In case you're joining us late: The alien insectoids known as the Mig-Na'cha, returned to Earth to finish what they started and began mutating LA citizens into drones of the Mig-Na'cha collective. For some reason, Marlo was only half-mutated. Captain Marvel and Moondragon enlisted the aid of the Thunderbolts, with Cable later joining the fight under his own free will. The Avengers were called to protect Washington, but were rendered unconscious by the Mig-Na'cha's advanced technology. Also, Rick escaped the Microverse and ended up on the Kree Homeworld. The Supreme Intelligence granted Jones passage to Earth. Cable found out that Rick holds the key to changing the mutated humans back to normal. Now, with Drax the Destroyer seemingly slain by the Mig-Na'cha Queen, most of Earth's heroes inert, and most of North America fully mutated into drones, Genis has his work cut out for him to prove himself worthy to carry the name Captain Marvel!

Rick has been on the expressway for twenty minutes now, speeding towards downtown Los Angeles from Bel-Air on a stolen motorcycle. Rick didn't have time to look for a helmet, since it was the law to wear one in California. He figured the cops were the least of his worries.

Rick looks at the rubble in the streets and is reminded of the terrible earthquake a few months ago, as well as the first invasion of the Mig-Na'cha soon after. *

(* The earthquake happened in Cable #16 and the invasion was in Captain Marvel #1-2 -- Brad)

The tires squeal to a halt as Rick stops to look at the busted down door of Golden Orange Comics, Marlo's comic book shop. Rick hops off the bike and rushes into the store, stepping on chunks of debris and broken glass.

"MARLO!" he shouts. He hasn't seen his wife for months. He wasn't even sure if she was here. From what the Supreme Intelligence said, Los Angeles was ground zero for some freaky Mig-Na'cha makeovers. Supremor also said Rick would put a stop to it all...only Rick has no idea what that means.

"...Rick?" an echoey voice asks from the shadows.

"Marl'?" Rick calls. "That you, babe?"

Marlo emerges from the shadows and reveals her mutated left side of her body. Her left eye has become huge, green, and bug-like. Her arm is a hairy, bony appendage with a claw for a hand. Her left leg looks the same. She takes a swipe at Rick with her venomous claw. Rick, however, is able to dodge it.

"Rick...get out of here...I can't control these primal feelings anymore," Marlo says.

"No, I'm not going to leave you!" Rick shouts.

"You have to!!" Marlo shouts with tears streaming down her face. She lunges for Rick, knocking him to the ground, drooling a sticky substance all over his face.

"This is...kinky," Rick observes. Suddenly, Marlo is flung back by a blast of photonic energy.

Rick twirls his head around and observes Captain Marvel hovering outside the store. Genis holds out his hand, "Come on, buffy."

Rick takes Genis' hand, "You mean 'buddy'?"

"Whatever," Cap says as he takes flight with Rick in his grasp, leaving behind a sparkling trail of light.

"Well, how's things?" Rick asks with a sigh.

Genis simply smiles, "Pretty crappy, actually. It's been different without your constant complaining and banter...but...it's good to see you again, Rick."

"Likewise," Rick replies. His eyes shift, "Is Marlo okay?"

"Um...about Marlo," Genis begins.

"What? She isn't dying, is she?" Rick asks.

"I saw a vision of her...screaming," Genis explains. "I don't know how to interpret it now that my cosmic awareness is in control."

"Hey," Rick says while pointing at Genis' face, "your stars are moving--wait! Marlo screaming?"

Marv shakes his head, "It's not what you think, it's probably her screaming from the child labor. She's pregnant, Rick."

"You son of a--!" Rick shouts, punching Genis in the jaw.

"Ow! It's not what you thin--OW! Quit hitting me!"

"She's my wife, you sick sunuva!!"

"Quit it! It's your child, Rick. Remember, before you left for the Microverse?" *

(* In the "now-classic" Captain Marvel #3 -- Brad)

"How'd you know that Marlo and I rocked the cazbah?" Rick shouts. "Perv! That's what I'm going to call ya instead of Marv! Perv!"

"Shut up! I'm molecularly bonded to you, remember? I saw the whole damn thing!" Captain Marvel shouts.

Silence.

"So...you saw that, huh?" Rick asks.

"YES! It was better than Titanian porn, all right?!" Marv shouts. "And where the hell are your nega-bands?"

"It doesn't matter," Rick says. "Where are we going?"

"The Avengers mansion..." Genis replies.

"Why's that?"

"Because pretty much all of North America has been transformed into Mig-Na'cha drones, except for all the mutants and superhumans - who have now all been rendered inert, and you are the key to transforming everyone back to normal because of the antibodies in your system from the virus the Mig-Na'cha infected you with! That's WHY!"

"Jesus, you don't have to shout, Marv. It's just you and me, with ten-thousand feet of air beneath us!"

"Sorry, it's just stressful, is all," Genis calms down.

Rick sighs, "So you're the only hero left?"

"Well, the Thunderbolts and Cable...as well as the other heroes, the Fantastic Four, Defenders, the X-Men, SHIELD, were only hypno-shocked a few hours ago...but, yeah, it's just me. Well, Moondragon is on the Mothership, trying to avenge Drax. So, anything exciting happen in Padcros?"

"I had some intercourse. That was good."

"I see."

Rick grins from ear to ear.

"What?" Genis asks.

"I'm gonna be a dad when this is all over, it just hit me..." Rick says.

"You're awfully optimistic," Genis observes.

"How can I not be?"

"Well, you realize I'm going to have to figure out just how to transform the humans back to normal...as in, by myself?" Marv explains. "Pym and the rest of the Avengers were hypno-shocked in Washington." *

(* Two issues ago, in Captain Marvel #10 -- Brad)

Genis clears his throat, "Oh and, uh...the Mig-Na'cha poisoned me. My nega-bands are keeping me from dying."

Rick's eyes widen, "Almost like--"

"--my father, I know," Marv says. "It's not like the cancer which killed my father, but..."

"Crap," Rick mutters.

"What?" Genis asks.

"I'll bet there's no antidote for this venom?"

"Probably not."

Rick sighs, "I guess I'll have to merge with YOU to save YOUR life now!"

Marv smiles, "I guess so. Why else would the future version of you and I be molecularly bonded? * But, don't worry, not until we save the world."

(* As we learned in Avengers Forever -- Brad)

"Yay," Rick retorts.

The Mothership

Moondragon has been on the Mig-Na'cha Queen's personal cruiser, which is about one-fourth the size of Earth's Moon and houses millions of pureblooded Mig-Na'cha drones. She has been in the Queen's quarters for hours, staring vengefully at the corpse of Drax the Destroyer. The body has already begun to change back into dust and soil, as Mentor and Chronos originally created. Perhaps Arthur Douglas' soul could find peace at last.

But the time for waiting has ended. In those hours of seclusion, Moondragon has been probing the mind of the Queen, learning her weaknesses, learning the schematics of the ship's security systems, and learning a new side to her own darkness.

The Queen is all alone. Three-hundred mega-drones - picture normal armored drones beefed up - are guarding the "throne room" of the ship. Moondragon has telekinetically disrupted the security systems. It was just her and the Queen.

"Excuse me, but I think we better settle this girl to girl!" Moondragon yells, descending from the rafters from above the throne room. The Queen is startled and reels back in a bloodcurdling screech, her stingers poised to strike.

"You! How did you get past my *tkt* security?!" the Queen growls. She looked like a insectoid drone, Heather thought, only instead of the brownish green exoskeleton with green eyes, the Queen was much larger than the man-sized drones. Her exoskeleton was ivory white and the six eyes were blood red. From head to the tip of her stinger, she was at least twenty meters long and ten tall.

"You are the pinnacle of your species, I am the pinnacle of mine," Moondragon explains. "Let's engage in combat to see who really deserves that planet down there!"

The Queen appears to smile, "Cute, Titanian. Very *tkt* cute."

"Don't let my clothing deceive you, your highness. I am indeed human, native to Earth," Heather says, her brow lowering. Her signature psi-signature, in the form of a dragon, appears over her forehead. "That withering body you slew with your claw, his name was Arthur Douglas...my father."

"He was not human...in no way," the Queen argues.

"You're wrong. His body was inhuman, but his soul was human. With his dying thoughts, he informed me of your plans," Heather explains.

"It doesn't matter, whelp. Soon, we will transform the rest of your pathetic race. We have your mutants suspended mentally by our hypnotic ray. Your planet is defenseless," the Queen laughs.

"Wrong, the Universal Protector is doing his job as we speak," Moondragon smirks.

"Mar-Vell perished years ago!" the Queen yells. "Surely you don't refer to the current brash fool who bares the name Captain Marvel?"

"He bares the nega-bands, has both Eternal and Kree DNA, is cosmically aware, and has the best confidant...although, loudmouthed at times...a superhero could offer!" Moondragon yells. "And Earth is his adopted homeworld...not only that, but it is still his native star system! * You have crossed the line, majesty...and you will lose."

(* Genis was "born" on Titan, one of Saturn's moons -- Astronomer Brad)

Without warning, the Queen's stinger tail whips Moondragon in the ribs, knocking her into the slimy, yet hard, wall. She wipes blood from her lip.

"ENOUGH of this!" the Queen spits, secreting acid from her mouth. "It ends now, human!"

Avengers Mansion

"Okay," Marvel says as he analyzes the information being fed into the computer. Rick is in the examination room with various wires hooked up to his vitals. "Seems that Professor Bloph totally cured you of that virus."

"I coulda told you that, Marv," Rick says. "Um, can I get off of this thing? I'm having creepy flashbacks."

"Yeah, sure," Genis says.

Rick tares the wires off of his chest and stomach and puts his shirt back on. He jumps off the table and walks up behind Genis as he types away on the console. "So, can you figure out how to cure everyone?"

"Well, we need the antibodies, which you have...then we have to somehow get them airborne so we can cure those who are infected," Marvel explains.

Rick grips his chin in deep thought, "What about Reed Richards?"

"He's immobilized...along with the rest of New York's superhumans," Marvel says.

"I know, but I imagine his mind is still going a million times a minute," Rick says.

"By Pama...Rick, you're a genius!" Genis exclaims.

"What...?"

"The brain has electronic impulses!"

"Um...yeah?" Rick says, fearing for Genis' sanity.

"Those electronic impulses give off a very weak form of electromagnetic energy...energy that's abundant in the cosmos. If I can tune into Reed's neural frequency using my newfound control of my cosmic awareness...I may just be able to..."

"Do it!" Rick says without waiting. He was proud of Genis. He was finally coming into his own as a hero. Mar-Vell's shadow has become a little smaller.

Genis suddenly grips his chest and his face returns to its normal color. His hair also returns to blonde. "Ugh...grozit...the poison..." Blue veins begin to appear on Genis' face.

Rick sighs, "All right." He grabs a needle and plunges it into a vein in his left forearm, taking a sample of his blood. He places the needle through the cork of a vile, squeezing the blood into it. "There's gotta be enough antibodies in there."

"It's not gonna...work as an anti-venom...," Genis mutters.

"No, you're going to use it to save the human race," Rick says.

"But, the poison...?"

"I'm going to merge with you, jackass!" Rick yells. "So I can save your life!"

"It doesn't work that way...I have to merge with you..." Genis says as his nega-bands begin to glow with a golden light. His entire body takes on a similar aura, creating a spatial aperture around his form, "Come into my body..."

"What did you say? Aw, man...no way...don't ever say that to another guy, Genis. Here on Earth, there's too many connotations with 'come into my body'." Rick walks over and steps into Genis' corporal form and the two become one once more.

Elsewhere, Rick discovers nega-bands have appeared around his wrists and a null field has formed around his body. He's in outer space...or so it seems. But Rick knows where he is. The vertigo feeling of weightlessness as his form is shrunken to fit inside a universe no bigger than an atom. It was the Microverse.

Rick crash-lands on a beach of some sort, under an atmosphere much like Earth's.

"Ugh, I hate the Microverse! I'm back where I--" Rick grunts.

Dozens of green-skinned alien babes dressed in bikinis begin to reveal themselves from behind the tropical-looking foliage on the white sand beach.

"--started? I LOVE the Microverse!!"

But the real matter at hand is not Rick Jones' horniness. Captain Marvel's face returns to it's natural complexion as the Mig-Na'cha venom is broken down. He smiles as he activates his cosmic awareness, turning his face dark blue. Star fields appear in his face as he begins to read the electronic impulses of Reed Richards' brain, even though he is nowhere near the Avengers Mansion.

Sweat appears on Marvel's brow as he mutters to himself as he searches through the impulses of Reed's scientific memory, "Anti-bodies...ray....reverse effects....ray....space....satellite.....energy...reverse....anti-bodies...."

Marvel's eyes pop open as he figures it out. He zips into Pym's lab and grabs the essential equipment, moving at superhuman speeds. After five minutes, Genis assembles the device which will reverse the effects of the Mig-Na'cha virus.

"What are you gonna do with that?" Rick asks.

"I have to put it into Earth's orbit and direct the solar wind to form a nanometer diameter beam into it and wait for the reversal effect," Marvel explains.

"Wow. That was dorky."

"Shut up!" Genis yells as he pushes a button which opens a skylight, allowing him to fly out of the mansion and reach the necessary 17,000 miles per hour to escape Earth's gravity.

"Something just occured to me...what's going to uh, de-immobilize the superhumans?"Rick asks.

"Hopefully, it's being taken care of," Genis responds as he reaches the right height above Earth. He releases the device from his grasp and allows it to free-fall until it is snatched by Earth's magnetic field. Genis looks back at the moon at the Mothership. Greymalkin is still mounting her attack.

He feels the slight stinging sensation on his body of the millions of charged particles being discharged by the Sun. He uses the nega-bands to gather the energy and direct it through the device. "Come on, solar wind, work your magic," Genis says with a smile.

"Had enough...*tkt* human?" the Queen asks as she holds the bloodied Moondragon upside-down by her left ankle. Blood drips onto the throne room floor. The floor, being organic in nature, seems to "swallow" the drops of blood as they hit.

Moondragon kicks her free leg into the temple of the Queen, causing her to drop Heather on the floor. The Queen roars as she skewers through Heather's shoulder, pinning her to the floor.

Moondragon is in immense pain, but she has been raised on Titan, taught to access her latent psionic potential, taught to control her emotions. But fear has just entered Heather Douglas' mind. This Queen killed Drax the Destroyer with little effort.

The Queen lifts her claw, lifting Heather along with it. As gravity causes Moondragon's body to slide out of the skewer wound, the Queen whips her stinger tail, slicing Heather's right arm off as she falls!

Heather screams in agony, but not because of her physical pain. She is overexerting her psionic powers to shut down the mind of the Mig-Na'cha Queen and every drone on the Mothership.

The Queen grips her head as her glowing red eyes fade to gray, and then black. The Queen's body slumps violently on the throne room floor as the lights in the room begin to flicker. Somehow, the ship drew its energy from the Queen herself. There is an explosion in the heart of the ship.

Greymalkin must have finally gotten through the shields. Before Heather knows it, her lost appendage and her body is bodyslided aboard the futuristic ship.

{{Hello, I am Prosh. I will have a medical team reattach your severed limb. I--}}

But Heather isn't listening. She rushes to the viewing window and observes the massive Mothership explode, sending debris over the surface of the Moon.

One week later...

Clean up around the city of Los Angeles has almost wrapped up. Washington is a little on edge, deploying government agents around the clock to get everything up to speed during the mishap. The President is in good health and gave a rather heartwarming thank you speech to Captain Marvel.

The Avengers, Thunderbolts, and the other superhumans are fine. After the Mothership exploded, the effects of the hypno-ray ceased. Genis was in high-regard for his deeds by the heroes of the world. That Cable dude just kind of nodded and teleported to his secret base or whatever.

Poor Moondragon is on Titan right now, still recovering from her injuries. She took on the Mig-Na'cha Queen and won...but she still lost Drax. I think she still has a thing for Genis.

Now I'm bonded with Genis again and it's business as usual. He's always chatting to me through our unique molecular bond. He's enjoying his vacation on the babe-planet in the Microverse. I couldn't blame him. But right now, Marlo is the only babe I'm worried about, and with good reason.

She's carrying our child. Yep, we went to a doctor yesterday and got about a thousand pictures taken of the little thing...it's about the size of a grape now...but it's still something I created, y'know?

Marlo smiles at me as we walk down the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It's funny, months ago, when I had this virus, I wasn't sure if I'd make it to get my own star someday or watch Marlo get hers. *

(* Back in issue #3 -- Brad)

Suddenly, the grip of Marlo's in mine gets a little tighter. She stops walking and gasps. Tears well in her eyes.

"AHHHHHHHRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!" she screams.

"Marlo? What is it?!" I ask.

But she doesn't have to answer. There's blood stained in the crotch of her khakis pants. She slumps to the ground and grabs her stomach, vomiting.

My child!!! No!

Elsewhere, a stone figure stands motionless. This being once destroyed half of the universe to impress the entity known as Death, harnessing the Infinity Gauntlet. He has tussled with Drax and Mar-Vell, among others. He could escape death because of his Eternal lineage, so he was placed in this form for his despicable crimes. Something is strange, however.

The stone form cracks a smile as the rock blows off of his purple-skinned and wrinkled chin like sand particles. The rock around his eyes crumbles and his red eyes shine once more.

NEXT: A time for healing as a major threat to the cosmos returns!