Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Shuri begins trying to remove the Mind Stone from Ryan but is struck by his body’s automatic defensive response. Ryan explains that it attacks anyone it perceives as a threat; he restrained his strength, so Shuri is only sore. Shuri insists she will find a solution.
• A meteor shower hits Wakanda’s protective shield, revealing an enemy attack. Ryan summons Ebony Maw and Black Dwarf, and the group sees a spacecraft land outside the shield and release numerous Biochemical Beasts.
• Wakanda’s shield and soldiers keep most of the creatures at bay. Ryan and Captain America identify the beasts as Thanos’s forces, sent to claim the Mind Stone.
• Black Panther rallies his soldiers and assures Ryan he is safe. A huge, wheel-shaped grinder then bursts through the ground toward them. Ryan opens magical portals that send the machines into the sea.
• Ryan calls for a counterattack and orders the shield opened. Ebony Maw and Scarlet Witch fly through; Ryan tosses the flightless Black Dwarf through the gap.

Character developments and interactions

• Shuri is hurt but determined, treating the failed extraction as a challenge rather than giving up.
• Ryan feels guilty that his presence has brought danger to Wakanda, but responds decisively, protecting Black Panther and redirecting the enemy machines. He shows trust in his followers by sending them into the fight.
• Black Panther remains confident in Wakanda’s defenses and loyal to his people, but is startled by how easily Ryan neutralizes the grinders. He chooses to trust Ryan and orders the shield opened.
• Captain America stays on defensive watch, confident in Wakanda’s ability to handle the attackers.
• Scarlet Witch, Ebony Maw, and Black Dwarf follow Ryan into the battle; Black Dwarf’s failed attempt to fly provides a brief comic moment.

Significant themes

• Trust and protection: Black Panther’s faith in Ryan is validated when Ryan saves him.
• Duty and loyalty: Wakanda’s soldiers rally behind their king, while Ryan’s allies follow his lead.
• Determination amid danger: Shuri’s resolve contrasts with the escalating attack.
• Power and vulnerability: Wakanda’s advanced defenses are formidable, but Ryan’s abilities prove capable of overcoming threats they cannot handle alone.

Key events

• Ryan flies beyond Wakanda’s shield and identifies Thanos’s commanders, Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight. Scarlet Witch and Ebony Maw capture them; Ryan uses the Mind Stone and Scarlet Witch’s magic to make them defect. The biobeasts and Thanos’s remaining troops then stand down, ending the battle.
• Black Panther recognizes the scale of Ryan’s new force but accepts Ryan’s assurance that Wakanda is safe. Ryan joins him for a victory banquet, then senses that someone is examining his future.
• On Thanos’s home world, Thanos takes the Time Stone from Doctor Strange after threatening Iron Man. A vision shows Ryan killing him, so Thanos asks Strange to help explore possible futures. After examining more than a thousand, Thanos finds only one in which he defeats Ryan and teleports away.
• Days later, while Ryan and Shuri struggle to find a way to remove the Mind Stone, Thanos appears in Wakanda. Ryan attacks immediately, but Thanos blocks his laser blasts with the Infinity Gauntlet.
• Wakandan forces surround Thanos. His apparent defeat by their weapons proves to be an illusion; he attacks Black Panther with the Power Stone, but Ryan transforms and takes the blow. Ryan withstands the attack and headbutts Thanos, who survives only by using the Time Stone.
• Ryan proposes a “game,” falsely promising the Mind Stone if Thanos wins. When Thanos refuses to join him, Ryan orders his followers to attack. Before they can overwhelm Thanos, Ryan uses a golden portal and crimson chains to restrain the Infinity Gauntlet, cutting Thanos off from the Stones’ power.

Character developments and interactions

• Ryan is shown as overwhelmingly confident and strategic: he turns Thanos’s own lieutenants against him, protects Black Panther, and disables the Gauntlet rather than relying on a direct contest of power. He also challenges Thanos’s belief that mass death is the solution to scarcity.
• Black Panther shifts from wary observer to Ryan’s ally, fighting alongside him and defending the decision to use force against Thanos.
• Thanos remains convinced his plan is benevolent, but Ryan’s strength unsettles him. His dependence on the Stones becomes clear when Ryan restrains the Gauntlet.
• Doctor Strange is shaken by events that diverge from the future he foresaw. He helps Thanos under threat, hoping to keep Iron Man alive.
• Shuri is exhausted by her prolonged attempt to remove the Mind Stone and asks to pause.
• Former members of Thanos’s forces—including Ebony Maw, Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, and Black Dwarf—now stand with Ryan and turn against their former leader.

Significant themes

• Power and dependence: Ryan’s physical abilities contrast with Thanos’s reliance on the Infinity Stones; restraining the Gauntlet changes the balance of the battle.
• Fate and uncertainty: Strange’s predicted future fails to account for events, while Thanos’s visions reveal how difficult Ryan is to defeat.
• Moral justification: Thanos presents mass killing as a solution to scarcity; Ryan counters that resources could be increased instead.
• Loyalty and control: Thanos’s followers defect after Ryan uses magic and the Mind Stone, raising questions about the difference between persuasion and coercion.

Plot points and events

• Ebony Maw uses telekinesis to throw Black Dwarf at Thanos. With his Infinity Gauntlet sealed, Thanos uses the Crimson Bands to trap Black Dwarf’s axe, takes it, and fights back. Maw pins the weapon in place, however, allowing Black Dwarf to charge; Thanos repels him with a powerful kick.
• A horde of Biochemical Beasts overwhelms Thanos and appears to devour him. Ryan, Scarlet Witch, Captain America, and Black Panther assume he is dead.
• The beasts suddenly disintegrate, releasing a wave of destructive light. Ryan’s Mirror Dimension briefly blocks it, then shatters, revealing a wounded Thanos in a crater with all six Infinity Stones.
• Thanos explains that he used the Time Stone to travel into the past and take the Mind Stone from the Scepter, while his Gauntlet analyzed Ryan’s own Mind Stone.
• Thanos intends to erase half of all life—and specifically ensure Ryan is among those erased. But when he raises his hand to snap, he cannot.

Character developments and interactions

• Thanos shows composure and resourcefulness while outnumbered, but his apparent defeat proves temporary. Having obtained all the Stones, he becomes confident—yet his fear of Ryan leads him to alter his plan and target him.
• Ryan realizes Thanos has manipulated events along a future he foresaw. He dislikes being guided by prophecy and recognizes how dangerous Thanos is, but remains defiant.
• Scarlet Witch is alarmed by Thanos’s strength, then briefly believes the battle is over.
• Captain America is shocked that Thanos could seemingly fall to ordinary mass-produced beasts. Black Panther asks whether Ryan will take Thanos’s place as universal overlord; Ryan refuses, saying he has no interest in ruling a world that is not his.
• Ryan and Scarlet Witch casually discuss Thanos during the fight, contrasting with the seriousness of the battle. Ryan even asks her to record Thanos’s apparent demise.

Significant themes

• Appearances and reversals: Thanos seems defeated, only to return with overwhelming power.
• Free will versus fate: Thanos claims events followed a future he foresaw, while Ryan resents having his actions steered by it.
• Power and vulnerability: Even a formidable fighter can be overwhelmed, while possession of immense power does not guarantee control—as Thanos’s failed snap demonstrates.

Plot points and events

• Ryan’s presence creates a dilemma for Thanos: he cannot include Ryan in the random half of life to be erased, yet cannot spare him and still claim to have wiped out half the universe. Thanos ultimately snaps, and countless people—including Black Panther—turn to dust. Ryan survives.
• Weakened by the use of the Infinity Stones, Thanos prepares to escape. Thor ambushes him with Stormbreaker and cuts off his gauntlet-wearing hand. As Thor presses the attack, Thanos destroys himself by unleashing the Stones’ power; the explosion shatters the Stones.
• Ryan retrieves fragments of the Time and Mind Stones. Wakanda mourns Black Panther and chooses a new leader. Across the universe, survivors grieve and try to rebuild. Thor, devastated by his losses and the destruction of Asgard, retreats into drinking and games.
• Ryan and Scarlet Witch withdraw to a remote forest to study the dangerous magic they can practice with the Stone fragments, accompanied by Thanos’s former followers. Years later, the fragments—especially the Time Stone—are nearly restored.
• Captain America, who has met Ant-Man and learned of a time machine, arrives by helicopter to ask Ryan for help.

Character developments and interactions

• Thanos achieves the mass erasure he envisioned but cannot eliminate Ryan. Rather than let someone reverse his work, he chooses to die in the explosion of the Stones.
• Thor returns with Stormbreaker and confronts Thanos over the destruction of Asgard and Loki’s death. Though he avenges himself, the victory brings no comfort.
• Ryan remains calm through the snap, preserves Stone fragments, and builds a secluded life with Scarlet Witch. His ability to track Thanos also makes escape impossible.
• Scarlet Witch joins Ryan’s magical research and spars with Ebony Maw when he complains that their experiments are wrecking the surroundings.
• The former Black Order take on an unexpectedly domestic role: they help with the barbecue, but prepare to defend the group when Captain America’s helicopter appears.
• Captain America emerges as someone still fixated on the past and now seeks Ryan’s help, setting up the next stage of the story.

Significant themes

• Loss and survival: The snap devastates individuals and societies, but survivors gradually restore order while carrying their grief.
• The limits of victory: Thor kills the enemy responsible for his losses, yet cannot undo them; Thanos’s plan succeeds only at enormous cost and remains vulnerable to reversal.
• Power and consequence: Using the Stones nearly destroys Thanos, and Ryan and Scarlet Witch’s experiments threaten their own refuge.
• Hope and change: Life eventually resumes, while the Stone fragments and the possibility of time travel suggest that the past may not be beyond reach.

Plot points and events

• Captain America visits Ryan during a forest barbecue and asks for help undoing Thanos’s snap through time travel.
• Ryan warns that tampering with time is dangerous and questions whether restoring the past would truly solve anything. Captain America argues that grief and regret over the vanished—including Black Panther—make the risk worthwhile.
• Scarlet Witch wants to protect the peaceful life she and Ryan have built and asks Captain America to leave. She doubts that bringing everyone back will produce the happy reunion he imagines.
• Captain America challenges Ryan’s commitment to doing good. Ryan explains that he never considered himself a “Supe” and describes his original world and Homelander, prompting a disagreement over whether Homelander is merely flawed or dangerously abusive.
• As Captain America prepares to find the other Avengers, Ryan reveals that he will join him after all.

Character developments and interactions

• Ryan is cautious about changing time and protective of his quiet life, but ultimately agrees to help. His account of Homelander reveals personal ties and a more complicated view of him than Captain America’s.
• Captain America remains driven by grief and a belief that reuniting the Avengers can set things right. He listens to Ryan’s background and accepts his eventual support.
• Scarlet Witch openly chooses stability and peace over returning to conflict, though she gives Ryan space to share his past.
• Black Dwarf quietly cooks at the grill, helping ease the tension; Ebony Maw assists Ryan when Captain America is coughing.
• Ryan and Scarlet Witch’s established, tranquil life contrasts with Captain America’s urgency to revive the old team.

Significant themes

• Grief versus moving forward: Ryan warns that fixation on the past can prevent people from facing the future, while Captain America sees restoration as a way to confront regret.
• The risks and costs of changing fate: The possibility of time travel raises the question of whether reversing loss will create new consequences.
• Peace versus responsibility: Scarlet Witch values a life free from conflict, while Captain America believes the Avengers must keep fighting injustice.
• Power and accountability: Their debate about Homelander highlights how great power can lead someone to ignore the rules others must live by.

Plot points

• Captain America remembers Ryan’s past heroism and is moved to see him again. Ryan, Scarlet Witch, and Ebony Maw prepare to leave the mountains; Ryan ensures Black Dwarf puts out the campfire before they go.
• Ryan uses a Portal to take the group to Tony Stark, who is living quietly with his wife and daughter. Captain America explains the plan to travel back in time and retrieve the Infinity Stones.
• Tony initially refuses, fearing time travel could make matters worse and unwilling to risk the peaceful family life he has built. Captain America leaves to seek Banner, while Ryan stays behind to reconnect with Tony.
• Ryan persuades Tony to help investigate time travel without committing to the Avengers’ mission. Tony and Ryan secretly develop a compact wrist-worn time machine powered by Tony’s nanotechnology. It has enough energy for a trip out and back, but they have not tested it.
• After Tony discusses the matter with his wife, who supports helping the Avengers, he agrees to join the effort. Ryan and Tony set out together.

Character developments and interactions

• Ryan remains focused on the Infinity Stones and the mission rather than romance. Though Scarlet Witch has growing feelings for him and offers to accompany him, he gently rejects the idea of using her as a shield. He also understands Tony’s family concerns and gives him room to decide.
• Scarlet Witch openly reveals her attachment to Ryan by insisting she will go wherever he goes. At Tony’s home, she helps his wife and presents herself as Ryan’s future partner to explain their presence.
• Tony is reluctant to abandon the life he has rebuilt with his family, but his affection for the Avengers—and his wife’s encouragement—eventually leads him to help. His old tension with Captain America remains, while his rapport with Ryan is warmer.
• Captain America is determined to pursue the time-travel plan and tries to recruit both Ryan and Tony. His appeals about restoring those lost, including Spider-Man, do not immediately change Tony’s mind.
• Ryan and Tony build a trusting partnership, combining Ryan’s Super Brain and Tony’s engineering genius. Their conversations mix serious work with domestic humor, including Ryan’s odd “taste of home” sandwiches.

Themes

• Family versus duty: Tony’s choice highlights the cost of leaving a hard-won peaceful life to help others.
• Hope and risk: Captain America believes time travel offers a chance to undo the catastrophe; Tony initially worries it could worsen the future.
• Trust and personal agency: Ryan supports others without forcing their choices, allowing Tony to reach his own decision.
• Unexpected bonds and humor: The chapter balances emotional stakes with light domestic moments and banter.

Plot points and events

• As Tony leaves his home to help the Avengers, Ryan remembers the original future in which Tony dies sacrificing himself. He reassures Tony that he will be fine, and the two head through a Portal to the Avengers’ Time Machine facility.
• Tony reunites with the Avengers, gives Captain America his shield, and learns that earlier tests have caused travelers to become old or young.
• Tony and Ryan work together for several days to enlarge and modify the machine so it can transport multiple people. When it is ready for a real trial, Ryan volunteers, but Tony and Captain America refuse to risk him.
• Captain America proposes recruiting Hawkeye, whose family was killed by Thanos’s snap and who has since become a violent executioner. Black Widow agrees to seek him out.
• Ryan is asked to find Thor. He travels to a harbor town, learns Thor has been living in isolation, locates his house, and breaks in after hearing voices inside.

Character developments and interactions

• Tony leaves home with a quiet sense of finality but remains confident and determined. He insists that he built the machine, while acknowledging Ryan’s assistance, and protects Ryan from being the first test subject.
• Ryan is guided by his knowledge of the tragic original timeline and wants to prevent Tony’s death. He offers to take the risk himself, showing his courage and disregard for his own importance, then accepts the mission to find Thor.
• Captain America welcomes Tony’s return, hopes to use the shield again, and takes charge of finding people who can help the plan.
• Black Widow is willing to reach out to Hawkeye, though she recognizes that whether he returns is ultimately his choice.
• Hawkeye and Thor are absent but introduced as people profoundly changed by the aftermath of Thanos’s snap: Hawkeye by grief and vengeance, Thor by withdrawal.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and the burden of foreknowledge: Ryan’s memory of Tony’s original fate shadows Tony’s departure.
• Trust and mutual protection: Tony and Captain America reject Ryan’s offer to risk himself, while Ryan’s presence helps the team move forward.
• Grief and recovery: Hawkeye’s collapse and Thor’s isolation show the lasting personal cost of the snap.
• Hope and cooperation: The Avengers rebuild the time-travel plan through shared effort and by bringing their scattered allies back together.

Plot points and events

• Ryan recruits Thor, finding him drunk, out of shape, and unwilling to help. He restores Thor’s confidence by reminding him that his worth as king is not defined by his appearance. Thor agrees to join—mainly for the Avengers’ better liquor—and brings Stormbreaker.
• Hawkeye returns and tests Tony’s time machine. He briefly sees his family in the past and is shaken by the experience, but the successful test proves time travel works.
• Captain America briefs the Avengers: they will travel to the past, collect the Infinity Stones, and avoid interfering with events. Ryan is assigned the Time Stone; each traveler has only one chance to return.
• Ryan and the others arrive in a devastated New York during the Chitauri invasion. He heads to the New York Sanctum while the others search for the Space and Mind Stones.
• The Ancient One does not recognize Ryan and refuses to surrender the Time Stone, explaining that it protects her world from Dormammu.
• Ryan summons Dormammu, drawing the entity’s attention away from the city. He fights it in his Doomsday form, eventually defeating it and securing its promise not to invade Earth again.
• After the battle, Ryan asks the Ancient One for the Time Stone, promising to return it and urging her to trust in an unseen future.

Character developments and interactions

• Thor moves from self-pity and withdrawal to action after Ryan reassures him. His readiness is genuine, though his drinking remains a running joke.
• Hawkeye is emotionally affected by seeing his family, but still participates in the mission.
• Ryan shows both empathy and confidence: he encourages Thor, respects the Avengers’ plan, and takes a dangerous, unconventional route to overcome the Ancient One’s refusal.
• The Ancient One is cautious rather than antagonistic. She puts her world’s safety first, but Ryan’s victory over Dormammu challenges her assumptions about what the future may hold.
• The group’s banter—especially the Avengers mistaking sleeping Thor for a dead man—lightens the tension before the mission begins.

Significant themes

• Trust and uncertain futures: Ryan asks the Ancient One to trust a future she cannot see, echoing the risks inherent in changing the past.
• Worth beyond appearances: Ryan helps Thor reclaim his confidence by separating his identity and kingship from his physical condition.
• Sacrifice and responsibility: The Ancient One weighs the danger to her own world against the possibility of helping Ryan’s.
• Courage through action: Ryan confronts Dormammu directly, accepting enormous risk to protect the world and obtain the Stone.

Key plot points and events

• The Ancient One gives Ryan the Time Stone and names him the next Sorcerer Supreme, asking him to protect Earth in her place. Ryan accepts the responsibility and leaves through a Portal.
• Back in a ruined New York, Ryan sees that Tony and the Avengers are struggling with their mission but trusts them to manage. He activates his time-travel device to return to his own time.
• During the journey, the two Time Stones he carries react and lead him to a neglected library filled with Kamar-Taj spells—including teachings lost in ancient wars. Ryan recognizes its value and begins rapidly studying and recording the collection.
• Meanwhile, the Avengers return without Ryan. They discover that Nebula has replaced part of her headpiece, raising suspicion. Tony explains that the Gauntlet cannot work without the Time Stone, meaning someone must travel back to retrieve it. He also wants to find Ryan, and Captain America says he has an idea.

Character developments and interactions

• Ryan accepts the Ancient One’s trust despite feeling unworthy, then uses his unexpected stop in the library as an opportunity to deepen his magical knowledge.
• The Ancient One entrusts Ryan with both the Time Stone and the future role of Sorcerer Supreme, because she can no longer foresee the future in which Doctor Strange saves the world.
• Tony is worried about Ryan’s absence and feels personally responsible, especially because Ryan had promised to protect him.
• Captain America questions Nebula about the changed piece of her headgear but avoids accusing her without proof, then focuses on finding a solution.
• Nebula gives a brief explanation for the replacement, but her connection to Thanos and the group’s limited familiarity with her leave room for doubt.

Significant themes

• Responsibility and trust: Ryan takes on a duty far greater than he feels prepared for.
• Uncertain futures: The Ancient One’s inability to see Ryan’s future signals that events have moved beyond her predictions.
• Knowledge and inheritance: The library preserves magical teachings lost to history, offering Ryan a chance to recover and continue Kamar-Taj’s legacy.
• Loyalty and separation: Ryan trusts the Avengers to continue without him, while Tony’s concern shows how strongly he wants Ryan back.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• The Avengers decide to make another trip through time, with Captain America suggesting they use the Infinity Gauntlet to rescue Ryan. Hawkeye worries about the consequences of changing history, but Tony argues that time travel has already set events in motion.
• In Kamar-Taj’s lost library, Ryan finishes studying its collection and masters two extraordinary techniques: one that can resurrect the dead, and absorption, which grants him the powers of beings he consumes.
• Ryan refuses to drain life from Earth’s inhabitants. Instead, he summons increasingly powerful beings from other dimensions and absorbs them.
• He summons Dormammu, who believes Ryan is offering the world as a sacrifice. Dormammu devours the surrounding landscape, but Ryan reverses the destruction with two Time Stones. Ryan then reveals his true plan: to absorb Dormammu rather than join him. Transforming into Doomsday, Ryan confronts and ultimately absorbs the Dark Dimension’s ruler.
• In the Avengers’ present, Banner retrieves the Time Stone, and Tony completes the Infinity Gauntlet. Thor insists on using it, hoping to undo the destruction of Asgard. He snaps, but the strain incapacitates him, and the group initially fears the attempt has failed.
• Hawkeye then receives a call from his wife, confirming that people lost in Thanos’s snap have returned. Before the group can respond, their building is attacked by gunfire from a spaceship.
• Having gained Dormammu’s power, Ryan turns his attention to the wider Multiverse. He summons Shuma-Gorath, recognizes that only an avatar has appeared, and begins absorbing it.

Character developments and interactions

• Ryan becomes far more powerful through magic and absorption, while retaining a stated reluctance to harm ordinary people. His ambition grows after defeating Dormammu: he now seeks powerful beings across the Multiverse.
• Dormammu mistakes Ryan’s summoning for an offer of the world and promises him eternal life, only to discover that Ryan intends to consume him.
• Thor takes the gauntlet from Banner, driven by guilt and grief over Asgard. His snap fails to restore Asgard and leaves him physically weakened.
• Banner volunteers to snap but yields to Thor after hearing his reasons.
• Tony completes the gauntlet and manages the group’s attempt, but initially believes the snap has failed when Ryan cannot be reached.
• Hawkeye shifts from doubting the risks of time travel to receiving the joyful, overwhelming news that his wife has returned. The sudden attack cuts short his chance to reunite with her.

Significant themes

• Power and its cost: The Infinity Gauntlet injures Thor, while Ryan’s growing strength comes from absorbing others.
• Ambition versus restraint: Ryan rejects harming Earth’s population but pursues increasingly formidable beings, suggesting his limits may be tested as his power and appetite grow.
• Grief, hope, and restoration: Thor seeks to reverse Asgard’s loss, while Hawkeye’s call offers a personal sign that the vanished have returned.
• Consequences and uncertainty: The characters disagree about the risks of altering time, and the attack at the chapter’s end leaves the Avengers’ next steps unclear.

Key plot points and events

• Ryan, empowered by absorbing countless beings, can sense the boundaries between universes and the Watcher observing from the void. The Watcher remains indifferent.
• Ryan absorbs the avatars of several powerful dimensional beings: Shuma-Gorath, the Elder God Chthon, the lord of the Dream Dimension, and Mephisto. He then summons Cyttorak, intending to absorb him too.
• Each absorption increases Ryan’s power. After absorbing Mephisto, he transforms into a stronger, more muscular Doomsday form. The Dream Lord’s absorption is especially difficult and leaves a crater Ryan repairs with telekinesis.
• Ryan admits that he wants someone to talk to, but continues summoning beings to absorb. He refuses to give Mephisto, known for manipulation, the chance to speak.
• In the present world, Thor has restored half of all life when Thanos’s spaceship attacks, burying the Supes beneath rubble. Nebula emerges unharmed and welcomes Thanos.
• Nebula had traveled from the past, joined the people of the present, and told her Thanos what would happen. Thanos stays in the present after the Time Machine is destroyed.
• Believing Ryan—the only person able to stop him—is gone, Thanos plans to destroy everything and remake the universe under his control, having rejected his earlier plan to eliminate only half of all life.

Character developments and interactions

• Ryan grows increasingly powerful and absorbed in the pursuit of further strength. His brief confession of loneliness reveals an emotional need beneath his relentless behavior, but he still treats each summoned being as something to consume.
• The dimensional beings are generally only avatars. Chthon, Shuma-Gorath, and Mephisto are absorbed quickly; the Dream Lord resists longer. Mephisto never manages to negotiate or scheme.
• Nebula demonstrates loyalty to her father, kneeling before him and standing silently at his side after helping him reach the present.
• Thanos shifts from his former goal of balancing life by killing half of it to a more absolute ambition: destroying everything and remaking the universe.

Significant themes

• Power and escalation: Ryan’s growing strength drives him to seek increasingly formidable beings.
• Isolation: Ryan’s desire for conversation contrasts with the destructive way he engages with others.
• Control and remaking: Both Ryan and Thanos impose their will on reality—Ryan through absorption, Thanos through planned universal destruction.
• Fate and refusal: Thanos knows his future death but rejects it, choosing to act on what he has learned rather than return to his own time.

Plot points and events

• Thanos orders Nebula to retrieve the Infinity Gauntlet, but she does not return. His forces face fierce resistance from the Avengers and their allies, including his former lieutenants Ebony Maw and Black Dwarf.
• Thanos fights Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, then nearly falls to the Scarlet Witch, who blames him for Ryan being trapped in the past. He escapes her attack with help from his ship, but Captain Marvel destroys the ship.
• The Hulk uses the Infinity Gauntlet’s Space and Power Stones to overpower Thanos. Just as the Hulk is about to finish him, the Gauntlet begins shaking.
• In the past, Ryan absorbs power after defeating Cyttorak. The Vishanti arrive and tell him his actions burden the universe, granting him the power of the final Dimension and ordering him to leave. Ryan accepts the power, modifies his own body to improve on the Gauntlet’s design, absorbs the Time and Mind Stones, and returns to the present.
• Ryan’s arrival silences the battlefield and unnerves both the creatures and the heroes. He exchanges brief greetings with friends and allies, including Black Panther, Mordo, Wong, Captain America, and Tony Stark. The Scarlet Witch embraces him before stepping aside.
• Ryan reaches the Hulk. The Infinity Stones leave the Gauntlet and gather around Ryan, who absorbs them. A Magic Circle then channels Infinity Stones from across the Multiverse into him.
• As Ryan prepares to snap, he sees the Watcher disapproving beyond the barrier of space. He ignores the warning, declares, “I am Homelander,” and snaps his fingers.

Character developments and interactions

• Thanos loses control of the battle and finally recognizes how much Ryan had restrained himself in their earlier encounters. He is left helpless before Ryan’s return.
• Ryan returns vastly more powerful, having absorbed Cyttorak’s power, the Vishanti’s gift, and the Infinity Stones. His calm passage through the battlefield contrasts with its recent chaos and shows his growing distance from ordinary heroes.
• The Hulk defeats Thanos but willingly yields the Stones to Ryan when they pull toward him.
• The Scarlet Witch welcomes Ryan with a silent embrace, despite understanding that she cannot change what is happening.
• The heroes’ offers to recruit Ryan—as a Sanctum guardian, Avenger, or Stark employee—highlight their affection and respect, but Ryan declines or sidesteps each proposal.

Significant themes

• Power and responsibility: The Vishanti frame Ryan’s actions as a burden on the universe, while Ryan dismisses the authority of both them and the Watcher.
• Transformation and ambition: Ryan’s absorption of the Stones marks a leap toward a higher form of existence and fulfills his personal ambition.
• Belonging versus independence: The heroes welcome Ryan back and offer him a place among them, but he remains self-directed and ultimately answers to no one.

Plot points and events

• Ryan uses the Infinity Stones to snap, releasing a rainbow light that engulfs the battlefield, the planet, and spreads into space, with effects reaching across the universe.
• Though vastly more powerful afterward, Ryan feels bored and longs for the quieter life and natural world he remembers from his childhood.
• He opens a portal back to The Boys world, only to find it devastated: the city is deserted, the landscape barren, and the planet apparently dead. A year has passed since he left.
• Ryan suspects his careless use of the Time Stone disrupted the timeline. Rejecting the idea of creating a replacement world, he uses the Stone to travel back one year.
• He returns to the time of his first arrival, then flies toward Seven Tower. The system reveals that worlds are merging—and warns that the process will end in destruction.

Character development

• Ryan has reached near-absolute power, but it brings no satisfaction. He recognizes that what he truly wants is connection to his past and a life that feels real and unmade by him.
• Despite the danger, he remains bold and self-assured, treating the Time Stone’s warnings as no reason to stop using it.
• His refusal to manufacture a new world shows that he values the people and shared history he already had.

Significant themes

• Power and emptiness: Unlimited ability does not overcome boredom or restore meaning.
• Consequences of time manipulation: Ryan’s return to a ruined world suggests that altering time carries unpredictable costs.
• Authenticity and attachment: Ryan prefers the imperfect world and relationships he knew to a reality he could create himself.
• Worlds colliding: The system’s new task establishes the merging of universes as the coming catastrophe.

Character interactions

• Ryan recalls his mother’s complicated reaction to seeing him fly and Homelander’s happiness at encountering someone like himself.
• His immediate interactions in the devastated world are with its traces—an abandoned convenience store, ruined buildings, and an empty street—underscoring his isolation.
• The system informs him that the worlds are merging and assigns a new task, though it offers no reward.

Key plot points and events

• Ryan discovers that the system has become more accommodating and that his abilities have reached extraordinary, multiverse-level strength. He accepts the mission concerning Steppenwolf, whose arrival threatens to destroy Earth using the Mother Boxes.
• He learns that the worlds of The Boys and DC have merged so thoroughly that their histories and memories have changed too. Ryan settles into a quiet routine, spending time with Homelander, Starlight, and his mother, Becca. Becca declines his offer to see Billy and asks whether Starlight is Ryan’s girlfriend.
• A Parademon crashes onto Ryan’s car. He identifies it, records the creature’s biological-modification technology, and destroys it.
• Batman confronts Ryan and asks him to help stop the coming threat. Ryan refuses, joking that he could simply remake the world. Batman leaves troubled by the possibility that Ryan meant it.
• The next day, Ryan is assigned to accompany Wayne, who takes him to Barry Allen’s home. Wayne tests Barry with a Batarang, confirming Barry has superhuman reflexes. Ryan’s quiet, unaffected presence makes Barry wary.

Character developments

• Ryan is immensely powerful but prefers an ordinary routine and avoids using his abilities unnecessarily. His casual confidence—and suggestion that he could remake the world—shows how distant he is from ordinary limits.
• Batman/Wayne is pragmatic and suspicious, investigating the heroes and carefully assessing whom he can trust. He sees Ryan as essential to saving the world but is unsettled by Ryan’s power and attitude.
• Becca remains melancholy and keeps her distance from Billy, while showing interest in Ryan’s personal life.
• Barry Allen is revealed to have super-speed despite initially claiming his talents are web design and viola. He is friendly but cautious around the powerful strangers in his home.
• Homelander remains someone Batman considers too unstable to rely on.

Significant themes

• Power and responsibility: Ryan has enough strength to reshape the world, yet is reluctant to involve himself in Batman’s crisis.
• Trust and judgment: Batman evaluates the heroes and seeks allies, while Ryan challenges his assumptions about who is useful or trustworthy.
• Worlds colliding: The merger changes not only places but shared histories and relationships.
• Ordinary life amid catastrophe: Ryan’s peaceful routines contrast with the growing threat of alien invasion.

Character interactions

• Ryan reconnects with Becca over a meal and fields her question about Starlight.
• Batman asks Ryan for help; Ryan refuses, and his response leaves Batman uneasy.
• Wayne drives Ryan to Barry’s home, where he tests Barry’s abilities. Barry’s attention shifts from Wayne’s challenge to Ryan, whose apparent power makes him especially uneasy.

Plot points and events

• Bruce Wayne and Ryan confront Barry Allen in his workshop. Barry is wary of Ryan, despite Bruce having thrown a Batarang at him.
• Bruce explains the world-ending crisis and asks about Barry’s abilities. Barry describes the Speed Force and its heavy calorie cost.
• Barry demonstrates his superspeed by fetching pizza, but Ryan can perceive him moving and takes a slice—revealing that Ryan’s abilities are extraordinary and still unexplained.
• Barry readily agrees to help save the world. Since Bruce’s car has only one passenger seat, Ryan rides with Bruce while Barry pushes the car at superspeed to the helipad.
• The group heads to a harbor to recruit Arthur Kurr, the son of Atlantis’s queen and a lighthouse keeper, who can control water and communicate with fish.
• Ryan spots Arthur immediately. When Bruce asks what power let him do so, Ryan suggests the better question is how many powers he has.

Character developments and interactions

• Barry shifts from suspicion to cooperation, joining the mission eagerly because he wants to help people. His confidence is briefly shaken when Ryan remains unaffected by his superspeed. He also becomes the target of Ryan’s teasing.
• Bruce continues recruiting allies and assessing the powers around him. He is surprised by Barry’s quick agreement and increasingly curious about Ryan, whose abilities he hopes to understand.
• Ryan remains relaxed and irreverent amid the crisis. He demonstrates unusual awareness and perception, recognizes Arthur at a distance, and hints that he has multiple abilities.
• Barry’s unease around Ryan contrasts with the easy camaraderie that develops as the three travel together.

Significant themes

• The burden and appeal of heroism: Barry sees saving the world as exciting, while Bruce treats it as a serious responsibility.
• Power and uncertainty: Barry’s defined abilities are measurable, but Ryan’s powers remain mysterious—even to those trying to evaluate him.
• Teamwork and recruitment: The group begins assembling allies to face a threat too great for one person to handle.

Key plot points and events

• Ryan and Wayne seek Kurr, Atlantis’s eldest prince, to recruit him as a fish translator and warn him that Steppenwolf is returning for the three Mother Boxes.
• Kurr dismisses the warning and leaves, but when Parademons rise from the sea, he rushes to Atlantis to protect his people.
• Steppenwolf attacks Atlantis, taking its Mother Box and killing Atlantean guards. Kurr confronts him but is swiftly defeated.
• Ryan arrives and destroys the attacking Parademons. Using the Reality Stone, he dissolves Steppenwolf’s axe, defeats him, and ends the immediate threat.
• Ryan and Wayne return carrying Kurr, now transformed into a fish. Ryan then uses the Infinity Stones to separate the merging DC and The Boys worlds.
• Ryan returns to Becca’s home, where he reunites with her and finds Starlight there. Before he can decide how long to stay, a system message summons him to the Heart of the Universe.

Character developments

• Ryan demonstrates overwhelming power and acts decisively, but his return to Becca’s home reveals lingering awkwardness and attachment to the life he left behind. The new summons interrupts his chance to settle in.
• Wayne is increasingly wary of Ryan’s abilities and had hoped Superman might be needed to stop him. After Ryan saves the world, Wayne reassures Allen that the crisis is over.
• Kurr initially rejects responsibility and prefers a quiet life, but seeing Atlantis attacked brings out his loyalty to his people. His courage cannot match Steppenwolf’s strength.
• Becca welcomes Ryan home warmly, recognizing his poor excuse for staying outside. Their familiar, teasing exchange suggests a strong mother-son bond.
• Starlight is unexpectedly present at Becca’s home and is learning to cook under her guidance.

Significant themes

• Power and responsibility: Kurr’s reluctance gives way to action when his people are threatened; Ryan’s immense power makes the crisis brief.
• Protection and belonging: Kurr protects Atlantis, while Ryan’s return highlights his ties to Becca and the home he once shared with her.
• Reality and separation: Ryan’s powers resolve the danger and restore boundaries between worlds, but the final summons leaves his future unsettled.

Character interactions

• Ryan and Wayne try to recruit Kurr, but Kurr rejects them until the attack on Atlantis forces him to act.
• Kurr confronts Steppenwolf and is defeated; Ryan then intervenes and defeats the invader.
• Wayne comforts Allen, who is disappointed that he played no role in the victory.
• Becca welcomes Ryan home and teases him, while Ryan and Starlight share a brief, surprised reunion.