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As the Avengers’ next epic begins, the next big threat Marvel’s heroes will face is revealed, and it all starts in a dangerous cosmic location.
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/Hulk #1, available now from Marvel.
In Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/Hulk #1, Marvel kicks off two important storylines. As the title of the issue implies, one of them, “Ignition,” features the Hulk, as the Jade Giant decides to head off into space. As for the Avengers story, it sets up a new storyarc that will unfold in the comic series this November. While the Avengers are currently keeping more than busy facing the combined threats of Dracula, the Winter Guard and Mephisto, something even bigger may be coming for them.
In “The Tower at the Center of Everything” by Jason Aaron, Iban Coello, Brian Reber and VC’s Cory Petit, a new threat reveals itself in the form of a new iteration of the Masters of Evil, a team comprised of alternate versions of multiple fan-favorite characters. These villains pose a threat to the entire Marvel Multiverse, something that becomes clear when the story takes readers back to the God Quarry, a cosmic location that receives something of a facelift in Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/Hulk #1.
The God Quarry, also known as the Quarry of Creation, first appeared in the Marvel Universe in 2017’s Thanos #8 by Jeff Lemire and Germán Peralta. The Quarry of Creation is a mysterious cosmic location that very few people have seen or know about. Located inside a black hole at the far end of the universe, it was originally a wasteland that contained a barrier that led to the original universe, a place the Celestials called home. On top of that, the Quarry is the place where gods went to die. Their bodies littered the wasteland and, because of this, the Quarry was the source of great cosmic power — something the Mad Titan himself, Thanos, at one point sought.
Originally guarded by three powerful witches known simply as The Coven, the God Quarry has been left without its sentries ever since the events of 2018’s Infinity Wars event. And now, as the Quarry returns in Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/Hulk #1, we find that it has since changed.
As “The Tower at the Center of Everything” begins, Aaron and Coello reintroduce the God Quarry by making it similar to something we have seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe television series, Loki. On the series, the titular character, a time-displaced version of the God of Mischief, was pruned by the Time Variance Authority, a process that transported him to the Void, a barren landscape located at the edge of time and space. Everything that was pruned from the “Sacred Timeline” by the TVA found its way to the Void, where it would be consumed by Alioth. The Void was a wasteland filled with forgotten relics of realities that no longer were, and it was home to alternate versions of Loki and others — if they were able to survive Alioth, that is.
And now, we find that the God Quarry is similar to Loki‘s Void. Indeed, in Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/Hulk #1, the Quarry is now described as a boundary between all realities and the cosmic ground from which they sprout. It’s revealed that multiple, alternate versions of Iron Man, Thor and Vision used spare parts from discarded realities to build a new Avengers Tower, an outpost manned by someone known only as Avenger Prime. And while the identity of this Avenger isn’t revealed yet, we do know that they have an army that helps them protect the Marvel Multiverse: a legion of Deathloks. These Deathloks are cybernetic warriors, forgotten, alternate versions of various characters from the Multiverse who have been given robotic enhancements. They enforce the commands of Avenger Prime, but they no longer remember who they were.
This makes these Deathloks similar to the TVA, in some fashion. After all, the TVA agents in Loki were variants who didn’t remember their previous lives, and they were tasked with protecting the “Sacred Timeline.” As for the Deathloks, their mission is to protect the entire Multiverse — but they have just come across something even they cannot defeat: the new Masters of Evil. The villains are set on destroying all realities, and all hope lies in the God Quarry, the barrier at the edge of reality where one superhero safeguards all universes. But it looks like this time, they will need the help of the Avengers.
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