WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Heroes Return #1 by Jason Aaron, Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales, Matthew Wilson and VC’s Cory Petit, on sale now.
The final fight for the fate of reality has arrived in Wakanda, where the Avengers and Squadron Supreme are set to face off to see who truly deserves the title of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. For all of the homefield advantages that the Squadron Supreme might have in their world, they still have no clue whatsoever what their new foes are truly capable of. Even if they aren’t all burning with the might of a cosmic entity, all of the Avengers are a serious threat. In fact, Captain America and Black Panther have just given the Squadron Supreme a painful lesson in not underestimating anyone in a fight.
The battle begins almost as soon as the two sides have locked eyes. The heroes are quick to pair off, with Hyperion launching an assault on Thor while Power Princess hones in on yet another Phoenix to slay. Zarda falls to the combined might of the Phoenix and Starbrand soon after the latter hero joins in that particular fight, but even the Mighty Thor is not able to keep up with the Super-Sentinel of Liberty, especially not when Hyperion punches Mjolnir right out of his hand. All Captain America can do is try to separate Coulson from the Pandemonium Cube that has created this reality while his teammates battle below him, unable to join their fight until the flying car he and Coulson are on has begun its crash course with the ground. Thankfully the other Avengers have kept up with their opponents while he has been busy, something that T’Challa is especially adept at.
While Hyperion and Nighthawk are able to take Thor and Blade out of the fight, neither of them is prepared for a brutal strike by the Black Panther, who comes down on both of them claw first. Even the mighty Hyperion can’t land a hit on the Black Panther, growing more and more enraged with every missed shot. For all of his godlike powers, Hyperion’s limits have seemingly been reached, and all it takes now is a brutal haymaker uppercut delivered via Captain America’s shield to lay the Squadron Supreme’s very own Superman out cold. With the cosmic powers of the Phoenix and Starbrand both focused on dealing with the Pandemonium Cube, and Thor and Blade both out of the fight for the moment, it is Cap and T’Challa who stand firm before Nighthawk as he demands they recognize what his team achieved in the Avengers’ absence.
His teammate crumpled in a heap at his feet, Nighthawk’s seething hatred is palpable as he decries the Avengers and all of their shortcomings. None of that matters much to Cap or Black Panther, both of whom seem completely unphased by the false hero’s words. If nothing else, they’ve just shown Nighthawk how much greater the Avengers are than this world’s champions, and they didn’t need the might of Hell on their side to do it.
On the surface, it is genuinely shocking that T’Challa and Captain America, two heroes who are objectively less powerful than most of their fellow Avengers, were the ones to finish the fight against the Squadron Supreme. They may not be the ones who undid the Pandemonium Cube’s alterations to the timeline, but they were the ones who ultimately held the line as the Marvel Universe was returned to its proper form. If nothing else, this serves as a stark reminder of just how capable these two heroes are even without being able to call down thunder or cosmic flames on their enemies and cements their place as Marvel’s most dynamic duo.
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