The alien world of Polemachus suffers as the energy rings that surround it and provide it with warmth and light now choke the world with their heat. Arkon and Thundra flee Polemachus with a young girl doomed to be a human sacrifice to appease the so-called gods into relieving Polemachus of this crisis. Their destructive arrival in New York puts them at odds with the Avengers until an explanation is given, and the Avengers find themselves pulled back to Polemachus along with the three fugitives to face the priests' superstitions and wrath.