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Marvel Database

Appearing in "Earth 33⅓"

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Synopsis for "Earth 33⅓"

  • Synopsis not yet written

Appearing in "Lo, the Quest Begins!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Thor #255

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Synopsis for "Lo, the Quest Begins!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Thor #255
Thor returns to Asgard empty handed, but that was what Mimir was expecting. He did not want the eye, just to test Thor's honor. Mimir tells Thor that the answers he seeks lie with the Doomsday Star. They leave in the Starjammer, but get caught in a meteor storm and their sail is damaged. They land on an asteroid for repairs and come across a crashed spaceship and a group of dust covered statues. It turns out they are not statues, but the Stone Men from Saturn that Thor fought way back when, and they want the Starjammer. In their assault on the Asgardians, the Stone Men cause their own crashed ship to explode and begin breaking the asteroid apart. The Asgardians escape in their ship, leaving the Stone Men to perish

Appearing in "The Reality War"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Doctor Strange (Vol. 2) #46

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Synopsis for "The Reality War"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Doctor Strange (Vol. 2) #46

Dr. Strange and Clea have decided to take a vacation and take a flight to Rome. During the flight, Clea has a dream about Sibylla, the founder of an ancient Roman group known as the Sibyls. Sibylla explains how she was chosen by Apollo to act as a prophet to the people. After living out her mortal life in the temple of Apollo and Artemis (the Nexus of all realities), Apollo allowed her spirit to endure and they would watch as each of her descendants would take on the role of a Sibyl. However, one descendant, named Thaleia, went mad and her behavior thereafter lead to the loss of faith in the Sibyline Sisterhood. Thaleia would ultimately poison herself.

When the prophecy of the "Black Oracle" came to be, another Sibylla would be needed to save the world from danger. The dream Clea is having is a summons that she is the next to be part of the sisterhood.

When Stephen and Clea arrive in Rome, they are shocked to see almost immaterial Roman soldiers bearing laser rifles. Deciding to investigate, the two travel to the Temple of Apollo and Artemis. There they witness more reality warps, as well as meet Sibylla. She explains that their reality will be invaded from beings from an alternate reality, led by the evil wizard Xennus who comes from a reality where the Roman empire never fell and society became even more advanced than their native dimension.

Clea agrees to be the third link, working in unison with Sibylla and the spirit of Thaleia to seal the rift in reality. Dr. Strange's task is to prevent Xennus from stopping the women. He battles his foe throughout various dimensions. Finally, the evil wizard fails in his goal and the three women manage to banish him back to his own dimension. With their mission a success, Sibylla's body crumbles to dust and the cavern caves in, leaving Strange and Clea alone to witness a beautiful sunrise.

Appearing in "The Brain Parasites!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Fantastic Four #227

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Synopsis for "The Brain Parasites!"

Reprint of the 1st story from
Fantastic Four #227

Reed is contacted by scientific colleague Gideon Carruthers to help investigate a meteor impact at Lost Lake mountain resort in Pennsylvania. Reed accepts, and the Fantastic Four and Franklin prepare for a family holiday unaware that the meteor, hidden at the bottom of the lake itself, is causing some kind of selective evolutionary regression in the local wildlife.

As the FF approach in the Fantasti-Car, they come under attack from a hawk devolved into a Pteranodon. While Sue protects Franklin, the other three members do their best to repel the attack but the Pteranodon does serious damage to the craft. When a mighty blow from Ben knocks the creature unconscious and plummeting straight for the Fantasti-Car, the creature mysteriously explodes: the only physical remains being a small organism resembling a prehistoric trilobite.

While the rest of the team settle into their cabin quarters, Reed and Carruthers set about examining the trilobite, but are interrupted by a small boy whose dog has disappeared. Promising to do their best to find the boy's pet, they tune in to a radio scanner in time to hear a police report about an attack at a nearby gas station. Fearing the attack is related to the trilobite incident, Ben, Reed and Johnny rush to investigate and find a police trooper lying inured beside his vehicle, a victim of a savage monster that attacked his car. The three investigate inside the gas station and discover a number of cans of motor oil ripped open on the floor, and a huge wolf-like creature lapping at the spilled oil. The beast is cornered but escapes, knocking Ben out of the way with an energy blast and destroying the gas pump heads, but Reed acts quickly and on a hunch he removes the living trilobite creature from the back of the wolf's neck, and the wolf reverts to its original form. Within an hour the trilobite is dead, and Reed and Carruthers determine that the creature is a true symbiote and that it uses its host to procure oil for sustenance, hence the attack on the Fantasti-Car and the gas station. The team determine to search for the meteor the following day and, as Reed and Sue look in on a sleeping Franklin, Sue worries that they are exposing their son to needless danger in just being at Lost Lake. She complains that it is still difficult for her to accept a life outside of the ordinary patterns of family life, but resolves to stand with her husband as both wife and member of the team.

The next day Ben dives from the FF's rented launch to the bottom of the lake and retrieves an alien egg from the meteor, but is attacked by a huge sea serpent that Johnny surmises is devolved from a common eel. As the team tackle the serpent and Sue pilots the launch, the integrity of the egg is breached and a trilobite makes its way up Sue's back, unnoticed by the Invisible Girl in the heat of the moment. Carruthers and Franklin watch from the shoreline as the FF take on the monster, and before Reed can remove the alien from the serpent it mysteriously explodes, just like the pteranodon. An investigation of the now-vacated alien egg reveals five empty chambers, meaning, as far as Reed knows at least, two parasites are unaccounted for. Sue, meanwhile, is acting very strangely, and shuns Reed's attempts at physical contact. Later, as Ben and Carruthers scour the woods for one of the missing parasites the scientist falls prey to an alien and is devolved into some from of early hominid. As the creature attacks the heating oil of a nearby cabin, Johnny intervenes and causes an explosion that knocks Carruthers out long enough for Ben to remove the parasite and restore him to human form. As the team regroups, Sue's absence is noted and she is eventually discovered behind the Fantasti-Car, still largely in control of her faculties but struggling to maintain her humanity, which Reed ascribes to her cosmic-ray-altered blood chemistry.

Reed and Johnny deduce that it was Franklin who was responsible for making the two parasites self-destruct and, as the youngster struggles against the same impulse with regard to his own mother, Reed buys enough time to remove the parasite from Sue's neck, enabling Franklin destroys the parasite as it rests in Reed's hand. Restored to humanity, Sue is at a loss to explain the parasite's motive in sheltering by the Fantasti-Car, but suggests that the parasite's instincts may have been reproductive. As the craft takes to the air its engines incinerate another alien egg that had been deposited beneath it, with all but one of its larvae burned to a crisp, and the remaining parasite hovering precariously between life and death.

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