Avengers: Twilight's Secret Villains Revealed

Captain America has returned — and so have his greatest enemies. Chip Zdarsky and Daniel Acuña's Avengers: Twilight #1 introduced a dystopian future where an elderly Steve Rogers, long ago stripped of his Super-Soldier Serum, is one of the few surviving superheroes in the wake of "Hero Day": a disastrous battle with Ultron that resulted in the deaths of many heroes and civilians. Stark Technology C.E.O. James Stark — the son of the original Iron Man and the Wasp — and his handler, Kyle Jarvis, are behind the new Avengers working with the totalitarian government that controls civilians under the watchful eye of The Watcher Act.

The retired Steve Rogers was drawn back into the public eye to oppose "Red Between the Lines," a documentary about notorious World War II figure Johann Shmidt — the Nazi supervillain the Red Skull. The three-part docu-series claimed to present evidence showing that Shmidt, as Hitler's right-hand man, was trying to take down the Führer from within the Third Reich... a ploy that Steve recognizes as the Red Skull's attempt to replace Hitler and lead the Nazis. Steve spoke out against the documentary in a heated televised interview with the younger Stark, who secretly has his father's disembodied head on ice at The Raft to exploit Stark tech.

Steve then joined forces with Luke Cage and the Defenders, an underground resistance who recreated the Super-Soldier Serum and recruited Steve to once again become a symbol of truth: Captain America. In this week's Avengers: Twilight #2, Cap's Defenders plot to override an upcoming New Year's Eve broadcast to expose the atrocities committed by the government and corporations that are suppressing information. Steve has been recruiting new Defenders to the growing resistance, protecting them from new S.H.I.E.L.D.'s legion of Iron Cops.

Meanwhile, Stark has been supplying the government with soldier armor in response to hostilities with Latveria on the Hungarian border. The U.S. president is a figurehead strong-armed by Stark and Jarvis, who considers himself "the C.E.O. of America." Jarvis then orders the president to send in the Thunderbolts and crush the Defender rebellion, even if it means sparking a war on American territory. Among the Thunderbolts sent to neutralize Captain America and his "terrorists": the sharp-shooting Marine Ramona Jones, a.k.a. Bullseye.

Elsewhere, Steve Rogers attempts to recruit Kamala Khan — a.k.a. Ms. Marvel — now a retired mother of two. "There are so few of us left," Steve tells Kamala. "And you were one of the best." But Kamala resists the resistance. She has a family, and the heroes lost everything on H-Day. Steve regrets asking her to join the Defenders, but they need people like Kamala to fight for freedom — to fight so her kids won't have to. The Defenders opened his eyes to the injustices under the totalitarian regime, and they've told him stories about people being "saved by a giant hand" (like Kamala's embiggen powers). Steve then tells Kamala that the Dark Avengers Protocols are in effect if she decides to get in touch.

During the New Year's Eve celebrations in Times Square, the Defenders are ambushed by high-tech and heavily-armed Thunderbolt Troops when they try to hijack a broadcast to transmit their video. For the first time in decades, an aged Captain America leaps back into action to battle the Thunderbolt Troops. But when a trooper's wayward bullet strikes a nearby civilian, Captain America flies into a rage and thrashes the Thunderboolts. On a nearby roof, Bullseye snipes Cap's device — just as the Defenders begin broadcasting live.

"My name is Steve Rogers. You know who I am... and you know what I stand for," the unmasked Captain America tells the crowd — and the entire United States. "Your government has stolen away your freedom. The Watcher Act wasn't there to protect you, it isn't there to protect your privacy. It's there to protect them. To make it so you never see what they're doing — to the world. To the disenfranchised. It's so light never shines on their crimes, so you never see the helpless people who suffer in order for you to thrive. That's not who we are. We're Americans. We look out for people. We don't turn our backs. And now that you know... you can be free again. Together, we can fight back. We can help people."

Once the military shuts down the Defenders' hack, cutting off the broadcast and turning the blind eye back on, the Thunderbolts are ordered to put down the rebels. The Thunderbolt Troops open fire on Captain America and the fleeing Defenders, but Bullseye disobeys an order to take the shot as the fugitives escape.

Meanwhile, James tells Jarvis that his father's big brain helped him crack issues he's been having with the new Iron Man armor. In a few months, they'll have enough for the Army. Jarvis tells James he doesn't want the Iron Man suits for the military — he wants them for James. Unlike his superhero father, James doesn't want to wear the "murder machines." The only way they can stop Captain America, Jarvis says, is him knowing that his friend's son is inside that machine. "Iron Man is your destiny, James. Tony Stark and Janet Van Dyne didn't sire a fool... and I didn't raise a coward."

In private, a disembodied voice tells Jarvis that he's losing control. Jarvis pushes back, telling the mystery person: "If there's one thing I've learned from you, it's patience. You didn't have enough of it on H-Day." Glimpses of the aftermath of H-Day shows a masked S.H.I.E.L.D. agent coming across the corpse of Doctor Strange. "And so you lost." The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent removes their gear... revealing the face of the Red Skull as he removes Ultron's head from the H-Day wreckage.

"I watched you lose and thought to myself... how does a robot not have patience?" The mystery person isn't a person at all — it's Ultron, embedded as a program on a machine. "I AM FOREVER, SKULL," Ultron responds. "BUT EVERY SECOND IS AN INFINITY. YOU'RE LOSING CONTROL, AND I NEED YOU ALIVE TO FULFILL YOUR END OF THE DEAL... TO FREE ME FROM YOUR CRUDE PRISON." 

Jarvis/Schmidt tells the A.I. Ultron that having his head on ice has been a greater boon than even Tony Stark's. He'll uphold his end of the deal. "Once I've set this world into shape and am ready to depart it," the Red Skull says, "let the robots have their way with it for millennia. Let Ultron bring Earth into its next era of greatness."

At the Defenders base, Steve is disillusioned that no one has been swayed by Captain America's speech. In fact, it may have turned more people against him and the Defenders. "I thought that their freedoms meant something to them," Steve tells Luke. "I thought the flag that I wear meant something to people." Just then, the Defenders report they've got inside intel on a secret weapon. If they need help, they'll get it from the world's smartest man: Tony Stark.

Avengers: Twilight #2 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.