The following contains spoilers for Heroes Reborn: Squadron Savage #1, by Ethan Sacks, Luca Pizzari, Carlos Lopez and VC's Travis Lanham, on sale now.
While the Squadron Supreme of America are publicly recognized as Earth's Mightiest Heroes in Heroes Reborn, a black ops team overseen by Secretary of Defense Wilson Fisk, known as the Squadron Savage, run the missions kept from the public eye to keep this world safe from insurgents to President Phil Coulson's rule. And as the Squadron embarks on their bloodiest, costliest mission yet, a future Marvel Cinematic Universe supervillain proves to be no match for the team during an epic showdown: The time-traveling antagonist Kang the Conqueror.
The Squadron Savage are dispatched on a mission to take on a group known as the Redeemers, with the Punisher sniping a reimagined version of Quentin Quire and killing the telepathic teenager in cold blood. As the battle between the two super-powered teams is joined in earnest, the Redeemers' mysterious benefactor is revealed to be Kang. The powerful supervillain dismisses that the Squadron has neutralized most of his team, seeing the Redeemers as little more than just pawns in his grand scheme. Kang reveals that he recruited the Redeemers to help pave the way for a larger invasion, drawn to this reality as he senses that this particular timeline needs to be repaired because of Mephisto's tampering.
With several members of the Squadron Savage already killed or incapacitated ahead of Kang's arrival, the Conqueror easily subdues the team's field commander Elektra and gloats in victory only to learn his celebrations are a bit premature. With Kang distracted, Cloak summons the Winter Soldier to arrive on the battlefield, with the master assassin armed with a high-powered sniper rifle. Kang turns his full attention to Bucky Barnes and fires a lethal energy blast at him in the same moment that Bucky takes aim and fires, resulting in both Bucky and Kang killing each other in the same instance. With both characters shot squarely in the head, Kang's grand plan to invade the Heroes Reborn reality comes to an abrupt end.
Given his ability to jump between timelines with his 40th-century technology, Kang is yet another character that can sense that reality is not quite what it seems. Kang's last thought, before the Winter Soldier ended him, was that the entire proceedings were not how history was intended. And while Kang's plan may have literally been stopped dead in its tracks, the Redeemers appear to have been educated that the timelines have been as well, with the Redeemer Moonglow using her powers to temporarily restore some of the Squadron Savage's memories before she is put down herself, leaving them unaware of the true nature of the world.
In the regular Marvel Universe, Kang the Conqueror is such a powerful threat that he often requires the combined might of the Avengers to stop whatever fiendish plot he is developing. And while the Squadron Savage's brutal battle against Kang's Redeemers resulted in the deaths of approximately a third of the team, Kang himself was decisively killed mere moments after finally revealing himself and his master plan. With both Thanos and Kang now easily defeated within the Heroes Reborn world, the MCU's most insidious supervillains appear to be at a loss in this new reality while the Squadron Supreme and their allies rule unchecked.
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