Avengers #360
Alternate Visions
The Vision comes online and discovers that he is a prisoner of Proctor and his Gatherers, villains from across the multiverse who have an axe to grind against the Avengers. The Proctor explains to his followers that this is all part of his master plan. Although this raises questions from Magdalene, who doesn’t understand how this will help them rescue their captured teammate, the Swordsman. Proctor promises everything will eventually make sense and reveals his plan. The Gatherers have recruited another Vision from a reality where the android still has red skin and green costume. This Vision is shocked to meet his counterpart in this reality and it is explained that they are going to use their prisoner to infiltrate the Avengers by swapping their minds.[1]
As his captors prepare for the mind transfer, the Vision reflects back on how they managed to capture him so easily….
A few hours earlier, the Vision was with the Swordsman helping him try to piece together his fragmented memories by reviewing the Avengers records on this reality’s Swordsman who died in battle as a member of the team.[2] It’s not an easy process as the Swordsman continues to be plagued by headaches and all he can remember is that the world he came from is dead.
Their conversation is interrupted by Crystal who has come to deliver a message to the Vision. Reading it, the Vision tells Crystal that he has to leave on important business even though the Avengers are going to have a meeting about Sersi, after she murdered a priest on their mission on Polmacheus.[3]
The Vision then went to a beach house on Long Island where he meets with a woman who appeared to be Laura Lipton. Lipton wanted to see the Vision because she misses her late husband Alex, and since the Vision had recently been programmed with Alex’s brian engrams, hopes to speak to her husband again.[4] Although the Vision insists that this is impossible, Laura pleads with him and he gives in and kisses her. However, he then realizes that this is not Laura at all, but an impostor. As it turned out, “Laura” is actually Tabula, a shapeshifting member of the Gatherers. The Vision is quickly ambushed by the rest of the team and this is how he was taken prisoner.
… When Vision is finished his recollection he discovers that he has been strapped into a transfer device with his counterpart. The sythezoid tries to get free while demanding answers to how Proctor knows so much about the Avengers and what he wants. Proctor blasts Vision’s hand off and explains that he has come to get revenge against Sersi, a woman he once called his wife.
At that moment, Sersi has run off to Wakanda where she is swimming at Warrior Falls. There she hears a sound and instinctively attacks, nearly blowing up her teammate the Black Knight. Dane has followed after her to find out what drove her to kill Anskar back in Polemachus. She explains that she did it out of revenge for his murder of a young girl and admits to Whitman that she enjoyed the experience. Horrified by this admission, Sersi asks Dane for help as she fears she might be going insane.[5]
Meanwhile, at the 16th Precinct in New York City, Detectives Joe McNamara and Tomas Delgado have been investigating a series of serial murders that have plagued the city. After a series of dead ends they finally get a lead: A forensic examination of the latest victim has turned up a fiber sample comprised of unstable molecules. Since this material is exclusively licensed out to superheroes by Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, they decide to pay Richards a visit in order to narrow down their list of suspects.
While at Avengers Headquarters, Hercules is on monitor duty when he is visited by Crystal. She is worried about the Black Knight and asks if he has heard anything yet. He confirms that Dane is in Africa searching for Sersi. When she asks what he thinks about Sersi killing the priest on Polemachus, Hercules believes that it was the right move, just as he believes that Dane was justified in killing the Supreme Intelligence on Hala a few months earlier.[6] Regardless of the morality surrounding these incidents, Crystal thinks that they are an ill omen for the Avengers. That’s when they receive a distress call from the Black Widow, asking them to come help her in the hangar bay.
By this time, the Black Knight and Sersi are heading back to Avengers Headquarters. Dane keeps on pushing her for answers when suddenly she suddenly sense something and tells him to get out. On a rooftop below them, Proctor and the evil Vision — freshly transferred into his counterpart’s body — arrive. When the Vision begins joking around, Proctor hurts him and reminds him to focus on his mission of infiltrating the Avengers. That’s when the Quinjet carrying Sersi passes by, pleasing Proctor to no end.
At Avengers Headquarters, the team are trying to break up a fight between Arkon’s lizard Karia and the Inhuman dog Lockjaw.[7] They are interrupted when the Quinjet crash lands in the hanger bay. As Hercules recovers the Black Knight from the wreckage, Sersi emerges and in a fit of rage demands to know what is happening to her.
As this is going down, back at the Proctor’s citadel, the Vision wakes up and finds himself inside the body of his counterpart and trapped in a stasis tube that negates his phasing powers. He is visited by Cassandra, who tells the Vision that she and the other Gatherers are the last survivors of their native reality and that they will do anything to guarantee their continued existence, even if it means destroying the Avengers of this reality.
Back at the Avengers Headquarters, the team tries to calm Sersi down but she responds by attacking them all. This causes the alarms to start going off, awakening the Swordsman in his room. Fighting back another wave of confusion he repeats the mantra “once an Avenger, always an Avenger” and puts on his costume and rushes to aid the rest of the team. When he arrives in the hangar, he is shocked to see Sersi attacking her teammates. Suddenly, the evil Vision enters the room and uses his phasing powers to incapacitate Sersi. The other Avengers — unaware that this is not the Vision they know — are surprised to see the android employ such force, but the Vision explains that he did what was necessary. When the Black Knight tries to start a fight, the Vision tells them that there is no need for further violence as they are all friends. Captain America — who also just arrived on the scene — can’t agree more and seeing the state of things believes that he has been away from the team for far too long.[8]
Recurring Characters
Avengers (Captain America, Hercules, Vision, Black Knight, Black Widow, Sersi, Crystal), Gatherers (Proctor, Anti-Vision, Cassandra, Magdalene, Tabula Rasa, Sloth), Swordsman, Lockjaw, Joe MacNamara, Tomas Delgado
Continuity Notes
Lots going on with the Gatherers that bares further explanation. The facts:
As explained in Avengers #355-356, the Gatherers come from different realities and are the last surviving members of their own Avengers teams. They have been gathered by Proctor for some grand scheme. This was also where they lost the Swordsman who was captured by the Avengers.
What they don’t know is that Proctor is butt-hurt over getting dumped by his reality’s Sersi and his mission is to kill every Sersi in the multiverse like a dimension hopping Incel. See Avengers #374-375.
The recruitment of the alternate Vision happened last issue.
As for all the realities everyone comes from they are: Earth-374 (Proctor), 921 (Swordsman), 932 (Vision), 9201 (Magdalene), 92101 (Cassandra). The realities where Sloth and Tabula originate from, as of this writing (May, 2022) are unrevealed. See Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #2, 3 and 5.
The Earth-616 Swordsman died during the Celestial Madonna affair which ran from Avengers #129-135 and Giant-Size Avengers #2-4.
The Avengers assisted Arkon in stabilizing the energy rings that give life to his world in order to prevent a priest named Anskar from sacrificing a young virgin in some primitive ritual. Despite the fact that they succeeded, Anskar still killed the young girl, prompting Sersi to kill him on the spot. See Avengers #358-359.
When the Vision attempted to assist Miles Lipton, Alex’s father, in proving Roxxon was responsible for his son’s death in Avengers Spotlight #40. During this period, Miles repaired a software issue in Vision’s operating system by installing Alex’s brain engram. Later, in Avengers #348, the Vision pretended to be able to bring Alex’s personality to the fore as the final of Miles, who was dying of cancer. During this time he also comforted Alex’s widow, Larua, who was also struggling with the deaths in the family.
Sersi kind of is, but she is also being gaslit by Proctor as we’ll learn in Avengers #374.
Dane seemingly killed the Supreme Intelligence for masterminding a plot to detonate a Nega-Bomb in the Kree Galaxy, killing countless people in an effort to jumpstart the Kree’s stagnant evolution. See Captain America #398-400, Avengers West Coast #80-82, Quasar #32-34, Wonder Man (vol. 2) #7-9, Avengers #345-347, Iron Man #278-279, and Thor #445-446. The Supreme Intelligence actually faked his death and will resurface again in Imperial Guard #1-3.
Although the Black Widow states here that they are caring for Arkon’s creature, we never see it again after this issue so I guess they gave it back?
Captain America decided to quit the Avengers in Captain America #401 as he disagreed with the decision to kill the Supreme Intelligence.
Overviews
Captain America has returned to the Avengers and the Black Widow takes him through the latest archives to get him up to speed on the current team roster and the current threats posed by the Gatherers. She goes through profiles on the Black Knight, Sersi, Crystal, Coal Tiger, the Swordsman, Magdalene, Sloth, Cassandra. After running through everything, she admits that they are still trying to piece things together and wonders if everything — the Watcher’s warning, the Gatherers, and Sersi’s mental problems — are all somehow connected. Captain America hopes that they’ll find out before it is too late.
Recurring Characters
Black Widow, Captain America
Continuity Notes
These profiles literally go over everything Gatherer related since Avengers #343. This includes the Black Knights love triangle with Crystal and Sersi, Sersi’s growing mental instability, the origins of the Gatherers and their motivations, and the Watcher’s warning. I pretty much explained everything pertinent above. The only thing to add here is the Watcher appeared before the Avengers to deliver his cryptic warning in Avengers #357.
