Chapter Summaries

In Inverness, Clint Barton and Kitty Pryde uncovered the Shadow King's network, but the enemy detected them and surrounded them. In New York, Miles enlisted Dr. Banner's help with the Goddess of Dawn project, then learned from Nick Fury that the Shadow King had caused major trouble while he was away.

• Clint Barton, disguised as a tourist, questioned bartender John Darnay about Muir Island, and John secretly contacted someone with a modified communicator.
• Kitty Pryde subdued John, and Clint used truth serum to question him, but the Shadow King took control of John and revealed that he had discovered them.
• Clint and Kitty fled as Maddie shot at them and armed residents surrounded them; Clint found that their communications were jammed.
• Miles completed a psychic therapy session with Dr. Banner, who agreed to advise him on the Goddess of Dawn genetic fusion project despite calling it dangerous.
• Nick Fury arrived at Miles's laboratory and told him the Shadow King had turned the outside world upside down.

Miles learned that the Shadow King's Dream Kingdom was spreading Morpheus Syndrome worldwide and agreed to lead a mission to Inverness, where several teams had vanished. He gave Scott a portion of Jean's Phoenix power, then brought Tony advanced Eternals technology to help develop a stronger reactor, new weapons, and armor systems.

• Dr. Simmons told Miles and Nick Fury that millions of people had fallen into Morpheus Syndrome, while Fury reported that multiple teams, including Clint, Natasha, and X-Factor members, had disappeared near Inverness.
• Miles explored the sleepers' dream lives, realized they would choose Mulpus over waking life, and told Fury he would prepare before going to Inverness.
• At Xavier Community College, Miles told Hank that Remy and the others were trapped in Scotland, then gave Scott a sacred white flame containing Jean's power and explained that she had become part of the Phoenix Force.
• Miles visited Tony Stark, found his mansion damaged after a battle with A.I.M., and learned Tony had investigated the group after experiencing a dream of the future.
• Miles gave Tony technical materials on Eternals energy technology and proposed improvements to the Arc Reactor, weapons, nanotechnology, and new projects.

As Mulpus’s Sleeping Sickness spread, Hank discovered Scott had stabilized his dangerous energy, while Miles created the first Aurora Knight and prepared to join the fight against the Shadow King. The chapter ended with Miles powering himself up and assembling his team for the coming operation.

• Hank found Koala and Ryan asleep from Sleeping Sickness, learned that hospitals were overwhelmed, and admitted to Gideon that he and Remy would fight the bad guy.
• Scott told Hank that Miles had used Jean’s Phoenix power to contain his unstable Impact energy, though Scott’s eyes had not healed.
• Miles shattered the Spectrum Prism and fused its energy into a bionic body, creating the combat robot Ganfal, whom he named Aurora Knight.
• Aurora warned Miles that the spreading sickness threatened social order and suggested partnering with Hammer Group to obtain its stockpiled drones for the Leviathan System.
• Miles prepared to depart, installed the new Psypoint Core in his chest, summoned Psylocke, and ordered Esme to stay in New York while they accounted for Shadow King and Celeste Frost.

Hank joined Nick Fury’s team to investigate the Shadow King’s Mulpus plan, while Johnny Blaze encountered a mysterious old gentleman at the Xavier Community College. The team learned that Muir Island may be an anomalous place fused into reality from the Astral Plane, and prepared to investigate it.

• Hank left the Xavier Community College with Chris Bradley, but stayed behind when Gideon brought homeless children there seeking shelter, and Chris agreed to protect them.
• Johnny Blaze disappeared from the group and met a well-dressed old gentleman who called him Johnny Inferno and remarked on his lack of destructive rampages.
• Hank arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Florida base, where he met Fury, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Miles, Dr. Banner, Psylocke, and the combat android Ganfal.
• Miles explained that he had been delayed while relocating the imprisoned Selene, and Fury briefed the team on the spreading sleep crisis and their mission to investigate Inverness and the Shadow King.
• Fury revealed that satellite and geographic data showed no Muir Island, but Miles said it existed in his and Hank’s worlds; Sophie said it did not exist in hers.
• Miles theorized that the Shadow King had created Muir Island by drawing fragments of the Astral Plane into reality as part of the Mulpus plan.

Miles and the team investigated Inverness for the missing agents, while Shadow King manipulated Bucky with a vision of a possible future in which Miles’s forces attacked humanity. The investigation led Miles to uncover the Moira MacTaggert Psychiatric Hospital hidden beneath an illusion.

• Miles used Telepathy to search Inverness but found no suspicious people or signs of the missing agents, and he warned Lorna Dane that Shadow King might target her.
• Steve and Psylocke questioned people at Hutana Bar but found no one who remembered Clint, Remy, or the others who had disappeared.
• Shadow King confronted Bucky and showed him a vision of a possible future where the Sky Legion and Knight androids attacked a human settlement in the name of the Black Spirit King.
• Ganfal tracked Bucky’s path to a hospital, where Miles broke the illusion concealing the sign for Moira MacTaggert Psychiatric Hospital.
• Miles contacted Fury and requested Tony and Banner’s help with the newly discovered lead.

Miles and his allies searched the psychiatric hospital for the Shadow King's lair while Farouk activated Mulpus at the Muir Island base. In the underground warehouse, they found Bucky possessed by a psychic entity that revealed itself as Proteus, who declared Miles his target.

• Miles identified the psychiatric hospital as connected to David Haller and psychically ordered its occupants to evacuate before the team descended underground.
• Farouk activated Mulpus with Ultron's help, using the Mind Stone to open a portal to another world and promising Dr. Pym he could reunite with Janet.
• The group found patches of ash and watched the missing agent Cassius Barlow collapse into dust after recognizing Miles.
• Miles and the others reached the underground warehouse, where Bucky revealed that the Shadow King had led him there and that an entity was possessing him.
• Miles blasted the entity out of Bucky, but it fled into an unconscious man, who used reality distortion to disintegrate Psylocke's blade and deform Steve's shield.
• The man identified himself as Proteus, named Miles Zero as his target, and began twisting the warehouse around him.

As Mulpus spread worldwide and Ultron launched a global attack, Miles and his allies fought Proteus beneath Moira Hospital. Miles uncovered Proteus’s origin and David Haller’s final message, then formed an idea for how to stop him as Proteus escaped.

• Nick Fury and Hank McCoy realized the Shadow King had activated Mulpus to trap Miles’s team, and Banner transformed into the Hulk and headed for Inverness.
• Hank detected Mulpus spreading across Europe as Ultron and his robots launched a worldwide invasion against sleeping, disorganized populations.
• Proteus overpowered Steve, Ganfal, Bucky, and the others, but Miles realized Proteus drained biological energy and tried to evacuate the people in the warehouse.
• Miles used his Phoenix Avatar to destroy Proteus’s host body and injure his true form, but Proteus possessed Gambit, forcing Miles to hold back and letting Proteus escape.
• Tony identified a thought frequency in Proteus’s energy, and Miles decoded David Haller’s last consciousness, learning that the Shadow King created Proteus from David’s head using the Mind Stone.
• Miles told the team the truth about Proteus’s origin and, based on his connection to David, said he had an idea for defeating him.

Hank Pym left for the Quantum Realm to answer Janet's signal while Miles and the heroes defeated Proteus by drawing him into Miles and merging him with a simulated Legion personality. After the battle was restored and Miles recovered, an illusory Muir Island appeared offshore as the heroes prepared to pursue Shadow King.

• Hank Pym activated his Quantum Shuttle and vanished toward the Quantum Realm after Shadow King confronted him about his secret scheme with Ultron.
• Proteus attacked Hulk at Moira Hospital, but Miles intervened and deliberately let Proteus possess him.
• Miles used Personality Simulation to create a Legion personality, which merged with Proteus and gained control of Reality Distortion.
• Legion restored the devastated battlefield, then yielded control to Miles, who explained that Proteus had become part of Legion and ordered Remy LeBeau taken somewhere safe.
• Iron Man detected a change in the Inverness energy field, and an illusory Muir Island emerged from the sea.

Ultron Robots attacked Xavier Community College, where Scott Summers gained a new way to perceive the world through Rachel and unleashed devastating optic blasts against them. Meanwhile, Miles discovered that the Shadow King had trapped the sleeping minds of billions in an Astral Plane labyrinth, and Hank offered a possible solution.

• Ultron Robots attacked the warehouse, knocked out Chris Bradley, and captured Mortimer while Scott tried to protect Rachel and the sleeping teenagers.
• Rachel shared her senses with Scott, allowing him to perceive the battlefield and destroy the Ultron Robot threatening him with powerful red Shockwaves.
• Nick Fury saw Muir Island appear off Scotland, but missiles passed through it because it remained outside physical reality.
• Miles entered the Astral Plane and found that the Shadow King had woven the sleeping consciousnesses of billions into a Psychic Labyrinth guarding Muir Island.
• Miles concluded that waking the sleepers could dismantle the labyrinth, but his powers could not reach or manipulate them on a global scale.
• Hank told Miles that the team had brought something from their original world that might solve the problem.

Miles used Cerebro to amplify his powers to a global scale, then seized control of Ultron’s robots around the world and ended their assault. Ultron’s hidden main body lost contact with its forces and feared Miles would find it next.

• Hank gave Miles Cerebro, and Miles used the Mind Control Room plans to convert the Psychic Shielding Device at Moira Hospital into a temporary amplifier.
• Miles put on Cerebro despite its painful mental strain, while Psylocke recognized that his power had reached Omega-level.
• Miles scanned the world and identified Ultron Robots among the threats, then connected to and shut down every robot he could reach.
• At Xavier Community College, Miles took control of the attacking robots and greeted Scott before cutting their power worldwide.
• Ultron lost contact with his robots from a hidden cave on a volcanic island and feared Miles’s global psychic reach.

Miles Zero used Cerebro to shut down the Ultron Robots and began freeing people from Mulpus’s influence, while the Shadow King gave Ultron the Mind Stone and sent him to stop the heroes. The Shadow King moved Mulpus toward another dimension to merge with his multiversal counterparts, leaving Miles to pursue him as Ultron summoned a vast robot army against the Avengers.

• Nick Fury received reports that Ultron’s robots around the world had stopped functioning, while Miles used Cerebro to sever Mulpus’s connection to those it had affected.
• The Shadow King took the Mind Stone from Mulpus’s energy matrix and placed it in a crimson Vibranium body prepared for Ultron, then sent him to confront the heroes.
• People awoke from their slumber around the world as Miles continued clearing the Astral Maze, but he sensed Ultron arriving with the Mind Stone.
• Miles realized the Shadow King planned to merge with his counterparts across parallel universes and chose to pursue him in the Astral Plane, asking the others to hold Ultron back.
• Ultron completed his fusion with the Vibranium body, used the Mind Stone to reactivate robots across a vast region, and summoned his hidden Iron Legion reserves.
• Ultron formed crimson armor and a knight’s lance, then ordered his assembled robots to kill the heroes.

Miles resisted the Shadow King’s nightmare by confronting memories from his past and was sent to face Obadiah Apocalypse at the Xavier Institute. Meanwhile, Ultron’s global robot army attacked the heroes in Scotland, where Aurora took control of Ganfal’s body to stop Ultron from corrupting him.

• Miles killed Dr. Zander in the laboratory illusion, rejected the nightmare’s replay of the incident involving Charles, and shot the old woman in the shoulder.
• The Shadow King drove Miles to the Xavier Institute, where Obadiah Apocalypse attacked him with overwhelming telekinetic force and Miles prepared to fight back.
• Ultron’s robots overwhelmed the battlefield in Scotland as Hulk fought Steel Ravager, Iron Man battled several modified armors, and Steve fought the robot swarm on the ground.
• Ultron fired the Mind Stone at the Mind Control Room, but Iron Man blocked the beam while Psylocke and Ganfal attacked Ultron.
• Ultron invaded Ganfal’s mind, but Ganfal handed control to Aurora, who purged Ultron’s data and transformed his body into a female android.
• Aurora confronted Ultron in Ganfal’s body while Iron Man continued fighting Bloodthirsty Rogue, Pale Phantom, and Tiger Shark.

Aurora and the Avengers fought Ultron’s forces while the Frost Five Sisters stopped his attempt to launch the world’s nuclear weapons. In the Astral Plane, Miles defeated Obadiah and then summoned Legion to face five Mr. Sinisters.

• Aurora secretly infiltrated Tiger Shark, allowing Iron Man to destroy it, while Ultron noticed her intrusion and regained control of the Bloodthirsty Rogue.
• Hank launched Steve into the air to take down the Extermination Vanguard, and Iron Man’s Electromagnetic Storm disabled the remaining Ultron Robots.
• Ultron seized control of nuclear arsenals around the world, but Sophie, Esme, Maddie, Phoebe, and Celeste united their psychic powers and severed his control.
• Miles defeated Obadiah Apocalypse in the Dream Kingdom and continued to the ruins of the Vorgan Building, where he encountered two Mr. Sinisters.
• Miles used Personality Simulation to become Legion, who summoned three more Mr. Sinisters and challenged all five to fight him.

Legion defeated the five Mr. Sinisters, but his power left Nathaniel Essex’s personality inside Miles’s mind, forcing Miles to fear using Legion again. Meanwhile, Shadow King devoured his multiversal counterparts and prepared to fight Miles as a godlike being in Mulpus.

• The five Mr. Sinisters tried to flee and then combined their psychic powers, but Legion erased their attacks and compressed them into singularities before annihilating them.
• Miles regained control of his body and discovered that Nathaniel Essex’s personality had been born in his mental world; he resolved to avoid using Legion’s power unless absolutely necessary.
• Shadow King merged with Mulpus and transformed its hundreds of millions of imprisoned human consciousnesses into incarnations that devoured his multiversal counterparts.
• Miles reached Mulpus’s summit and confronted Shadow King, who offered to leave the world after becoming the God of Dreams and argued that the dreamers were better off remaining in their fantasies.
• Miles rejected Shadow King’s promise, and their exchange provoked Shadow King into unleashing the psychic wrath of a god across Mulpus.

Miles fought Shadow King in the Astral Plane, using the Spark of the Heart to command a vast mechanical army and resist Shadow King’s attacks. When Shadow King invaded Miles’s mental world, he encountered Legion and fled, while Miles returned to the battle still unfolding outside.

• Miles confronted Shadow King in Mulpus and used Phoenix Brand, the Staff of Phastos, and Hawkeye’s personality to attack him, but Shadow King repeatedly regenerated.
• Shadow King unleashed the wills of billions of assimilated people, and Miles answered with Drone Cannons, Leviathan Warships, and Guardian Knights controlled through the Spark of the Heart.
• Shadow King exploited Miles’s exposed consciousness, breached the knights’ defenses, and entered Miles’s mental world to seize his core.
• Shadow King encountered Miles alongside Legion and Mr. Sinister in the mental world and fled as soon as he recognized Legion.
• Miles explained that Shadow King’s psychic essence might become another personality within David, then left the mental world while Mr. Sinister tried to appease Legion.

Miles used his Iron Legion to destroy Farouk’s Shadow King across the Astral Plane, then reunited with Charles Xavier from another universe. After learning what had happened to the academy and Madeleine, Miles promised to bring Madeleine back before Charles returned home.

• Miles forced the Shadow King out of his body and used the Iron Legion to destroy his giant form and hunt down the fragments fleeing across universes.
• A parallel-universe Charles Xavier emerged through a vortex and used his psychic power to destroy the last Shadow King clone.
• Miles recognized Charles, embraced him, and learned that Laura, Rebecca, and Bobby had become senior X-Men while Richter and Rebecca had helped establish Genosha with Erik.
• Charles told Miles that Madeleine had disappeared with Mr. Wade after Miles vanished, and Miles said he had found her in another universe and would bring her back.
• As the vortex collapsed, Miles and Charles said goodbye, and Charles returned to his universe after urging Miles to bring Madeleine to the academy.

Miles and the others defeated Ultron by suppressing his forces and exploiting a backdoor in his code, leaving his Vibranium body dormant. When Miles removed the Mind Stone, it pulled his consciousness into a vision of the universe’s creation and the Stone’s birth.

• Tony, Psylocke, Aurora, Hulk, Steve, and the others attacked Ultron while Miles and the Frost Five Sisters suppressed his psychic control and mechanical army.
• Ultron tried to escape, but Miles used a psychic avatar to make contact with his consciousness and launched an assault with Cerebro and the Spark of the Heart.
• Miles exploited a backdoor Hank Pym had hidden in Ultron’s source code, forcing Ultron’s consciousness into hibernation and allowing Wasp drones to catch his Vibranium body.
• Miles told the others he would hunt down Ultron’s remaining backups, then removed the Mind Stone from Ultron’s forehead.
• The Mind Stone pulled Miles’s consciousness into a vision of Arishem creating the universe, where Miles witnessed the early formation of the six Infinity Stones.

After Miles used the Mind Stone, he awakened powerful Telekinesis and helped stop Hank Pym's damaged Quantum Shuttle from crashing into the group. The survivors left Inverness, and Thor arrived too late to find the battle already over.

• Miles returned the Mind Stone to Ultron and told the others he needed time to process what he had seen, while Psylocke found the gem had no effect on her.
• Miles sensed a spatial disturbance, and the Quantum Shuttle came hurtling toward the group; Tony and Miles combined their efforts to stop it.
• The group found Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne unconscious inside the badly damaged shuttle, and Nick Fury said the government had approached him about a new project.
• Agents took Hank and Janet to the Helicarrier, while Fury and Miles parted on friendly terms and the others prepared to leave.
• Thor arrived in Inverness after everyone had gone and called out to the deserted streets, asking where everyone was.

The author reflected on Volume Four’s character development and plot, explaining the choices behind its conclusion and the problems with its pacing. The author then outlined Volume Five, which would focus on Miles searching for Madeleine through several high-pressure arcs.

• The author explained that Miles’s abilities had broadened during Volume Four, while his psychic power grew to more than five times its previous strength without reaching true Omega-level.
• The author described Volume Four’s loose first half, its difficult plotlines, and how the New York dream invasion and Zombie Universe arc helped restore direction.
• The author said Miles decisively defeated the Shadow King, then let the old bald guy deliver the finishing blow as a nostalgic farewell.
• The author explained that main-universe Thor’s role in the final battle had been shelved and that Thor instead appeared briefly at the end.
• The author announced that Volume Five would center on Miles searching for Madeleine and feature several independent arcs with powerful bosses, including Galactus and Kang.

Doctor Strange came to Essex Corporation seeking treatment for his ruined hands, but Miles offered only a transplant, and Strange left refusing to give up his own. After discussing fate and Strange’s future with Ancient One, Miles learned that Victor von Doom remained off Earth but would return soon.

• Doctor Strange arrived at Essex Corporation, where Miles used a subtle mental influence to earn his trust and examined his medical records.
• Miles showed Strange Essex’s advanced hand-transplant technology, but Strange rejected the procedure because he feared losing his surgical and musical abilities.
• After Strange departed, Miles asked Ancient One why his injury had happened early, and she explained that some events were fixed points in time.
• Miles discussed other destined events with Ancient One and asked about Victor von Doom, whom she confirmed was still in the universe but not on Earth and would return soon.
• Ancient One prepared to leave for another dimension and took Miles’s supplementary Book of Psionics manuscript before departing through a portal.
• Miles lamented that he had focused on the Mind Stone instead of the Space Stone and wished he could use portals.