This is a story you have to be patient with, because it starts out with the return of Scarlet Witch and makes no sense. But then other strange threats arise, and it’s clear that what’s happening is magic. Young Avengers turn into stone statues. There’s a blizzard in Arizona. Oklahoma (and Asgard, which is located there now), disappears. Stuff like that.
As the threat evolves, a new Mighty Avengers team arises in this “Dark Reign” universe. Hank Pym leads the group. Stature, Vision, Hulk, and U.S. Agent are on the team–along with Scarlet Witch, who brings them all together.
Spoiler alert for a 20+ year old story: It’s not really Wanda.
The origin of the threat is at the foot of Mount Wundagore, where Bova is held prisoner by Modred, who is grafting pages from the Book of Darkhold into his body.
Through flashbacks, we see that Quicksilver is also captured by the wizard–as a vessel for the demon Chthon.
In the present, he uses his super-speed to create all kinds of chaos.
Lots of heroes in this story–it’s fast-paced, with tons of action set pieces. Yet the story itself is fairly simple.
In the end, Modred is foiled, Quicksilver is freed and we see that the person responsible for bringing this new team together is the same one who brought the original Avengers together: Loki, masquerading as Scarlet Witch.
Overall, this is basically just a line-up change story. It’s fine, but hard to reconcile these heroes forming a team in such a traditional way when Norman Osborn is ruling the world and being a freelance superhero is illegal.
The full team makeup is also never really clear–this story actually needed a final “we are assembled!” shot to let us know who is actually on the team.
But at least the covers tie together to show the new team (as well as some heroes who don’t actually stay past this arc).