ intentions.

• Susan challenged Miles for killing Terrax instead of seeking another way to contain him, and Reed invited Miles to talk privately.
• Reed explained that even a calculated choice could be wrong to carry out, and urged Miles to consider less efficient alternatives that might preserve others’ trust.
• Miles agreed to consider Reed’s advice, while warning that he might still leave safeguards, and Reed asked him to return Terrax’s remains after necessary tests.
• More than forty hours later, Miles met Silver Surfer near Taa II and returned Terrax’s remains and weapon.
• Miles told Silver Surfer that Terrax’s remains suggested something other than cosmic energy was acting upon Galactus.
• After Miles left, Air-Walker said he preferred to wait until Taa II reached Earth before confronting him, while Silver Surfer maintained that Miles and his allies could help Galactus.

Reed and the Future Foundation coordinated a worldwide network of Cosmic Energy Dampener nodes as Galactus approached Earth. With the global phase lock complete and Galactus filling the sky, Reed ordered the team to move.

• Reed unveiled the Cosmic Energy Dampener plan and asked the world to help build a synchronized network of nodes.
• Miles told Reed that another unknown herald was nearby and estimated that Galactus would arrive in about thirty-five hours.
• Susan explained that governments joined the effort because they trusted the Future Foundation to protect Earth, while Johnny took Miles out for ice cream and arcade plans.
• After news reported that Galactus had entered Jupiter's orbit, Miles and Johnny spotted Ben quietly watching Rachel Rhodesman across the street.
• As Galactus approached, Reed, Susan, Ben, and Johnny watched the global network activate and reach full phase lock.
• Reed saw the network report global phase lock complete, regained his resolve, and ordered everyone to move.

Reed activated the global Cosmic Energy Dampener network to slow Galactus, but Galactus adapted and headed toward Earth's core. As Shalla-Bal destroyed dampener nodes, Johnny tried to convince her to trust Earth; their confrontation was interrupted when Air-Walker led the Punisher Corps down from Taa II.

• Reed launched the plan to stop Taa II and activated all 168 Cosmic Energy Dampeners when Galactus abandoned the ship and fell toward Earth.
• The dampening field briefly reduced Galactus's energy coupling, but he adapted and began sinking into the Pacific toward Earth's core.
• Reed increased the network's output, prompting Shalla-Bal to attack its nodes while Johnny intercepted her and tried to earn her trust with information about Miles and the dampener design.
• Shalla-Bal destroyed four nodes, then paused to examine Reed's data as Johnny urged her to help protect everyone's home.
• Air-Walker led the Punisher Corps out of Taa II with orders to destroy the dampener nodes and eliminate interference sources.

Miles and the knight robots fought Galactus’s Punisher Robots while the robots attacked the Cosmic Energy Dampener’s global nodes. As Miles’s Phoenix power neared its limit and Johnny fell in Hawaii, Doctor Doom appeared beside him and at the network’s other Main Nodes.

• Miles summoned Ganfal and more than three hundred knight robots, but the Punisher Robots destroyed them, forcing Miles to rescue Ganfal and fight alone.
• Miles used Phoenix Fire to destroy several Punisher Robots, then confronted Air-Walker, who revealed he was a mechanical replica of Gabriel Lan and declared Miles guilty in Galactus’s name.
• Air-Walker held Miles back while the Punisher Robots attacked the dampener nodes; one destroyed an Auxiliary Node, and several overwhelmed Johnny as Surfer was blocked from reaching him.
• Miles’s Phoenix power began to fail, while Reed stayed at the Pogo Plane to stabilize the network and Susan and Ben struggled to help Johnny.
• Doctor Doom appeared in Hawaii to stop Johnny’s fall, and identical figures appeared beside Main Nodes around the world.