| Synopsis | - A bizarre beam of energy is seen traveling towards the Earth from space. It targets the city of North Pole, Alaska. Landing in a post office, it explodes, killing hundreds. A glowing man is seen screaming in the wreckage.
On the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Maria Hill is talking to Tony Stark about the Avengers have gone public. Tony claims that he didn’t think she cared anyway. Hill elaborates that she does care that a large group of superhuman vigilantes have announced their intentions to police the planet.
Hill then passes on to the House of M. She asks Tony why the X-Men Blackbird and the Avengers Quinjet flew to Genosha together a week before, why all of a sudden the mutant genome disappears from over 90% of the mutant population, and why Eileen Harsaw was muttering “House of M” in her padded cell. Tony lies that the Genosha trip was for sightseeing. Hill is suspicious, as the screen shows that the S.H.I.E.L.D. emotion and lie detectors have been blocked. Hill is angry and says that she hopes Tony is not putting his arrogance in front of the safety of millions of people looking for answers about what has happened to them. Tony admits that he doesn’t like or respect Hill, and hangs up.
Furious, Hill is called to the Situation Room, where she is briefed about the strange energies that destroyed North Pole. Hill calls agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Anchorage, Alaska. They give Hill a visual of the bizarre energy, in the form of a glowing man who seems to be half running, half flying. He looks at them even though they are 22 miles behind. The line is cut off by the Anchorage agents and when Hill switches their visual to satellite. The agents are dead and their plane has been blown out of the sky. Hill refuses to call in the Avengers, instead calling Alpha Flight.
Alpha Flight attempts to communicate with the man. After the line goes dead again, Hill gets another visual and sees that Alpha Flight have been brutally massacred by the unidentified man.
Hill calls the President, who tells her to send in the Avengers. Once again refusing to send them in, Hill’s own line is used against her, with the President saying that he hopes that she is not putting her arrogance in front of helping thousands of people about to get their lives ruined by an alien. As the man travels towards America, Hill furiously orders the Avengers to Assemble.
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| Notes | - * Even though the New Avengers appeara on the cover, they do not appear in the actual issue, save for Iron Man on a video screen.
* The dispersed mutant energies making up the Collective first appeared in House of M #8. This is the first appearance of Michael Pointer, and his first appearance wielding the mutant energies, though he's unidentified in this issue.
* This marks the first appearance of Alpha Flight since Alpha Flight : The All-New, All-Different Alpha Flight #12. However, that issue left such a mess, and Alpha Flight barely say anything this issue, so it is hard to tell what, if anything, has been cleared up from the third series. At the end of Alpha Flight : The All-New, All-Different Alpha Flight #12, we had Guardian, Heather, Snowbird, Shaman, Puck and Earthmover in space. On Earth, there was Sasquatch and his team of Alphans - Nemesis III, Major Mapleleaf II, Puck II, Yukon Jack and Centennial. In addition, the past versions of Guardian, Heather, Snowbird, Shaman, Northstar, Aurora and Puck from circa Alpha Flight #12 were brought to the present. The question begs, which Alpha Flight is depicted here? It is hard to tell. Obviously there is only on Sasquatch, Major Mapleleaf and Puck II. Centennial and Nemesis III are apparently dead, and Yukon Jack and the past Snowbird were married and moved to his kingdom. The team here can possibly be the past Guardian, Heather, Shaman and Puck, which brings up the question of where the past Northstar and Aurora are, and offers up a rather large continuity problem, as the past Heather circa Alpha Flight #12 was not a costumed hero. While Heather is a smart woman, the past Heather could have quickly learned how to use a battle suit, but Heather circa Alpha Flight #1, found the geothermal battle suit, which she is wearing here, much more difficult to use then her previous electromagnetic one. If this is the case, it would mean that the real Guardian, Heather, Snowbird, Puck, Shaman and Earthmover are still in space.
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