The truth is, in the early hours of the infection, it could have been contained. While the former heroes, now-turned zombies, continue their massacre upon humanity, aboard the SHIELD’s command Helicarrier, plans were made to do the exact thing. Miles above the carnage on the ground, Nick Fury was conferring with the nation’s top military strategists, determining on maps exactly what losses were acceptable. As it was in a universe similar to this, a dire situation was turned into a world-threatening calamity, and it all could be traced back to one person. A young woman by the name of Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch. In this parallel world, just as in that different, Maximoff’s defense was the same.
An uninfected Wanda is threatened by her infected former friends, Black Cat and Starfox. Luckily, she is rescued by her brother, Quicksilver, who picks her up and runs them both to a safe location. Unfortunately, Wanda wasn’t herself. “Wanda” turned into her true form… that of an uninfected Mystique! And right after that, Mystique bit Pietro in his neck, turning him into a zombie as well.
From there, things deteriorated with astonishing speed. Before SHIELD could make a pre-emptive strike, the contagion spread. Quicksilver’s speeding powers helped with that, as he could use it to kill humans faster than anyone else, and turn other heroes faster than others too. He also spread the disease by speeding over borders, and beyond borders. In no time, the disease had reached Britain, where Captain Britain was responsible for most casualties. In Russia, the same appealed to the Red Guardian. In Japan, the combined forces of the infected Sunfire and Silver Samurai struck its citizens. And in the Savage Land, the infected Ka-Zar and Zabu used their infection to rid themselves of their long-time enemies, the Savage Land Mutates.
While in Latveria…
Dr. Doom holds Ash by his throat. He wants Wanda to remind Ash that he’s in charge of this country and that, if he mocks him again, he’ll rip his head off. He releases Ash and hopes he’ll address him more properly from now on. Ash is fine with it and says “hi to the king,” in a laughing matter. Doom thinks Ash means it and finds it acceptable, and will allow Ash to live. Alison jokingly whispers to Wanda that she already thought Ash was going to say something stupid and that they would have to fight. Wanda already feared he would say something stupider.
Doom reminds the two ladies that they are both always welcome in Latveria, under any circumstances, but that won’t mean they can drag anyone they like along. Wanda corrects Doom that Ash has a way to stop the zombie-plague. Doom thinks, in that case, they came there to beg for his assistance. Ash informs Doom they just need to check out his collection of books on the supernatural and, more specifically, the Necronomicon book. Doom thinks the book has nothing to do what is happening outside the walls of Doomstadt, and corrects that its origin is extraterrestrial and not supernatural.
He leads the trio to his lab, calling the disease a pan-dimensional virus and not a cosmic contagion. He’s confident science and not sorcery will be the key of ending this. Dazzler asks Doom to at least let them look at the book, but he thinks they’d just be wasting his time. And they’ve already wasted enough of it. Doom orders his robots to put Ash below with the others, but he refuses and fights back. Doom warns Ash to stop destroying his machines and is surprised he keeps insulting his wrath. He suggests to give them a little demonstration and asks one of the scientists what the situation outside is.
The scientist explains Goliath is smacking the palace, but that they’ve manage to hold off the other attacking forces. So far, their force field is holding up, but the giant shows no sign of wanting to stop his offensive. Doom thinks that’s good, wanting to use Goliath as the person who’ll serve as an example to those who want to enter Latveria without his welcome. The scientists fire rockets at Goliath, which strike through his chest and then explode, killing him!
Doom is pleased at the performance and now wants Ash out of his sight. The robots smack him down and drag Ash away. Wanda wants Doom to reconsider again, saying Ash is the key but he just doesn’t want to believe it. And he’ll just place Ash with the others below, like he said earlier. He’ll be put with the other uninfected survivors. When the infection first began, Doom rescued as many people as he could and placed them behind his protective walls. He finds it ironic, though, because he has long been called a “super-villain” by everyone and is now seen as perhaps the greatest hero.
Wanda looks on Doom’s monitors which shows Ash being placed with the others and she notices there are no children or elderly people there, and they all look like they have the perfect breeding age. Doom confirms, as he wants humanity survive and whom he rescued he selected carefully. “Some hero,” Dazzler mocks. Doom reminds Alison who spread the disease in the first place. He shows them on monitors that it all began with Reed Richards, the so-called “do-gooder” leader of the Fantastic Four. He infected himself on purpose and first experimented it on his other family members, before they turned him in exchange. It’s something most people don’t know. He doesn’t want to hear about “heroes,” because everything has changed now, and is confident the infected will attack soon enough. But now, he invites Dazzler and Wanda to have dinner with him and shows them a beautiful dining table with lots of food on it.
Hours later…
Ash mopes that he should have installed a lock pick in his robot arm, as that would have helped him out now. Wanda enters the cell, explaining she excused herself during the fifth dinner course with Doom. He’s telling Dazzler stories about his so-called greatness now, and she’s only still at her second course of Shiraz, so Wanda hopes Doom won’t notice how long she has been gone, as Doom isn’t a man to trifle with.
Once outside the cell, a Doom-bot attack and declares an intruder alert. The robot opens fire but Wanda easily destroys it with a single punch. Ash didn’t realize it was a robot and Wanda explains that Doom just uses those machines as his proxies. Wanda wants to go find the book now, but Ash has a better idea. He wants Wanda to go back to Doom while he’ll do something else.
Soon…
Doom passes an army of robots and enters his library, where he orders the guard to go away, because he needs to look something up at “the ol’ book barn.” He finds the Necronomicon book. A face appears on its black cover and it immediately notices something different about Doom. “Doom” takes off his mask and is revealed to be… Ash in disguise! The book recognizes Ash as the Chosen One. Ash tells the book he got his message: “the world will die, and an army of the dead will rise.” Ash wants to know how the book started all this and how to stop it.
The book reveals that within itself is a power almost unfathomable to someone like Ash, and yet he wants to hear it from him using such threats. When the book asks what will happen if it doesn’t comply, Ash takes off a glove of his Doom-suit, and replaces it with his own robotic hand, threatening the book if it doesn’t help it will get a powerful electrical shock.
Necronomicon agrees to help and corrects that it didn’t cause the zombie-plague at all, which surprises Ash. It reveals that the origin of the disease is extraterrestrial, and not supernatural. The infected may be dead but are certainly not undead. The undead is the book’s domain. It could not assist Ash, even if it wanted to. Ash doesn’t believe it and reminds the book about what it said to him. The book confirms it is so. But, he mentions, one thing does not have anything to do with the other. He’s certain this world will die, and that an army of dead will rise. Those particulars are clear, while others are obscure. In that case, Ash wants to know why the book came to him and gave him the message.
The book laughs that it only did it out of spite and because he hates him so much. And after trying to destroy Ash for so long, he finally entered a world where there is absolutely no hope. And the book wanted to make sure Ash knew it. The book tells Ash “Face it tiger, you just crapped out.” Ash is speechless. As the book laughs at him, Ash leaves the room back into the halls, thinking things over.
A voice, believing Ash is Doom, tells him time is running out for him and the rest of the world. Ash doesn’t want to hear about it when he is stunned to find a beautiful woman trapped behind bars, and asks who she is. She first wants to know why someone would want to dress like this if he isn’t really Doom. Ash gets the Caged Heat thing the woman has going on but, since he is standing free, he’ll be asking the questions, and repeats what he just asked her. The woman introduces herself as Amora, though she says most people call her the Enchantress.
Enchantress explains she comes from another world and that Doom sees her as a threat because of what she is capable of doing. Ash tells her Doom tried to do the exact same thing to him, and so Enchantress suggests they join forces.
Soon…
Ash has freed the Enchantress and wants to go back to Wanda and Alison. He thinks this castle could be a nice place for humanity to live out the rest of its days, and maybe to re-populate its ranks once they’re rid of Doom. He thinks that perhaps they should try to convince the other refugees to help out. Enchantress asks if they are uninfected, which he confirms. There are dozens of them but they’ll need firepower to defeat Doom.
When Ash wants to ask Amora what her power is, he is interrupted by Dazzler and Wanda, who are shocked to discover what Ash has done. He starts to flirt and jokes that saving pretty girls is just one of his specialities. He has always been a sucker for a pretty face.
Unfortunately, Ash doesn’t notice that behind him, the Enchantress has turned herself into her infected self and wants to attack him!
