Appearing in "The Animus Engagement"
Featured Characters:
- Avengers West Coast
- Fantastic Four
- Alpha Flight
- Silver Surfer (Norrin Radd)
- Hulk (Bruce Banner)
- Nova (Richard Rider)
- Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange)
- Agatha Harkness
- Doctor Druid
Thor (Eric Masterson) - She-Hulk
- Nova (Frankie Raye)
- Quasar (Wendell Vaughn)
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Magus (Universal Church of Truth)
- Thanos' Doppelganger
- Sasquatch doppelganger
- Thing doppelganger
- Vision doppelganger
- Wolverine doppelganger
- Hulk doppelganger
- Silver Surfer doppelganger
- Moondragon doppelganger
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
- Infinity Gauntlet (Item)
- Cloak of Levitation
- Mjolnir
- Captain America's Shield
- Captain America's Uniform
- Cyclops' Visor
- Eye of Agamotto
- Soul Gem
- Space Gem
- Mind Gem
- Time Gem
- Power Gem
- Cosmic Containment Units
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "The Animus Engagement"
The Magus controls the Infinity Gauntlet, and taunts his captive, Adam Warlock . Outside in the courtyard, Earth's heroes battle an army of doppelgangers. Inside the fortress, Thanos fights his own doppelganger. In the home dimension, the Magus is merging and replacing planets with dark duplicates.
The mystics, Thor, and Galactus return to the Star Sphere and reconvene with the psychics. Galactus learns that his mission to reactivate the Infinity Gauntlet was a mistake, and that the Magus is using it to alter reality. The ship transports them to the outer courtyard, and they aid the heroes against the doppelgangers.
Magus snaps his fingers, and makes the doppelgangers disappear. He snaps them again, and freezes all the heroes in a stasis field. He reaches out his gauntleted hand, intending to touch and erase Warlock. However, Thanos enters the room and interrupts. He tells the Magus that "reality is not what you perceive" and that it is "a thread which has escaped your grasp," then attacks him. The Magus seems to understand what Thanos is implying, and angrily strikes back.
Because of the distraction, Warlock is able to free himself and take hold of the Infinity Gauntlet. He and the Magus engage in a battle of wills to control it. Blasts of energy explode out from them. Galactus refers to it as "a disruption of the reality flow." He teleports the heroes back onto his ship, and they try to outrun the effects.
Warlock and the Magus continue to struggle against each other. Eternity and Infinity suddenly emerge from Warlock's body.
The reality disruption catches up to Galactus' ship. There is a final explosion. Instead of dying, however, the heroes find themselves back in their respective headquarters on Earth.
On Monster Isle, Thanos and the Infinity Watch observe Warlock in a catatonic state. Thanos reveals that he had used his repliction system to make a fake, powerless copy of the Reality Gem. This prevented the Magus from having complete control of the Infinity Gauntlet and omnipotence. Eternity appears, and reinstates the Living Tribunal's ruling that blocks the Gems from working together. As Thanos begins to leave, Gamora states that he has changed. He attributes this to his rejection from Death.
The Magus is trapped within the Soul Gem. He discovers that he cannot be touched or noticed by the other inhabitants. This is because he does not have a complete soul; he is just a portion of Warlock's soul.
Thanos wonders who stole the Magus' Cosmic Containment Units. He speculates that since Warlock expelled all good and evil from himself, and Magus was the evil side, then they would encounter the good side someday.
Notes
- Fantastic Four #370 and Warlock and the Infinity Watch #10 take place during this story.
- Gamora had a precognitive vision of a gauntleted hand reaching towards Adam in Warlock and the Infinity Watch #8.
