Appearing in "The Flaw In All Things: Part Two"
Featured Characters:
- Magister Karnak (Main story and flashback)
Supporting Characters:
- Inhuman Royal Family (Only in flashback)
- Mander (Voice only) (Only in flashback)
- Genetic Council (Voice only) (Only in flashback)
- Triton (Mentioned) (Only in flashback)
- Azur (Mentioned)
Antagonists:
- I.D.I.C.
- Numerous unnamed agents (Death)
- Zen Gunner (First appearance; dies)
Other Characters:
- Adam Roderick (Mentioned)
- William Roderick (Mentioned)
- Sarah Roderick (Mentioned)
- S.H.I.E.L.D. (Mentioned)
- Numerous unnamed Berliners
Races and Species:
Locations:
- Earth (Main story and flashback)
- China (Only in flashback)
- Germany
- Berlin
- I.D.I.C. safehouse (Destruction)
- Noumenon Nook (First appearance)
- Lahn (Mentioned)
- Berlin
- Tower of Wisdom (Mentioned)
- United States of America (Mentioned)
- Chapel of the Single Shadow (Mentioned)
- Iceland (Mentioned)
- Hell (Mentioned)
Items:
- Terrigen Mist (Mentioned)
Synopsis for "The Flaw In All Things: Part Two"
In the past, Karnak plays with blocks as a little boy in the hidden city of Attilan. Nearby, his father, Mander, is explaining to the Genetic Council, his civilization's chief administrative body that, after the extreme Terrigenesis of Triton, his brother, Karnak will not undergo the procedure, but will instead become a student of the Tower of Wisdom with his father. The administrators think this will hold the boy back, but the father is confident in his child's native ability...
In the present, Karnak is breaking into a building in Berlin to fight a terrorist group called I.D.I.C. Using the martial arts skills taught by the Tower of Wisdom, he swiftly and bloodily defeats every member of I.D.I.C. that he encounters. He only stops when he finds a man in robes, to whom he explains that he has come to rescue a boy called Adam Roderick from the terrorist kidnappers and has no desire to humor any "human priestcraft".
The terrorist has heard of Karnak the Shatterer, whom he called "the fake Inhuman", and claims that Adam Roderick joined them willingly and was not kidnapped. He also explains that if Karnak killed everyone on the floors below, then they two are the only ones left in the building. Karnak is a bullet, and he is a target... but he is the Zen Gunner, and not without his own skills.
Drawing on his skills, the Zen Gunner starts firing blasts of energy at Karnak from his hands. As Karnak dodges, the Zen Gunner tries to explain that Adam Roderick is the Inhuman messiah that I.D.I.C. needed... but Karnak strikes the ground, generating a piece of shrapnel that stabs the other man in the face.
Helpless, the Zen Gunner is asked for the location of Adam Roderick. The Zen Gunner sneers that Karnak has no hold on him, and torture is no incentive to a dying man. Karnak admits that he is an excellent torturer, but he doesn't need to torture. The Zen Gunner is a man who channeled his faith in a militant cult, into shooting lightning through his arms. His is not a silent faith. He wants to extol a higher power, and he has chosen Adam Roderick as his saintly intercessor.
This is interesting to Karnak because S.H.I.E.L.D.'s file on Adam Roderick showed that his Inhuman mutation was a perfect immune system and nothing else. Karnak believes that the Zen Gunner has lied to himself about Adam, and that is his flaw. The Zen Gunner disagrees, saying that Adam Roderick is something truly other, and to men who have meditated as they two clearly have, he is a product of the world so perfect that he renders the entirety of the rest of the world superfluous.
The Zen Gunner advises Karnak to seek the Chapel of the Single Shadow, use his name, and gain an audience with Adam Roderick. But the cost of wisdom is the journey, and the Zen Gunner will not tell him where the temple is. Karnak kills the Zen Gunner with a small cuboid rock, which makes him remember both the white wall of his cuboid cell in the Tower of Wisdom and the blocks he played with as a child.
Karnak leaves the building, pausing only to destroy it with a single punch to a load-bearing external wall. He walks through Berlin until he finds a café, where he orders a glass of water. And there he sits to think...
Solicit Synopsis
• Karnak versus a warehouse full of enemy agents! The agents don’t stand a chance.
• But the Zen Gunner can turn the air itself into a deadly weapon? Karnak’s in trouble.