Avengers, The #101

Issue Details

Synopsis

"Five Dooms to Save Tomorrow!" The Avengers are on hand to maintain security during a highly publicized match between Sporadik, a Russian chess champion, and a chess-playing computer called Nimrod. In the middle of it, Sporadik collapses from an apparent (fatal) heart attack. While all eyes are on the chess champ, Thor sneaks away and transforms into his alter ego, Dr. Donald Blake, in order to attend to him. He discovers that Sporadik was poisoned. The Avengers deduce that his chess pieces were coated with a poison that could be absorbed through the skin. Later that night, Leonard Tippit (the man responsible for the poisoning) attempts to sneak out of the building. He spent the day hiding inside the Nimrod computer in order to avoid being connected to the murder. His plan is foiled by the Vision, who stayed behind to investigate. The seemingly mild-mannered Tippit exhibits superhuman powers and easily defeats the Vision. But Captain America arrives on the scene as well and knocks him out. Tippit's powers allow his unconscious form to escape, however. A short while after the encounter, the assembled Avengers are jolted by a strange energy and made aware of the origin of Tippit's super-powers: two nights prior, Tippit was visited by Uatu the Watcher who informed him of an impending nuclear holocaust that would destroy the entire human race. Giving Tippit vast cosmic power, the Watcher told him of five individuals in the present who would one-day birth children, all of whom would play a crucial role in causing the prophesied nuclear holocaust to occur. Uatu tells Tippit that the only way to stop this impending doom is to kill all the parents of these future children. With his new godlike power, Tippit knows every thought of the five individuals he must kill and knows that they are good people. But ultimately, Tippit resigns himself to his fate of killing these people so that he can save countless millions of lives in the future. With the trip into Tippit's past over, the Avengers decide that killing innocent people is still morally wrong no matter the circumstances and determine the best course of action is to try and stop Tippit from achieving his goal. The Avengers break up into teams and travel to the locations of each of the remaining four victims. Each time, however, they either arrive too late or are overpowered by Tippit and unable to stop him from killing his targets. During all of this, Iron Man is devising a control helmet to immobilize Tippit. With the last victim killed, the Scarlet Witch stuns Tippit with a hex bolt long enough for Iron Man to put the control helmet on Tippit. The Watcher then arrives and informs them all that this was all a plot to stop Tippit who was the real menace all along. The Watcher convinced him to go on his killing spree in order to alert the attention of the Avengers whom the Watcher hoped would find a way to subdue him. The ensuing battle weakened Tippit enough for the Watcher to capture him and take him away. Tippit laments that his actions were all in vain. Not wanting to be as unimportant a person in death as he was in life, he tells the Avengers that he wished he had one moment to be an important person. Taking pity on him, the Avengers promises to let him be known as the man who saved the world before he is whisked away by the Watcher. The Avengers to left to ponder the strange events of the past day.