WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for The Avengers #674 by Mark Waid, Jesus Saiz and Cory Petit, on sale now.
The Avengers and The Champions have been at odds since the latter group split from the former. However, their worlds literally collided in the Marvel Legacy crossover aptly titled “World’s Collide,” which sees Earth threatened by the imminent impact of the High Evolutionary’s Counter-Earth.
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In the finale to “World’s Collide,” the teams are racing to save both worlds, but it’s the heroic sacrifice of one Champion making all the difference. It also sets up a major mystery heading into the new weekly Avengers event, “No Surrender.”
A Vision Of Death
The crux of The Avengers #674 is the combined Avengers and Champions working their way to the core of Counter-Earth to find the machine which is forcing the merger of the two worlds, in order to destroy it and save both planets. With one hour to go, there’s a long way to travel and the overwhelming concern that Viv Vision is now human — a result of the High Evolutionary’s experiments. However, as the two teams clash with the Ani-Men, Viv sneaks off and finds the machine they need to destroy. She also finds the mysterious being powering it: the High Evolutionary’s son!
The imaginatively named Higher Evolutionary was an attempt by Herbert Wyndham to create a masterpiece of genetic design, born of his own genetic code. However, in constructing his new son he forgot to remove the ability to feel compassion and empathy, something the father had long since abandoned. The Higher Evolutionary argued that the Ani-Men of Counter-Earth deserved lives — that they were living beings and not just experiments. for that, his father cast him into the pits of the world to be its power source.
Viv Vision can somewhat relate to being constructed by a father you don’t always see eye to eye with. But unlike The High Evolutinary, The Vision cares for his daughter deeply and taught her how to be a hero. After convincing The Higher Evolutionary to remove himself from the machine, a mix-up causes the Avengers and Champions to believe he is their enemy. With little time before both worlds crash together, Viv Vision (in her new mortal form) triggers the sequence to deactivate the gravitational pull. As her father reaches out to save her, she fades away into nothingness.
No Surrender
A funeral is held for Viv, but it’s not the last we see of her. In a comics equivalent of a post-credits sting, we see Viv waking up in an all-white space, unsure of where she is and how she got there. There’s still one chapter of "World’s Collide" to go, so it’s possible Viv makes it back by the end of the crossover. But that would take away some of the punch of her heroic sacrifice. It’s more likely that Viv’s disappearance is tied to the mystery behind Avengers: No Surrender, the sixteen-part weekly crossover which kicks off next year and brings together members of The Avengers, Champions, USAvengers, Avengers Unity Squad and even Occupy Avengers for what’s billed as the biggest Avengers story ever.
Marvel recently released an extended preview for the first instalment of “No Surrender” which featured the Earth being stolen from its orbit. For those keeping score, this makes it two stories in a row where the Earth isn’t where it’s supposed to be. It’s unlikely that’s a coincidence, and the finale of “World’s Collide” may just offer some hints at the larger threat the Avengers are going to face in the coming months as Viv learns more about herself and the mysterious void she finds herself in. She may be mortal, but it seems like her story is far from over. Viv's proven herself to be a hero with or without powers, so expect her to be a big player going forward into 2018.