Infinity
*It's important to note that tie ins play a crucial part in this story. So for the purposes of completeness, I'll be acting like those don't exist at all. Also this is way longer than I intended so yeah...
The Illuminati are shown blowing up a planet probably teeming with life. Out of context this makes them look like bloodthirsty murderers, so let's go with that. The Illuminati kill billions of people in this story.
We get some talk of a tribute, and then Corvus Glaive of the Black Order (Thanos lackeys) goes to collect a tribute from some random planet we'll never see again. He comes back with babies to Thanos' delight.
We then see some four armed Goro thing that the game Destiny directly ripped off their design from hopping around the planet.
We're introduced to the Builders who are retconned into being the oldest civilization in the universe and create other civilizations. They're pretty much Celestials, but small and weaker, but we pretend they're the most powerful thing ever until they aren't.
There's some war on Galador with the Space Knights and the Builder's robot douches the Alephs. Captain Universe who is apparently Eternity tells them they're going to lose. So the Builders blow up the planet. How did she know?
The Avengers then bust in on some Skrulls minding their own business eating a delicious meal. Naturally this was an act of evil or some shit so they start murdering Skrulls. The Avengers realize none of them were warriors and have no sympathy. Captain America everyone.
That Destiny creature thing invades a sleeping Black Bolt's mind. Cutaway to Captain "I am Eternity" Universe being in a coma after she came back from Galador going kablammo. The Avengers then realize these Builders are coming to Earth. Cutaway to the Destiny thing finding out about the Illuminati and Infinity Gems and it starts digging deeper. Black Bolt wakes up and rips off its arm. It runs away and BB whispers at it and it falls onto a ship. BB realizes he has secrets because he's the only one who does.
The Avengers realize they want to be Space Avengers and leave Iron Man behind.
The Destiny thing comes back to Thanos and we're introduced to the Black Order. Supergiant, Proxima Midnight, Black Dwarf, and the Ebony Maw. Then Corvus murders the Destiny creature and tells Thanos Earth has no Avengers. Rape smile from Thanos.
So Thanos invades Earth. Corvus and Supergiant beat up the X-Men. Including Corvus spearing the dickens out of Wolverine. I think that's a very important detail in this series. Proxima Midnight beats up Atlantis. And Ebony Maw is shown feeling up Dr Strange and whispering sweet nothings into his domepiece.
Black Panther and Wakanda are shown about to face off against Black Dwarf and the crew. While Corvus goes to Attilan to go and be an ass hole to all the Inhumans. Then he gets all his crew to kill themselves to show he means business. He wants all the Inhumans between the ages of 16 and 22 to cut their heads off as a tribute to the Thanos who for some reason is a bloodthirsty murderer again.
The Avengers are shown to lose a space war battle. We have a Gladiator speech and another battle where it talks about how the Builders had a hand in human evolution while a space war is happening. So the Avengers and the Shi'ar are winning the space war above a planet when the Ex Nihili arrive and poison the planet making it full of disease and icky. Those bastards! Everyone evacuates as much as they can of the planet. This was their first win against the Builders.
Black Bolt summons the Illuminati to a convenient pocket reality that neutralizes his voice so he can speak. He tells them Thanos has a son. Suddenly the tribute makes sense, because no one likes having kids. And one kid is worth an entire planet getting invaded. Especially when that kid will surely in no way become a villain and never come back to Earth again!
The Builders blow up some big spaceship in a space battle and then force a bunch of planets to surrender, including the Kree. Ronan is not happy.
The Avengers win a space battle and steal a planet killer to blow up Builder ships. The Builders run away and Starbrand destroys some fleeing ships. This turned the tide apparently.
We're then shown some Earth battles that I have severe doubts were ever covered in tie ins. Thanos shows up on Attilan for the tribute and Black Bolt starts yelling at him in a high pitched whiney tune. This ignites a bomb that detects high pitched whiney squeals and Attilan goes kablooey. Attilan was shown evacuated. But when Attilan blew up it likely murdered thousands of people in New York that Attilan was floating over. Good game.
We're then shown a single Builder talking jive to the entirety of Hala. These must be big deal villains if a single one can take over a planet. Surely they can't be brutally slaughtered by Thor throwing his hammer through one and beating them to death!
We're shown Thanos' son (Thane) who's a cracker ass whitey instead of a purple guy. Apparently he's a healer, good guy. It then talks of Terrigen Mists that transform Inhumans into mutants and that high pitched whiney screaming bomb apparently sends them all over the planet. Perfect set up.
Thanos kicks the absolute shit out of Black Bolt while he high pitch screams at him over and over again. Luckily this was retconned later that had absolutely no effect on any story as a weaker Black Bolt due to the high pitched whiney scream bomb blowing up.
We're seen Thane getting turned into a purple guy with a magma hand who murders his entire clan. Great guy. Also his name is Thane, because the one Inhuman named "Thane" is shockingly the son of Thanos everyone was looking for.
So Thor shows up on Hala to bow to a Builder. He throws his hammer around the sun so he appears unarmed. The Builder then proceeds to start slapping Thor around and talking about how cool he is. Shockingly the hammer comes back and goes through the Builder and Thor brutally slaughters the Builder by beating him to death. So this turns the tide of the war against armies that vastly outnumber their own because they find out Thor can brutally murder one. Because the amount of people they have equal to Thor on their side is enormous.
So because Thor murdered one with a sneak attack, half the next issue shows how big of cannon fodder their forces are as the Builders just keep losing. Yup.
We see Ebony Maw give Thane a suit that controls his powers like a Cyclops headband, and traps him in a tube when he grabs it.
We see them torturing Black Bolt and trying to get the arming sequence for planet destroying bombs that the Illuminati are using to murder billions. Ebony Maw then tells Thanos he captured his son Thane. Thanos teleports to Thane and they have a real father son moment where Thanos tells him he wants to murder him.
The Avengers are headed back towards Earth now because the Builders weren't worth more than 7 or so pages to show how they lost an entire war in the time it took for Thanos to threaten his son.
It shows an Earth space battle, and it shows Black Dwarf beating up Gladiator like a giant pussy before Ronan blows up Black Dwarf's head.
Tortured depowered controlled (by Supergiant) Black Bolt then knocks out the Illuminati outside Dr Strange with a whisper. Namor, Iron Man, and even more surprisingly, Beast are all knocked out.
Then Hulk comes out of nowhere and gets slapped away by Thanos. Naturally this sets up an epic battles between Thanos and the Avengers because Thanos' minions are in no way going to get more spotlight here because Hickman created them.
Thanos sends Corvus and Proxima to go deal with Hulk... well, it's just Hulk right, Thanos will surely be the spotlight after this... well, anyway, they easily beat Hulk and the rest of the Avengers show up. Thanos becomes background art dealing with Thor while the rest of the Avengers fight Corvus and Proxima.
Black Bolt beats up Dr Strange and Black Panther uses a rumbler to stun everyone. Apparently it rumbles really hard.
Cut back to stunned Hulk getting turned into Banner by Proxima Midnight. Thanos is shown eyeblasting Thor. Proxima rocks the whole Avengers including Hyperion. Thanos stands around.
Supergiant gets murdered by getting teleported to a planet with the anti matter bombs. Starbrand blows up a bunch of spaceships in the space battle.
Corvus then stabs Hyperion and has him dead to rights. Naturally Proxima throws a spear and it pierces Corvus who then proceeds to get burned to death by Hyperion. Proxima just sits there for a while crying and gets blasted by Binary who gets knocked out by Thanos, and then she cries some more. Because her and Corvus did penis in vagina sex.
Then Thor throws what might as well be wet hands holding a plug in at Thanos, hits him in face with a rubber hammer, and then Thanos catches his hammer and starts transforming into a super sayian and blowing all the Avengers away.
Naturally Thane touches Thanos and traps him and crying Proxima in amber. What a great and in no way anti climatic way to end the fight and event. Hickman never wrote Thane again.
In the epilogue Black Bolt decides to become a deadbeat king, and they talk of all the Inhumans he forcibly made powerful. No side effects naturally. There's some Annihilation World that will surely be touched upon in the future. Also the Illuminati had amber Thanos in their basement.
Another thing to point out here is that it was retconned that Ebony Maw was always dead at this point in time, even though we saw him interacting with people, and Thanos touched him sensually as well. So...
The end.
