As revealed in Captain Marvel, something even worse than King in Black could be heading towards the Marvel Universe very soon.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Captain Marvel #24 by Kelly Thompson, Lee Garbett, Belen Ortega, Antonio Fabela, and VC’s Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
Carol Danvers has been unceremoniously thrust over three decades forward in time, and she has no idea what happened in between her present and the future she now faces. The world is desolate and frozen, with constant threats hiding behind every corner. Luckily, she has found a few old and new friends who have survived this wasteland, and her newest adversary is kind enough to shed light on what has happened in this new reality.
Carol has been invited to visit the enigmatic Ove in his personal sanctuary built in the midst of the ruins of New York City. Along with several of her allies, Captain Marvel is given a tour of the gilded oasis that their previously unseen tormenter has built. All of the group’s questions and concerns are answered with a confident vagueness that befits a noble tyrant keeping up appearances, and Ove doesn’t offer many details to anyone until he meets with Carol in private later that evening for dinner. Once the two have sat down one on one, though, he informs her of how this world came to be, and foreshadows a truly horrific future for the heroes of the Marvel universe.
Ove, the son of Namor and the Asgardian Enchantress, tells Carol about his time as a child, watching his father rule over Atlantis and fight alongside heroes such as the Avengers, struggling to save a world already dying at the hands of its most dominant species. Eventually, Namor would give up on helping in the crusade against evil, instead opting to turn his full attention to ensure that no matter what happened on the surface, Atlantis would be safe. Namor’s plan worked, and Atlantis did survive even thought the majority of humanity did not.