Domination Factor: Avengers #1.2
The Praxis Agenda
This story continues from Domination Factor: Fantastic Four #1.1…
Iron Man sends an emergency transmission to his teammates at Avengers Mansion. Captain America, Thor, the Scarlet Witch, and the Vision are there to answer the call. As he tells them how he and the Fantastic Four recently defended Air Force One from a group of terrorists who attacked it in mid-air. Nobody was hurt, but a strange golden apple — a gift from the King of Norway — was destroyed in the clash. As they are discussing things, Jarvis pours Thor a glass of water. It’s then that they notice that time all around them has suddenly slowed down. The Vision suspects that this is the work of some kind of temporal anomaly. Exiting the mansion, they discover that the anomaly has affected the entire city.
That’s when Thor spots some threat in the Hudson River. The team races there where they discover a giant made out of wood standing in the water. Although the creature is vulnerable to damage, it quickly regenerates any damage done. When Iron Man and Thor team up to knock the giant to the ground, Cap and Scarlet Witch realize that it’ll topple on the people frozen in time on the highway behind it and urge them to stop.
Meanwhile, at Praxis headquarters in the Swiss Alps, the staff continue to care for their elderly employer, a woman known as Nora. She hates the way they fuss over her, but her time is growing short. She has, however, come to believe that her most loyal employee — a man named Lester — as come up with a way for her to cheat death.[2] Although their operatives failed to obtain the Golden Apple from Air Force One, Lester assures her that he has a back-up plan.
Back in New York, the Avengers work together to stop the wood giant from toppling on innocent people. That’s when they realize that the giant was merely acting in defense and that if they stop fighting, it will stop trying to resist them. Since the Fantastic Four are dealing with a similar creature out on the East River, the Avengers decide to go there and compare notes.
However, en route, they are visited by the astral form of Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. He tells them that the wood giants are Harbingers of the Everlasting Winter which were unwittingly unleashed when evil forces began messing with the time stream.[3] Using his magics he reveals that the Golden Apple was separated into fragments that were dispatched to different time periods. As he did with the Fantastic Four, Strange will use his power to send the spirits of the Avengers to these different time periods where they will inhabit the bodies of their past selves to find the apple slices. He warns the Avengers that the mission is a dangerous one, with the added concern of not altering history, as it could have catastrophic consequences. With that, Strange casts a spell that projects the Avengers spirits into the wood giant, dispatching them to various points in the timeline.
Iron Man takes possession of his past self as he sleeps off a night of binge drinking in a doorway. As Stark is being hassled by the police, Iron Man realizes that he has gone back in time to the period where he was a homeless alcoholic.[4] Tony finds himself disorientated because his body is still drunk and he ends up stumbling into traffic. A bystander manages to push Tony out of the path of an oncoming vehicle. The man then gives Tony some money for food and tells him to sober up. Stark decides to eat something to try and absorb the alcohol and then tries looking for Nick Fury. Remembering the old SHIELD headquarters hidden below a barbershop, he barges in and demands that the barbers send him down to SHIELD headquarters so he can meet with Nick Fury. They have no idea what is talking about and they call the police, leading to Stark getting arrested.[5]
A few years earlier, the Scarlet Witch takes possession of her past self during a time when she and her brother Quicksilver had briefly returned to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Magneto is before the United Nations, demanding that they give him a country where he can rule over mutants. His speech is interrupted when the Avengers attack. When security tries to get the situation under control, Magneto uses his powers to divert a bullet so it creases Wanda’s brow. As he anticipated, this was enough to push Quicksilver fully to his side. The Brotherhood quickly defeat the Avengers and escape in their magno-ship. When Wanda wakes up, her mind is confused as her memory has been affected by the gunshot wound.[6][7]
… This story continues in Domination Factor: Fantastic Four #2.3.
Recurring Characters
Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Vision), Edwin Jarvis, Nora, Doctor Strange, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Magneto, Toad, Quicksilver), Avengers (Goliath, Wasp, Hawkeye)
Continuity Notes
This story runs parallel with Domination Factor: Fantastic Four. Ultimately this series ends with history diverging Earth-616 with Earth-8921. From the perspective of the Fantastic Four the divergent point in history is at the moment where Tony Stark asks Reed to observe the golden statue on the plane as seen in Domination Factor: Fantastic Four #1.1 and Domination Factor: Avengers #4.8.
Lester and Nora are not who they seem. Lester is Loki in disguise, while Nora is Knorda, former queen of the Mountain Giants in Asgard. This is all revealed in Domination Factor: Avengers #3.6.
Thor wonders if these giants are connected to the Cask of Ancient Winters. Thor encountered the Cask when it was used to try and bring Surtur to Earth. See Thor #346-353.
In this time period, Tony Stark had fallen off the wagon in Iron Man #167. His drinking got so bad that he lost Stark International in issue #173 and he will end up living on the street. Tony will eventually sober up after a near death experience in Iron Man #182. Tony is appearing here between the events of Iron Man #176 and 177. Per the Sliding Timescale, Tony had gone back in time about 4 years into the past from the present day.
Starting in Strange Tales #136, SHIELD’s base of operations in New York City was hidden below a barbershop. However, in this time period the barbershop had been abandoned since Captain America #228 after it was compromised by the Corporation. SHIELD will start using it as a regular base of operations again in Captain America (vol. 3) #3.
The time period which Wanda finds herself in was when Magneto had returned to Earth after an extended period on the Stranger’s prison world. He then attempted to recruit Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch back into the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Quicksilver, having faced anti-mutant bigotry while an Avenger, as an easy mark. These events all transpired in Avengers #47-49. Wanda arrives in the middle of issue #49. Per the Sliding Timescale places her as being 8 years in the past from the present day.
Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are stated here as being mutants, and that they are the children of Magneto. Both of these facts were later revealed to be false:
Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5 reveal that Wanda and Pietro were kidnapped as infants and experimented upon by the High Evolutionary. In order to cover up his work he made it so the pair would register as mutants.
Since Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4, Wanda and Pietro were led to believe they were Magneto’s children. This is later revealed to be false. Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3 reveals that their biological mother is Natalya Maximoff, while the identity of their biological father is still unrevealed time of this writing in January, 2023.
Topical References
When drunken Tony Stark tries to explain who he is, a shopkeeper sarcastically claims that he is married to Madonna. Madonna is a pop-singer whose career began in 1979. Around the time this comic was published she was at the height of popularity and was also still regarded as a sex symbol. That said, at 64 years old (time of this writing in January, 2023) someone bragging about being married to Madonna (even as a joke) wouldn’t mean the same thing. As such, this reference should be considered topical.
