5.1. War Machine: Evolution
Toni & Aikku go to look at the Reality Stone in AIM care. Korvac pokes it while they're there, making it react.
In space, Man-Beast tells the High Evolutionary that the Reality Stone has been located on Earth. The HE tells MB to get the ship ready.
HE lands in Antarctica. MB says it doesn’t look like a good spot, but HE seems unbothered. His ship produces a protective dome, and then begins terraforming the area, transforming it into jungle..
Carol is at Maria Rambeau’s, relaxing after defeating the Supreme Intelligence. She’s doing odd jobs around the house, when Maria calls her attention to the news, which is reporting the creation of the Savage Land.
Cut to AIM, where the Avengers and AIM scientists are discussing what should be done. The research into the Savage Land is being presented by Aikku Jokinen, AIM’s best environmental scientist. She explains that a dome containing what looks like a tropical rainforest has appeared in the arctic and they don’t know how or why. It’s agreed that Aikku will go and take readings, with Rhodey protecting her.
Rhodey and Aikku discover they can pass through the dome and into the jungle. They go in with ropes attached to them so they can be pulled back out, but the ropes mutate into vines and take root, making them useless. They find that Aikku’s comm doesn’t work inside the barrier, but the one in the suit still does, so they decide to proceed. They see an evolution ray hitting a lizard, which mutates before their eyes into a dinosaur.
Rhodey sees two sabretooth tiger cubs about to be eaten by a dinosaur and jumps into the rescue them, however as he does, an evolution ray hits and his suit begins to mutate. He manages to get out of it, but as soon as he does, the suit closes up and flies away on its own.
As this means they’ve lost their comms and means of recording, they agree they should turn back. However, as they’re taking another evolution ray hits Aikku and she vanishes. Rhodey tries to leave the dome to get help, but is captured by a group of Lizard Men who beat him up and take him to the HE’s ship, now transformed into a huge high-tech fortress.
Carol also finds she can pass right through the barrier, and being in the sky spots the fortress immediately, flying to it. Inside she finds the HE and challenges him, however he has a machine that absorbs energy, draining her powers, and she too is captured.
Back at AIM, Toni is desperately trying to get any kind of communications back up, and arguing with AIM about sending in a rescue party, as Brashear is worried that going in without more data will just result in them losing even more people.
In the cells of the HE’s fortress, Rhodey and Carol are locked in adjoining cells. They chat about heroing and soldiering, and generally bond.
Meanwhile, Aikku is not actually dead - the beam has given her the ability to alter her density, and when it hit she control of her powers and fell down into a cave below the Savage Land.
She finds her way out in time to see Carol flying towards the fortress, thinking that this is Rhodey or Tony in a suit, she heads in that direction and finds the fortress. She explores and exposits a bit, eventually finding the main room. The computer is analysing footage of carol to understand her mutation - she watches it, and sees the HE take Carol’s powers. Spotting the energy device, she turns it off. As she expected, this sets off an alarm, and she comments that she hopes shes right about carol being a hero.
She’s about to run, when something on the HE’s computer catches her attention, distracting her long enough for the Lizardmen guards to run in.
In the cells, Carol’s powers return. She breaks out and opens Rhodey’s cell. Given the HE can turn off her powers, they sneak out rather than bust out, Rhodey taking a blaster from the lizard guards. On their way out, they see Aikku being studied by the HE, but decide to escape and call in more support.
They escape and begin discussing their next move when they run across more savage land natives - these ones cat people. They’re just deciding whether to attack or sneak past them, when one of the cat people, Ka-Zar, reveals himself to be one of the tiger cubs Rhodey had rescued earlier.
He takes them back to the cat people village, introduces them to Zabu (the other cub, who was just aged up by the ray rather than humanised), and it’s all very Ewok village. He also introduces them to Arsenal-Alpha, formerly Rhodey’s suit, now an autonomous sentient bio-mechanical being.
Rhodey bemoans their lack of comms, and Arsenal-Alpha says that he knows how to solve the problem, but he no longer serves human masters. They eventually manage to persuade him to help, and he contacts AIM HQ.
Toni uses coordinates sent to her by Arsenal-Alpha to send in a new suit of War Machine armour, and the gang and Ka-zar’s tribe prepare to attack tomorrow. As the fire dies, Carol and Rhodey talk, and there’s more than a hint of romantic tension.
The next day, they launch their attack. Carol goes to fight the HE, destroying the energy capture device, while Rhodey goes to rescue Aikku. He has to battle Man Beast to get to her, but when he releases her, Aikku says that they have to stop the HE, who’s intending to keep expanding the Savage Land bubble, with potentially apocalyptic environmental consequences.
They go to look at the controls, but they only respond to the HE. Rhodey realises that it has no power source, and must be drawing on the ship’s own power. Using the suit’s scanners he identifies the power cables, following them through the ship back to the engine room.
Aikku warns him that she has no idea how any of this works, she’s a biologist not an engineer, but Rhodey says not to worry. “Everyone always forgets that if I met Tony in college, that means I also went to college. MIT, class of ‘86. Just pull the switches I tell you to pull, okay?”
He figures out the engine, and they manage to shut it off, but as soon as they do, the fortress begins to retract, back into the original ship. Aikku grabs Rhodey, and discovers that she can also make other people intangible, while Carol grabs Ka-Zar and Zabu and flies out through a hole in the ceiling is the fortress rapidly contracts, trapping the HE and his lizard-men inside.
Ka-Zar promises to guard the HE, and Carol, Rhodey, and Aikku return to AIM Island to debrief.
While Aikku reunites with a tearful Toni, Rhodey invites Carol to join the Avengers. It’s clear she’s tempted, but she says that there are people out in space who don’t have anyone to help except her, while Earth is clearly in good hands.
We cut to a few days later. Carol is packing, preparing to say goodbye to Maria and Monica and return to space, when there’s a knock on the door. Rhodey is standing their in his civilians duds. He says that he knows it can’t go anywhere, because he has the Avengers and she has all of space, but he couldn’t let her go without at least asking her out for a drink.
Carol starts to refuse, but Maria talks over her, telling him she agrees. Carol says she doesn’t need romantic advice from her ex-girlfriend, but Maria is unrepentant, saying that if Carol’s going to make dumb decisions someone has to help her. Monica, who’s visiting, also insists Carol should go, and Carol, seeing she’s outnumbered, laughs and agrees.
Post-credits, we’re back where we started, in the room where AIM are studying the Reality Stone. An attractive woman, wearing an AIM ID badge, is telling Korvacs how she just got the job, but she’s soooo impressed with everything he’s doing, laying the charm on thick. As he turns away, we see that her reflection shows the truth - still a woman, but with the same white hair and facial tattoos as the Collector.
Related Characters
Related Organizations
Related Locations
