Description

“Pediments of Clay” — The three-way collision that has been building for several issues finally detonates in a Brooklyn neighbourhood, with Rage’s grandmother’s house as ground zero. Ngh the Unspeakable has been holed up there since last issue, holding Granny Staples hostage to force Rage into becoming his inside man within the Avengers. His gang — street criminals transformed into demonic servants, including a monstrous L.D. 50 — packs the building. The plan unravels the moment Rage arrives with Black Widow, Vision, She-Hulk, and Quasar at his back, making clear he was never going to play along. Ngh, fed on the ambient evil radiating off New York City and growing stronger by the minute, is unconcerned. He boasts that no army could return him to exile — and then the Tetrarchs of Entropy materialise in the street outside to take him up on that.
What follows is a three-way brawl with civilians caught in the middle. Ngh’s creatures swarm both the Avengers and the cosmic entities. The Tetrarchs, Hafga, Vug, Yod, and Heml — vast, ancient, and contemptuous of everything around them — prove nearly as difficult as Ngh himself. When Rage and Quasar openly question why these supposedly all-powerful beings don’t simply erase the problem, the Tetrarchs turn on the Avengers too. The battle stalls.
The resolution comes from the Dimension of Exile. Thor and Sersi, sent there by Captain America to search for leverage, locate Ahh — the imprisoned good half of the same cosmic entity that fractured ten thousand years ago into Ngh and his opposite. The Tetrarchs had kept her locked inside a mountain while allowing Ngh to run loose, deliberately maintaining the imbalance. Thor and Sersi bring Ahh back to Brooklyn, and when she and Ngh face each other, something ancient and irresistible takes over. He remembers what he was. The two halves merge back into the original composite being — powerful enough to turn on the Tetrarchs directly, stripping them of their ability to traverse dimensions and banish others, ending their reign over the Dimension of Exile permanently, then departing the planet entirely.
In the aftermath, Ngh’s demon-corrupted followers revert to their original forms — a ragged collection of interdimensional criminals including Kree, Skrulls, and a lone Atlantean, all stranded and powerless. L.D. 50, back in human form, immediately sizes up the situation and offers them a place in his organization. Meanwhile, Granny Staples surveys the wreckage of her home and makes clear to her grandson that she has opinions about both the damage and the mask.

Writer: Larry Hama
Penciler: Paul Ryan
Inker: Tom Palmer
Colorist: Christie Scheele
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Editor: Howard Mackie
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco