Kang was looking very hard at Patriot and Wiccan. He had no idea who they were yet they disturbed him in some way.

Kang landed on the floor, walked up to Terra and imperiously told her that he was taking charge of both of them. Terra had no idea who Kang was but she had a very good idea who Dr. Doom was and she was not ready to defy him so she allowed Kang to march Patriot and Wiccan off to another corner.

"Who are you?" Kang demanded.

"You don't know?" Wiccan asked.

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking." Kang said angrily.

Irritated, Kang grabbed them both by the arms and entered the time stream.

Kang brought them to his timestream headquarters.

"Why do you seem familiar?" He demanded in an angry tone.

"You were our teammate. You were our friend. We thought you were dead." Wiccan replied.

"Dead? I never died! Why would you think I was dead?"

"We found your body. Iron Lad's body."

"Iron Lad? Who's Iron Lad? Who's Iron Lad?"

"You! As a teenager. We tried and failed to prevent you from becoming Kang."

"This is absurd." With a simple gesture Kang had both Wiccan and Patriot fall into comas. "I will get to the bottom of this mystery at my own leisure." He entered the Timestream and rejoined Dr. Doom.

Day 49: Midafternoon; At a replicated Markovia, in an alternate merged reality.

Stature; Cassandra Lang, arrived with Miss America and Marvel Boy just in time to rescue Kate Bishop from Moonstone and Baron Zemo.

However, Cassie tripped and fell directly into a rift in reality.

Walter Newell; Stingray, was supervising the rebuilding of Hydro Base. He was using his suit to inspect underneath to ensure it was air tight. He swam right into a rift in reality.

Eric Masterson; Thunderstrike, Was surprised to be alive. Yet here he was, In full Thunderstrike regalia staring across a field at a very agitated Dragon Man.

Thunderstrike barely had time to react when Dragon Man spotted him and lunged at Eric breathing fire.

Dragon Man had appeared in this reality while he was sleeping. Nightmare was expecting him and placed a nightmare of Thor abusing him in his brain. When Dragon Man woke up, he was both angry and frightened. As soon as Thunderstrike appeared before him, Dragon Man lashed out in anger.

Stature and Stingray emerged from their respective rifts and saw the fight. Because of the severity of the fight, Stature and Stingray each assumed that Dragon Man was fighting Thor. Neither recognized Thunderstrike.

Stature grew to Dragon Man's size and tried to pull him off of Thunderstrike but was not strong enough at that size to be effective.

Walter Newell, wasn't sure what he could do. His armor was better designed for underwater maneuverability. If he tried to shoot at the combatants, he could easily hit either Stature or the hero he thought was Thor.

He was about to move in to try to help when he was tapped on the shoulder. He turned to see a foppish looking man who introduced himself as Captain Beyond.

"Come with me. You are of little use here. They will be able to resolve this without you."

Before Walter could respond, He found himself transported to Hydro Base by Captain Beyond.

It was the old Hydro Base that had been destroyed.

Stingray looked at Captain Beyond questioningly.

"Call the Avengers. They'll explain everything." With that Captain Beyond vanished.

"Call the Avengers? Most of them have been missing for weeks."

Nevertheless, Newell called and immediately found himself talking to Jarvis.

Stature grew as large as she dared to in order to be of help to Thunderstrike.

Thunderstrike managed to hurl the enraged Dragon Man away from him.

Then he noticed the presence of Stature, who he was unfamiliar with.

Worried about her safety, Thunderstrike ordered Stature to stay back and let him handle it.

This was something Stature did not want to do.

Hawkeye was busted by Markovian security as he was spying on Terra, Dr. Doom and Kang as they were grilling the Thin Man and the Blazing Skull.

Hawkeye had been counting on Wiccan and Patriot's help when Kang took them away. He wasn't sure who they were. He just was hoping for all the help he could get.

Now he'd been exposed to Doom and Kang's attention and was easily subdued.

Just then Terra was notified of trouble on two fronts. The battle between Markovian police and three supervillains (Grim Reaper, Living Laser and Crossbones and the appearance of a giantess, a dragon and Thor(?) in the wheat fields.

Dr. Doom and Kang gathered Terra and took off with her to investigate. Leaving Hawkeye, the Thin Man and Blazing Skull with Markovian guards.

Kang appeared at the sight for the battle raging between Thunderstrike, Stature and Dragon Man but instead of interfering, he decided to use his time powers to see what had been happening before in that day. He then learned that Hawkeye had appeared with Ares early in the morning. So now he knew that Ares had been restored to life. He also learned that Ares had consequently allied with his DCuniverse counterpart. Useful information. Kang then returned to observe the next arrival.

He then observed the arrival of two Guardsmen, Wiccan, the Thin Man and Crossbones. This was intriguing to Kang because one Guardsman seemed to arrive with the heroes and the other appeared along with Crossbones. This called for investigation and he learned that the two Guardsman were the first and second respectively and the first had been resurrected. He made a note to look further at this later. Wiccan held his interest and he wanted to learn more about him.

Meanwhile Dr. Doom took Terra with him and they investigated the supervillain insurgency. Doom used his magic to locate them. When Doom saw the three supervillains, he gave them an ultimatum. They either working for the interests of Latveria or be destroyed on the spot.

None of the three were foolish enough to think that they could stand up to Dr. Doom so they agreed readily to serve Doom as part of his force.

For his part, Doom knew that he was going to have to collect his own forces to protect himself against the other factions that were forming.

He then began to discuss alliance possibilities with Terra.

Kang then observed the arrival of Patriot, Blazing Skull, Lionheart and Piledriver.

Kang knew what became of Lionheart as she was Doom's prisoner at the moment. He took the time to follow the others, learned that Piledriver was delivered to the Masters of Evil where he rejoined two other Wrecking Crew members. Patriot and Blazing Skull, he also knew the fate of.

Next he looked at the arrival of Gargoyle, Darkhawk, Iron Lad (?) and the Living Laser.

He saw Iron Lad remove his mask and saw himself. Kang flipped. Then he freaked out when the Living Laser blew the kid's head off.

Kang nearly obliterated the Living Laser for that. He held back though.

Kang returned to his time sanctuary and revived Wiccan and Patriot from the comas he'd induced in order to grill them.

He replayed the scene of Iron Lad's death via hologram for them. "Who was that? Why did the Living Laser kill him? What was that about?"

"That was you! That was our friend. He fought beside us as Iron Lad."

"That wasn't me! How could that be me? I'm here. I'm alive. I wasn't killed. Why do you lie to me? Tell me who that really was before I destroy you both!"

"We're telling you the truth. That was you! A younger you determined not to become you. And we were trying to help him not become you."

"That's impossible. I have no memories of you in my youth! It had to be an imposter!"

Suddenly Kang had a revelation. "Unless ------ unless you were from another reality. A separate reality. That has to be it. You are from a divergent reality. What do you call yourselves?"

"The Young Avengers."

"There were never any Young Avengers!"

"Yes there were. We were the Young Avengers, we two, yourself, along with Hulkling."


Kang looked at his two prisoners and made a decision. He placed a device on Wiccan's head that would allow Kang to see if he was telling the truth.
"Bah!" Kang cursed when he learned that Wiccan was not lying.

Hulkling, Spitfire and Two Gun Kid had moved along down the backroads from where they had appeared.

They were moving as fast as Hulkling's morphed wings could carry them.

They entered into Markovburg, the capital of Markovia and drew a great deal of attention.

Hulkling quickly morphed to look like any Markovian. Spitfire and Two Gun Kid claimed in English that they were circus performers.

Suddenly they heard the pandemonium from the news that a giantess, a dragon and a superhero were fighting and hurried to investigate.

The three heroes were rushing to see what was going on but Spitfire got there first. She saw that Dragon Man was battling someone who seemed to be Thor while a giantess who looked she belonged in a mall, tried desperately to help.

Two Gun Kid's Jet cycle was faster then the Hulkling's shape shifting wings but Matt was confronted by Captain Beyond.

"This confrontation is beyond your powers so!" With a flick of Captain Beyond's wrist, Matthew Hawk found himself in the Tombstone Texas that he remembered but was devoid of populace temporarily. All except his horse Cyclone which was stabled in his secret location and needing exercise.