The New Initiative
There was an idea. To bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more. So that when we needed them, they would fight the battles that we never could. It was called the Avengers Initiative. And it was never meant to last forever.
Those were Nick Fury’s sentiments, proven true in the end of the Infinity War, when Thanos snapped his fingers, and half of the world vanished. Thor undid the snap within minutes, but that didn’t change the facts: The Avengers failed.
To ensure this never happened again, Nick Fury drafted a plan to keep the Infinity Gauntlet out of the hands of anyone foolish enough to attempt to use it again. For temporary safe keeping, he’d had Maria Hill store it in a secure S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. He gave specific instructions for the only two people he trusted to have access to the Gauntlet: Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff. But Steve insisted one other person be granted access: Sam Wilson. Despite Hills reservations, Sam was granted access, and Gauntlet was locked away.
Four months later, Fury was ready to put his plan into action. Captain Marvel had been summoned when Fury was turned to dust, and had spent her past few months helping the Avengers clean up the mess left by Thanos, along with other tasks such as fighting Fin Fang Foom. Fury now instructed Carol to take to the stars and find someone even stronger than her to permanently keep guard over the Infinity Gauntlet. Danvers took her task in stride, and set off.
Agent Coulson then approached Fury with some troubling data. In Stuttgart, Germany, S.H.I.E.L.D. sensors picked up a cosmic energy reading from a decommissioned WWII HYDRA base, that had been converted to a Project Pegasus research facility after the war. The location had pinged twice, both when Thanos and Thor had used the power of the Gauntlet, and Agent Melinda May’s reconnaissance reported A.I.M. had taken over and were making something called the Cosmic Cube, aka the Tesseract. Warranting enough concern from Fury, he ordered a strike team to the location, and decided to attend personally.
At the facility, in the meantime, HYDRA had taken over after A.I.M. had been run off by the Cube’s power. Arnim Zola used the Cosmic Cube to bring back HYDRA’s once and long lost leader: The Red Skull. Skull, disoriented, thanked Zola for his loyalty, and revealed he had been stranded on a desolate void in space known as Vormir. But having returned, he wasted no time regaining control of HYDRA, and intended on commandeering the Cosmic Cube to continue the work he’d began so long ago.
S.H.I.E.L.D. then charged in, Nick Fury and Red Skull officially meeting for the first time. And shortly, a battle for the Cosmic Cube between S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA began. During the fight, the Cube began to radiate with energy. Fury and Skull both rushed for it, and ended up touching it at the same time. The Cosmic Cube zapped them both to a dark future, where Red Skull ruled, wielding Iron Man’s armor, Thor’s hammer, and Captain America’s shield. Fury was zapped back to S.H.I.E.L.D., mortified by what he had seen. Skull, however, was more emboldened than ever to bring that future about.
In an effort to avoid another Infinity War, Fury opted instead to begin a Secret War against HYDRA. But to do this, he’d have to recruit heroes, what he does best. So he put the Skrull Commander Talos in charge of S.H.E.I.L.D., impersonating Fury as he went off to fight in the Secret Wars.
The battles raged, S.H.I.E.L.D. emerging victorious as Agent Coulson put a halt to the Grim Reaper, Commander Hill saved the Helicarrier from Crossbones, and Black Widow ran off a newly activated Taskmaster. Red Skull then realized that mere HYDRA operatives would not be able to cut it in this new age of miracles, and would thus begin recruiting some enhanced beings of his own.
Meanwhile in space, Captain Marvel informed Fury she’d been unsuccessful attempting to find a guardian for the Infinity Gauntlet, having tried options such as the Guardians of the Galaxy and a young Nova. She mentioned she had one last place to try, but dreaded going there: Hala, the Kree Homeworld.
Upon her arrival, Yon-Rogg boasted she was right to return to the Kree, while Minerva confronted Carol about destroying the Supreme Intelligence, starting a Kree civil war and earning her the infamous title of The Annihilator. It was then Ronan the Accuser emerged, revealing that Thor’s wish had inadvertently brought him back to life, and he ended the war, restoring order to Hala while other such as self-proclaimed Supremor Dar-Benn spoke of myths like the Quantum Bands.
Carol vowed to hand over the Gauntelt to the Kree if she could be bested by one of the Kree Sentries. She was introduced to the son of Mar-Vell, Genis-Vell, who was actually a fan of hers, and in charge of programming the Sentries. Captain Marvel fought, and in the end prevailed against Kree Sentry 459, declaring she’d take her search elsewhere.
Unsatisfied with this result, Yon-Rogg and Ronan attacked her, but were easily fended off. Accused by Rogg of being the Annihilator, Carol left at the coaxing of Genis, but didn’t make it far before she was beamed up to a Ravager ship, where Yondu, tipped off by Minerva, was waiting to collect the Infinity Gauntlet. Carol agreed to get it for him if he vowed to protect it, and was released to retrieve the Ravagers’ prize. But upon realizing he’d been duped, Yondu sent his secret weapon after Captain Marvel: The Golden God of the Sovereign, Adam Warlock.
Adam ambushed Captain Marvel on a nearby moon, demanding she give Yondu the Gauntlet. The two broke into a titanic battle, and for the first time, Captain Marvel was outmatched! Adam beat her, and demanded the Gauntlet once more. Realizing he was just who she was looking for, Carol convinced Adam to leave the Ravagers, and take the responsibility of protecting the Gauntlet himself. Adam agreed, stating he had a connection to the Gauntlet, as the gem in his head gave him insight into Soulworld, where he had previously seen Thanos and Thor after they’d used it. He then revealed he could sense when someone was intending to use the Infinity Gauntlet, and told Carol he was getting that feeling as they spoke.
Carol demanded Fury to check on the Gauntlet, who then directed Talos to do so. Using his shapeshifting powers to turn into Captain America, Talos entered the vault to find that the Infinity Gauntlet had indeed gone missing. He immediately put the call out to Agent Coulson to locate it, who stated Loki had appeared on Earth and he’d assemble the Avengers to bring him in.
Nick Fury, meanwhile, had begun putting into action his New Initiative: The Secret Avengers. Ant-Man was in the midst of a heist, stealing back the Pym Particles that had been absconded by former S.H.I.E.L.D. Head of Defense Mitchell Carson, when he was surprised by Agent Jimmy Woo, who handed him over to Fury. Fury explained to Ant-Man he needed someone under the radar, after noting his stint with Avengers was minor at best. This was the first member of his new team. He went on to recruit Agent Daisy Johnson (Quake, having returned from space to fight the Secret War), Monica Rambeau (Director of S.W.O.R.D.), Pietro Maximox (Quicksilver, revived by Thor’s wish and protecting his old home, now Latveria, from Doom), the White Vision (still mid-repair in Avenger Tower), and a mysterious new super: Namor.
Having assembled his Secret Avengers, Fury stated his New Initiative. Same as the old one, assemble a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more. The only difference, they would fight the battle that only they could.
