After meeting at Planetary's New York office, the field team -- Erik Wurfel, John Gaia and Mohammed Al-Fayad -- is sent on its first mission: verify if there is any truth to the Chicago urban legend of The Whisperer, a masked vigilante that supposedly dispensed justice during the 20's and 30's. With the help of the Chicago office, the team follows several leads. Wurfel finds out that Chicago's former police comissioner, James Weston, seemed to have a close connection with the Whisperer. Weston, now 98 years old, is in poor health and staying at the Chicago Hope hospital. Talking to the doctors, the German teenager is informed that another person, an Asian man, has already talked to Weston. Wurfel's inquiry goes bad because when he mentions the Whisperer, the former commissioner becomes enraged and has a cardiac arrest. Meanwhile, Gaia goes to the harbor, where his questions lead him to a retired dock worker, William Harris, who tells the Planetary agent about the terrible fight he witnessed on November 29th, 1949, between the Whisperer and a glowing Asian man. The confrontation ended when a warehouse exploded and the two men disappeared. Al-Fayad checks the local posthuman hangout, Donner's Bar, where he is informed that a local gang, the Purple Dragons, are the direct inheritors of a 30's Asian crimelord called Lo Pan and that they seem to display posthuman abilities. After talking to Wurfel, Gaia heads for Chicago Hope and mind probes Weston, finding out the former commissioner did know the Whisperer personally, although the vigilante's true identity remained a mystery to him. Weston last met the Whisperer on December 1st, 1949, when the masked crimefighter told him that his work was done and he was leaving Chicago. Al-Fayad contacts the Weatherman, Jackson King, to see if Stormwatch's extensive files on the posthuman population contain any data on the Whisperer. The search turns up negative and King asks the Iraqi ex-officer to keep his ears to the ground about any SPB recruitment being conducted by terrorist groups, in particular Al-Qaeda.

After the day's investigations, the field team decides to relax a bit. Wurfel goes out on a date with Tracy, one of the office's interns, while Al-Fayad and Gaia check Chinatown for leads and a nice Chinese dinner. The German teenager realizes he is being followed and quickly subjugates his pursuer, a private detective called Tony Leong, who is working for the Hark Corporation. Leong is investigating Lo Pan and agrees to exchange information. Al-Fayad and Gaia also get a piece of the action as they are attacked by a group of Purple Dragons. The criminals not only display skill in martial arts, but also perform feats that can only be explained as superpowers. Though they manage to down Gaia, Al-Fayad proves more than a match to them. Back at the hotel, the field team compare notes and decides to contact Leong on the next morning. The detective meets them for breakfast and tells them that the Purple Dragons seem quite protective of a specific part of their turf: the area that surrounds an old destroyed mansion. Researching at the public library, Wurfel finds out the mansion belonged to millionaire playboy Lawrence Carter. It blew up in an explosion that killed Carter's fiancé, Margot Lester, on November 28th, 1949. Now believing that Carter was the Whisperer and that he fought Lo Pan after the latter killed his beloved, the field team decides to explore the ruins of the mansion. Based on an earlier scouting made by the shapeshifted Gaia, the group already knows there is a secret compartment under the mansion. Wurfel and Al-Fayad go in and find the Lair of the Whisperer.

A few days later, Planetary acquires the property and transfer all the items found by the field team to a secure warehouse for analysis. Among the many items found, there are: a claim for a silver mine located in Cold Creek, Colorado, dated 1843; two iron and silver rings, one with a face in high relief and the other with a symbol, also in high relief, of a circle with four spikes protruding tangentially; the arms of an English noble family, the Standish; two silvered Colt revolvers and 12 silver bullets; a pendant that opens up showing the picture of a woman and the inscription "To John, with all my love. Cordelia"; a rapier and two flintlock guns from the 16th century; a wooden leg and a Jolly Roger flag; Spanish doubloons; several photographs, including one featuring Carter, Lester, Weston and an Asian man named Yongjie, who was the Whisperer's driver, but whom Al-Fayad recognizes as the Mist from the Changers; a photograph of the inauguration of the Daily Sentinel, a Gotham City newspaper, in 1880, featuring Alan Walker, the founder, and Clarence Wayne, the mayor; a photograph of a half-Caucasian/half-Asian middle aged man wearing late 19th century clothes; several handcrafted pieces from the east coast of India; Buddhist sutra scrolls; Tibetan clothes; a jade dragon; and a very old handwritten journal in Sanskrit, that appears to be encrypted, its inner cover displays a circle with an eye inside.

Arriving at the Beirut office, the field team is informed that for the past few weeks an unknown posthuman has been attacking terrorist cells and bases. That, by itself, is not something unusual. The interesting thing is that the scattered reports that can be gathered about him bear an striking similarity to the ones made about a supposedly pre-1971 SPB that was active during 1967 in Israel and Lebanon. The Beirut office gives the field team a list of ten people who claim to have witnessed this posthuman in action back in the 60's. They decide to interview the witnesses and split the list in half, since five people are in Tel-Aviv and Al-Fayad refuses to set foot in Israel unless it is for a good reason. The Iraqi man goes to the south of Lebanon, while Wurfel and Gaia head for the Israeli capital. The testimonials are all similar: they describe events set between May and November of 1967 where a powerfully built, bracelet-wearing, super-strong man with long black hair appears in the middle of a battle or coflict, always precede by a thunderclap, to save people -- sometimes they are Israeli soldiers caught in an ambush by Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) fighters, other times they are Palestinian refugees being harassed by Israeli soldiers. All the appearances seem to have the presence of the 115th unit Israeli army in common. Al-Fayad's last interview is with a Lebanese crimelord and terrorist called Khalil Assad. He tells him the story of how the PLO had a low-yield nuclear device in 1967 ready to blow up inside Israel, close to the Lebanon border. It was all set up, but then the posthuman appeared and took the device away, never to be seen again. Al-Fayad remembers that one of his previous interviewees described what seemd like a second SPB flying after the super-strong one, when the latter took the bomb away. Assad hints that soon the Israeli posthuman will no longer be a problem and Israel will suffer the wrath of Allah. When Al-Fayad presses the matter, Assad tells him they now have two nuclear devices and will use one of them as bait to destroy the jewish SPB.

Meanwhile, Wurfel and Gaia interview Danielle Uziel, a member of the Israeli government. She quickly denies any knowledge of a posthuman and dismisses the two. They insist and Gaia is able to mind probe her, finding out that the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, has something to do with the recent attacks. Later, they find out that their next interviewee, Ira Lewenstein, editor of one of Tel-Aviv's top newspapers, has suddenly left on vacation. Finding this suspicious, but with no way to investigate further, they proceed to the last name of the list, a journalist named Yariv Benin. Arriving at Benin's place, they find him being escorted out of the building and into a car by government agent types. Wurfel quickly frees the journalist and takes to the top of a building, where they are joined by the shapeshifted Gaia. Disturbed by the events, Benin suggests they hide in the apartment of a friend who is out of town. Once there, he calms down and, at the request of Wurfel and Gaia, tells the story of his late friend, Uri Ben-Drav. Childhood friends, Uri and Yariv joined the army at the same time, 1967, and were assigned to the 115th unit, posted in the north of Israel, near the Golan hills. One night, while they were on watch duty, Uri wandered off. He returned half an hour later very excited and forced Yariv to accompany him to a cave in the hills. There, he showed his friend the pair of bracelets he had found. They were made of of some kind of white metal and gave off a bluish hazy light. Uri put them on and almost unconsciously knocked them together, causing an explosion of light and transforming into a posthuman. From then on, Uri his nefound abilities to help people, not only the Israeli, but also the Palestinians. A few months later, Uri told Yariv he felt like someone was watching him, but he could not find the source of the feeling. Finally, on November, Uri find out about the PLO nuclear device and went after it. That was the last time Yariv saw his friend.

Convinced that one of the Mossad's agents is now wearing the bracelets, Wurfel and Gaia call the Tel-Aviv office and ask for an escape route. Golda, the office director, sends a yatch to their rescue and, after a few jumps, the German teenager takes Yariv there. Later, Al-Fayad joins the rest of the field team in the boat. They exchange information and decide their best chance to prevent a nuclear detonation and locate the Mossad SPB is to find out wheer Assad and his men will conduct the ambush. Al-Fayad, carrying a gecko-shaped Gaia, flies to Assad's base and follows the convoy to the ambush site. There, he contacts StormWatch and asks the Weatherman for help. King reminds him that they cannot act unless either the Lebanese or the Israeli governments invokes Code Perfect. However, he lends a hand by using Skyatch's transfer bay to teleport Wurfel to his companions' side. With the help of Gaia's mind probe and his own stealth and teleport power, the German teenager disarms the nuclear bomb. A few minutes after midnight, Al-Fayad hears a whistling sound and soon locates an incoming human form on a ballistic trajectory. He charges and strike it, interrupting the being's jump and making him fall. This does not stop him for long, for, after a few seconds, a powerfully built, bracelet-wearing, super-strong man with long red hair, emerges from the rubble and charges towards the building where the bomb is. Gaia stands in his way and stretches his telepathic powers so as to gain control of the Israeli posthuman's mind. He slips an order for the SPB to desist from the attack, which he promptly follows. Believing they overdid their stay, the field team leaves the area and returns to the yatch, even though they know the situation they are leaving is less than ideal.

The field team is sent to Japan to investigate a secret government project. At the Tokyo office, they are informed that there is a region off the northeastern coast of Japan that has been, since the 30's, the location of several unconfirmed monster sightings. Strange lights have also been seen in the sky over that region for many years. Last, but not least, a number of ships have disappeared there, including two American Navy ones, during World war II. To complicate matters, a constant electromagnetic anomaly over the are prevents sattelite scans from being made. Tetsuo, the office manager, tells the field team they have acquired certain documents that mention a Project Yorushima in that area, which probably has something to do with all the strange phenomena. Before embarking to Sendai the next morning, the field team goes out with Go, one of the office's employee, to have a true Japanese dinner. While they are waiting to enter the restaurant, an odd, nervous man bumps into Gaia and hurriedly enters the place. He's followed by a woman and two men, who Al-Fayad founds out are cyborgs. Gaia finds in his pocket a golden bar with a microchip inside. His curiosity picked, Wurfel excuses himself and teleports to the back of the building, where he finds the woman threatening the nervous man, her companions providing back up. The German 'ports again to save the man, but the woman is quicker and, extending claws from her fingers, deals a mortal blow to the nervous man. Atop a nearby building, Wurfel tries to save the man, but fails. He meets another man there, one Logan, who advises him to run. The woman reaches the roof and challenges Logan, who calls her Yuriko. Both start to fight, and Wurfel joins Logan. The German does not fare so well, as Yuriko almost severs his arm. Meanwhile, the rest of the field team decides to check on their comrade. Al-Fayad flies to the back of the building, where he is engaged by Yuriko's companion, but quickly dispatches them. Gaia turns into a bat and watches the events unfold. Enraged by his wound, Wurfel cuts loose and knocks Yuriko unconscious. With the situation a bit calmer, Wurfel talks to Logan, who explains that the chip belongs to him and he wants it back. Al-Fayad contests it and Wurfel tries to find a middle ground. Logan calls someone named Creed and suddenly there is a laser sight on Al-Fayad's head. The Iraqi man flies into the air and is shot upon several times. He dodges, but his speed sends him crashing into a nearby building. Logan asks again for the chip and Gaia, convinced by Wurfel, appears and gives it to the him. No in possession of the chip, Logan picks Yuriko's body up and runs away. The field team does likewise.

The next morning, they go to Sendai and rent a boat to take them into Yorushima's area. The captain is not too keen on the idea, but the right figure convinces him. The trip takes two days of worsening weather conditions: choppy seas, high inds and clouded skies. Al-Fayad does a scouting trip and finds a basalt island 2-kilometer long and over 600-meter high. At the south end, he locates a bunker. Arriving at the island, the field team enters the bunker and finds a huge underground complex. Left over documents identify it as the site of Project Yorushima. Its purpose to analyze the technorganic nature of the 30-meter tall alien that crashed on that same place in 1932. The event created the island and also the electromagnetic anomaly that affects the region. The field team finds the dissected of the alien and Al-Fauad touche sit. He is instantaneously telepathically contacted by the alien, who tells him that he is a police officer who was transporting convicts when his bleed drive malfunctioned and he crashed. His body is beyond help but, if the Iraqui allows, he could transfer his consciousness to Al-Fayad so that he can send a signal to his peers. Al-Fayad agrees and the field team exits the complex, taking the 2-meter long crystal that sits in the alien chest. Once outside, the alien uses Al-Fayad's body to emit a powerful energy signal towards the sky. Gaia and Al-Fayad go back inside, while Wurfel waits outside. A few minutes later, a human surrounded by a blue glow descends from the sky and demands to know what is happening. Wurfel tries to talk, but the stranger runs out of patience and attacks him. The German's dark blade easily bypasses the stranger's force field, severely wounding and knocking him out. The stranger appears to be a normal human, except for the bluish lens that is grafted on the back of his right hand. Al-Fayad comes out and decides to fly back to Japan to call for help. Soon after, Wurfel notices the stranger is regenerating. Suddenly, his blue glow returns and he sinks into the stone, emerging a few seconds later from the sea. Al-Fayad returns to fight the stranger, while Gaia comes out from the complex.

As the battle rages in the air, Wurfel and Gaia are surprised to see a terrible creature rise from the sea and climb up the island's shore. It resembles a tyranosur, but it is 45 meters long, has spines running down its back and is somewhat intelligent. Gaia stretches his telepathic power once again and commands the creature to drop dead. It complies, allowing Wurfel to decapitate it. Al-Fayad flies from the battle and asks the alien for help. He tells the Iraqi he will need to take full control of his body. Al-Fayad agrees and is transformed into the alien's true nature. Returning to the island, the alien easily defats the stranger, who plummets into the sea. At that moment, the sky opens up and an immense mothership appears. There is a bright flash and the alien, the monster and everything in the complex, except the chest crystal, disappear. Al-Fayad appears again next to his comrades. The elctromagnetic anomaly is also gone, so the field team tries to contact the boat. They fail and Al-Fayad soon finds out it is gone. He locates the captain adrift in the sea and rescues him. Contacting the Tokyo office, the field team arranges to be rescued.

At the central office, in New York, Wurfel and Al-Fayad meet the new field team member, Nigel Wu Farmer. Together they fly to São Paulo, where the local office informs them about the peculiar case of Paulo Doherty, who, after a 18-year coma, woke up and disappeared walking through a wall. They head up for the private clinic where Paulo stayed for the last five years and talk to his physiscian and to the nurse that witnessed his miraculous recovery. According to them, Paulo was the only survivor of a mass murder committed at his grandmother's farm in 1983. Besides her, Luciana, Paulo's cousin, and all the employees were killed in a ghastly manner. The boy was tranferred to São Paulo where he stayed at a public hospital for many years, until finally being transferred to the private clinic. His mother, Marta, looked after him, but she died in 2000. Her life insurance covered his continuing medical bills. When inquired if there was anything odd about Paulo, the physician replies that the main thing was the fact that the boy had aged normally and showed no sign of atrophy of his muscles or cognitive faculties, despite his long comatose period. A psychometric reading of Paulo's room by Farmer confirms the story. The field team then decides to check the family's apartment. There they find out Paulo's father, Patrick Doherty, was an American citizen and died in 1972. Farmer perfoms another psychometric scan and discovers that reality is a little off in Paulo's room, especially around a Falcon doll. He also discovers that Patrick was subjected to great abuse in the past, although he cannot be precise about its nature.

The field team travels to the farm of Dona Bastiana, Paulo's grandmother, near Taubaté. The live their driver at Vila dos Canários, a nearby village, because he is nervous about going into an area that the locals say it is cursed, and drive on by themselves. The farm is abandoned and has an eerie fell about it. It is cold, despite being Summer, and menacing clouds are gathering. Wurfel and Farmer sense a Bleed drip that gets stronger as they approach the forest. On the way, they find a hippopotamus skelenton and several mummified bodies of what appear to be little fishmen. Al-Fayad flies overhead to provide support for Farmer and Wurfel who neter the forest on foot. The trees lokk distorted and there is a ominous feeling in the air. When Al-Fayad tries to clear a path for his companions, the trees aake and attack Farmer and Wurfel. The former is taken down by a mighty blow, but the German teenager rescues him and, after several teleport jumps, clear the danger zone. Meanwhile. Al-Fayad uses his laser vision to destroy the animated trees and open a passage for his comrades. Finally, they reach the source of the Bleed drip: a huge gate into the extradimensional realm. Before it stand Paulo and a reptilian woman locked in a struggle with elemental energies. Above the woman, the field team can see a faint, large pair of alien eyes. Wurfel attacks the woman causing pain to her, who strikes back distorting his body. Farmer understands that the Bleed alien is using the woman as an anchor and the only way to defeat is is to kill her. He calls Al-Fayad and they both decide to strike simultaneously. That is when the Falcon doll tugs at Farmer's pants and begs him not to kill the woman, for her is Luciana, his cousin. Farmer realizes a part of Paulo's mind is manifesting through the doll, but resigns himself and uses his Dim Mak entropic attack on Luciana at the same time Al-Fayad hits her with his laser beams. There's a bright flash and thunder, and then quiet. The portal is closed; there's no sign of the Bleed alien; Paulo is unconscious, but well; and Luciana, back in human form, is dead. The field team takes Paulo, after Al-Fayad supposedly deactivates him, and Luciana's body back to São Paulo.

The next morning, he awakes and before Wurfel can say anything, disappears using his powers. The field team concludes he must have gone back to the farm to try to bring Luciana back and heads that way. Al-Fayad arrives first and sees Paulo crying next to the seemingly unharmed body of Luciana. He is mumbling that he failed and could not bring her back completely. The Iraqi man taks to him and manages to soothe Paulo. When Farmer and Wurfel arrive, Paulo has already deconstructed Luciana's body and restored the forest to its natural state. He explains his abilities appeared when he was 11, but that they only seemed to work in his room or at the farm. In 1983, he opened a hole into the Bleed and the Coisa, how he called the Bleed alien, came out, possessed Luciana and killed everybody else. Paulo agrees to go back to Planetary and accept its help in understanding his abilities.

The field team arrives at Bucarest and Wurfel checks with the local Hark office and the German Embassy to find out what is the status on his sister's kidnapping.He is informed that she was taken captive to days ago and may have been taken north. Farmer investigates the place where Katrin was attacked and psychometrically sees her assailants: Gypsy thugs who are rumored to be Mr. Z's henchmen. Al-Fayad finds a posthuman haunt, Janos', and together with the other field team members, tries to gather some information from two Rumanians present at the place: Janos and Camilla. After some evasive exchange, Janos tells the group that Mr. Z can be found at the Blood on the Vine, a nightclub in the city of Tirgu Bares, in the north, that doubles as Z's criminal headquarters. The Rumanian also suggests that if Z were to mysteriously disappear, that would be considered an auspicious event and whoever was responsible might not face any kind of retaliation. Based on this information, the field team decides to go to Tirgu Bares. Befor ethey leave the bar, they meet an odd character: an allegedly American posthuman whom the bartender calls "Torch". He is obviously drunk and seems to be paranoid too -- always saying that he must hid eor "they" will find him. Eventually, Torch collapses on the floor. Intrigued by the man, Wurfel asks the local office to help him.

They arrive later that night at the city, which is the capital of the region known as Barovia. The Blood on the Vibne is easily located by the loud music and light displays. It is located in an old cathedral that sits in the middle of a square. There's a huge line in front and the entrance is controlled by the same Gypsy thugs Farmer saw in his vision. He also notices they are ghouls, humans enhanced with vampire blood. The group bribes their way in and find themselves in a huge hall crowded with dancing Rumanian youngsters. Al-Fayad and Farmer try to mingle while Wurfel manages to get an audience with Z. He is taken to an office in the second floor where he meets the notorious crimelord. After a heated argument -- in which Z reveals his love for Katrin and that she is dead -- Wurfel attacks him, only to discover Z has access to mystical powers. The Rumanian casts a spell that polymorphs the German into a chicken. Hearing the commotion upstairs, Al-Fayad flies into the room and engages Z. Farmer follows him, blasting his way through the crimelord's ghouls. The Rumanian proves a match for the two field team members, going so far as to throw a fireball at them, but in the end is blown athrough the wall and across the street by Farmer's Dim Mak attack. Al-Fayad picks both his companions up, blast the Blood on the Vine ith a couple more laser shots, flies them to a nearby village and returns to find Z. While flying over the Blood on the Vine, the Iraqi is punched in the back rather strongly. Turning, he finds himself being attacked by Janos and Camilla'. They order Al-Fayad to surrender, but the ex-StormWatch resists and is knocked out by Janos' optic beams.

Meanwhile, Farmer finds some clothes and manages to call his buddy, Jack Carter, in London. After hearing about Wurfel's transformation, Carter teaches a reversion spell to Farmer. At this point, a gypsy woman, Madame Eva, finds the two field team members, tells them she was expecting them and that they ill help fight the evil that is Strahd. Farmer accepts the gypsy's help and finds out Z is actually Strahd von Zarovich, a 500-year vampire that has influenced Barovia, and to a lesser extent Rumania, for the past few centuries. Eva takes Farmer and Wurfel to a bus that doubles as a motorhome for a group of gypsies and takes them to a secluded area outside the village. There, the gypsy woman helps Farmer perform the reversal ritual successfuly and restore Wurfel to his human form. Using tarot cards, Eva makes predictions about the posthumans' quest against Strahd, telling them about two items that will help in the mission: the book of knowledge and the sun sword. They use the communicator to contact Al-Fayad, but reach Camilla instead, who informs them that Al-Fayad is unavailable. They negotiate and Camilla agrees to meet them and take them back to where Al-Fayad is being held. Once there, the field team members find out their actions caused quite a stir in Bucharest and the government wants its posthuman operatives -- Janos, Camilla and an armored man called Mircea -- to solve the problem or they will call StormWatch. Janos explain that they thought the characters were going to deal with Z, but instead the attacked civilians by setting the Blood on the Vine on fire. Wurfel and Farmer convince the Rumanian agents, despite Al-Fayad's antagonistic attitude, to give them one more chance to deal with the vampire. The field team is taken to a forest near Z's ancient castle, Ravenloft, in the Carpathian mountains, where they are left to carry on their mission. As the group proceeds to the castle, they are contacted via radio by Pedro Magalhães, a Brazilian posthuman that works at Planetary's technical division. He informs them he has been sent to find and help them, since the central office had lost contact with the group. A bit later, Magalhães arrives and together they fly towards Ravenloft.

The group enters the castle through the chapel and fights zombies. They explore Ravenloft looking for the crypt, where Eva told them they would find the book of knowledge. During the exploration, they free a werewolf called Lazlo that joins the party. They also find a ghoul servant that is killed by Al-Fayad. Finally, the group reach the crypts where they eventually locate the book and discover Strahd's whole story. Following Eva's prediction, the field team next locates the throne room and acquires the sun sword. At that moment, they hear organ music coming from the room below. Wurfel teleports with Farmer, hile the rets flies out the window and into the lower one. They crash into Strahd and Katrin's wedding ceremony. There are several vampires present, as well as other supernatural creatures. A huge fight ensues, during which Laszlo is overpowered by vampires, Wurfel snatches his mesmerized sister from the Strahd's clutches and the rest of team is forced to flee. In the end, they all escape, leaving an angry and heartbroken Strahd to swear vengeance. The field team meets with Janos, Camilla and Mircea, and hands them the sun sword. Camilla infomrs them they are persona non grata in Rumania from now on and should never come back.

After the Planetary Foundation acquires from an African trader a barocque, goldplated palm top that seems to be 200 years old and encoded in an strange ideographic language, the field team is sent to Africa to find its origin. After several days of travel, the group reaches an isolated area where they believe the palm top might have originated from. Since there's a powerful magnetic anomaly over the area, the field team has to explore it the old fashioned way. Flying over the region, Al-Fayad locates what seems to be ruins, dives under the tree cover and blanks out. Farmer and Magalhães finds the Iraqi man, who attacks them, apparently under mind control. They free him, but are attacked by dinosaurs and Al-Fayad is mortally wounded. Magalhães takes everyone out of the jungle and to a nearby mountain. Once there, they discover their wounds were illusionary and try to find the source of the psionic attacks. Magalhães uses his abilities to pinpoint the origin of the magnetic anomaly in a chasm close to the jungle. Investigating it, the field team encounters an underground complex, complete with a paradisiacal garden. In one of the rooms, four gorillas dressed in tunics are sitting around a table in a trance. Farmer's psychometry reveals they had an argument with another gorilla who put them in the trance. The reading awakes one of the gorillas, Zaius, who tells the field team the whole story of the secret kingdom that existed in the jungle, Wakanda. Created by evolved humans and gorillas made super-inteligent by the radiation of fallen meteor, Wakanda prospered in secrecy, away from the eyes of the world. The only white men ever to encouter the kingdom and be allowed to leave were Keith Whitestack, an English lord raised by a splinter group of the evolved gorillas, and Elijah Snow, an explorer. Wakanda came to an end in 1959, when it was attacked by three posthumans and razed to the ground, after they had collected the secret kingdom's advanced technology.

Zaius explains that he and his companions -- Solovar, Urko and the female Zira -- are the only survivors. There's one more, Grodd, a mutant that was born with a normal gorillas features and powerful psionic abilities. Grodd saw the arrival of the field team as a threat to their existence and decided to attack the posthumans. Though the gorillas tried to dissuade their mutant companion from that course of action, they were unsuccessful and Grodd controled them into not interfering. He thens wakes up the other gorillas, Solovar, Urko and the female Zira. The two groups reach an agreement through which the field team will stop Grodd, but not kill him. A short and violent combat later, the posthumans manage to defeat the mutant gorilla. The field team part ways with the gorillas after makinga a deal to help them recreate their race in exchange for help with their high technology.

After spending almost six months at a Planetary medical facility recovering from her experience in Rumania, Katrin Wurfel is finallty given a clean bill of health, both physical and psychological. In order to commemorate, Katrin decides to rent a car and drive from Boston, where the hospital is located, to New York. Wanting to get to to know her saviors, she invites, besides her brother, Al-Fayad, Farmer and Magalhães to join her. The Iraqi, on vacation at the Red Sea, cannot join the group, but Farmer, after a bit of maneuvering by Katrin, decides to go with the group. Magalhães, swamped with work, promises to catch up with them later in the trip. Katrin also invites Vassily Kasparov, an ex-KGB agent that came to the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union and works for Planetary as a detective. Since he also has telepathic abilities, Kasparov is sometimes employed in the treatment of mentally disturbed patients, like Katrin, who was catatonic for two months after returning from Rumania. Kasparov eagerly accepts his former patient's invitation. Finally, Katrin tries to talk John, the mysterious man the field team found at Jano's into going with them. John, who is also a posthuman and seem able to generate and control fire, is happy for being remembered by his newfound friend, but declines the offer, wishing Katrin a good trip.

The group leaves in a rented car on Friday morning, making its way southwards along the coast. At noon the next day, they reach Happy Harbor, a coastal town in Rhode Island that doubles as a touristic destination. After getting rooms at the Gilman House Hotel, they have lunch at one of the many seafood restaurants. Katrin befriends a local, Garth, who invites the group to an open party that ill take place later that night in the square in from their hotel. It is being promoted by another local, Democratic Congressman Arthur Curry. The group walks around Happy Harbor and sits down at the coffee shop near the hotel. While ordering, Kasparov, who finds the waitress too cheerful and happy, reads her mind and finds that she is unusually disciplined and focused. Carrie Greene, the coffee shop owner, befriends the group, who introduces themselves as members of a non-governmental organization that helps Cambodjan women who are victims of domestic violence. Farmer is specially smiten by Carrie and the two end up jogging together later. Meanwhile, Wurfel visits Curry's campaign center and meets the Congressman in person. Curry, who is campaigning for a senatorial position, impresses the young German with his open-minded views on politics.

At night, the group attends the party and get to know the locals better. Everybody seems happy and Kasparov, once more finding it suspicious, randomly reads minds to see if there's anything abnormal about them. Of the ten minds he checks, three seem to be as focused as the coffee shop waitress'. As the party progresses, everybody seems to get lucky: Farmer and Carrie heads back to her place, Katrin leaves with Garth, Wurfel meets twin girls, Cathy and Jenny, and goes to the beach with them, and Kasparov accompanies Terry, one of Curry's campaign coordinators, back to her home. The next morning, they all wake up unable to remember details about the previous nights, but all seem to have performed very well at bed, given the notes left by their alleged lovers. Reuniting at the hotel, the Kasparov and the field team members suspect there's more to Happy Harbor than meets the eye. They try to convince Katrin to leave the town, but she refuses to believe the world can be such a menacing place and states that she's not going anywhere. At her request, they go on with the trip, taking a whalewatching tour from the harbor. When they return, they find Magalhães already in town and meet with him to have lunch. Later, all of them get invited to a reception at Curry's mansion, starting at 8 p.m. While mingling with the others, Kasparov notices Curry going upstairs. He turns invisible and follows the Congressman, eavesdropping on his conversation with his brother, Orm. The Russian discovers there's a secret scheme going on in Happy Harbor and that he and his companions were tested by the locals to see if they could take part in it. Returning to the group, he informs them about the new information. Wurfel decides to investigate the house, but remains in touch via Kasparov's mindlink. Unfortunately, a spell falls over the mansion and affects the German, making him lose contact with the Russian. Farmer and Katrin are also affected and leave the party with Carrie and Garth, respectively.

Kasparov decides to go after Farmer while Magalhães searches for Wurfel. Using his telepathic powers, the Russian locates Farmer at Carrie's place, over the coffee shop. He climbs the outside stairs, but attracts the attention of two robed figures that emerge from the house. Kasparov quickly deals with them by inducing heart attacks. At this moment, the Farmer recovers from the spell and finds himself the target of an occult ritual performed by mysterious robed figures. He jumps through the window and meets Kasparov. Together they take care of the other robed figures, except for one: a large being who blows into a seashell and sounds what seems a warning signal. The two posthumans go back into the house and defat him, discovering it's not human, but a sort of fishman. The flee from the place when a mob of Happy Harbor inhabitants approach. They soon find that all of the town's citizens -- and lots of fishmen -- are flooding the streets and they seem to always know where Farmer is. Meanwhile, Magalhães has invaded the Curry mansion and is confronting Arthur in a fight. Down in the cellar, Wurfel awakens from his stupor and finds himself in the same situation as Farmer. He teleports away, but is followed by the robed figures. Throwing a table at them, the German gains some time, but one of the robed figures, who happens to be Cindy, one of the girls that took him to the beach, follows Wurfel and fights him. He dispatches her and escapes. Outside, he climbs up to the second floor of the mansion and sees Arthur knocking Magalhães out. He enters and challenges the congressman, who uses his mental powers to calm Wurfel down. At this point, they hear the seashell signal. Arthur tries to explains his actions and mentions the Esoteric Order fo Dagon, an informal fraternity to which most Happy Harbor citizens belong. Garth arrives and casts a spell that puts the German to sleep again. He wakes up later in a high tech chamber and lacking his powers. A voice informs him that they have been interested in urfel for quite a while and will now investigate him mentally and physically. Metal tendrils appear from the floor and immobilize the German, while, from the ceiling, multiple surgical instruments descen. The last thing Wurfel remebers is beig cut up and simultaneously mind probed.

Realizing the tatoos on his body must be what allows the Happy Harborers to zero in on him, Farmer crashes into a house and showers to erase them. Outside, teh invisible Kasparov witnesses the arrival of a group of posthumans that starts destroying the town and killing its inhabitants. He is mentally contacted by one the attacking posthumans, a woman who tells him that if he wants to live he should leave through a portal nearby. Kasparov does as she tells him, but before stepping through he informs Farmer of the deal. The Englishman also uses the portal. Both find themselves standing on a hill overlooking Happy Harbor. There is a man in front of them, apparently in his sixties and dressed in a black suit. He's smoking and leaning on a Lincoln. His driver is a large strong man who appears to be dead and is named Grundy. Before speaking to the Planetary agents, the man -- who Kasparov believes to be Saker, an old accomplice of Stalin -- answers a phone call by a certain Lovecraft, who seems to be his associate. Then, he tells the two posthumans that they have spoiled a 10-year investigation. It seems Happy Harbor had been a breeding experiment conducted by an underwater civilization. The Planetary agents actions had forced his hand into wiping out the town. After a while, Saker's 10 posthumans return, bringing Wurfel, who wakes up soon after, Magalhães and Katrin. Before leaving through another portal, Saker tells Vortex, the leader of his posthuman group, to leave no witnesses. The group attacks the conscious Planetary agents and, after a violent battle, are defeated, taking many casualties. Minutes later, the Farmer, Kasparov and Wurfel, carrying Katrin and Magalhães, leave quickly as black helicopters and power armor troopers, the Silver Daggers mentioned earlier by Saker, arriving at the scene.

A week after escaping from Happy Harbor, the field team is sent on a new mission. Ahmed Farouk is auctioning a set of papers who describes the secret activities of the British intelligence community during the 40s and 50s and the Fourth Man wants it. Once in Cairo, where the auction will be held, the field team is receptioned by Khalil, the head of the local office, who drops them off at the hotel. An hour later, just before they leave for the auction, Farmer and Kasparov are lounging at the hotel bar, when the Russian notices a beautiful blonde dressed in white at one of the tables. He tries to mind probe her, but finds out the woman has powerful mental defenses. She notices the attempt, smiles to Kasparov and leaves the bar. A few minutes later, Khalil arrives and takes the three agents to the auction. As they arrive in Farouk's building, the group is informed that no mental probing of any kind is allowed in the premises. Not only are there psidampers, but also psimines, which sense psionic energy, amplify it and send it back to the wielder, usually frying his brain in the process. The auction room is filled with ten tables, nine of which are filled, mostly with government representatives from different countries, like England, Israel and Japan. In one of the tables sits the German man from Kasparov's vision and in another, the blonde from the hotel. The bidding is aggressive and soon the Planetary's budget of US$ 50 million is surpassed. Not wanting to lose the papers, the field team hatches an agreement with the blonde for joining their resources and splitting the documents. She agrees and they manage to outbid the others. Later, at Farouk's office, they pay and choose which documents to take. The papers describe the actions of a secret British governmental organization called Spookshow that has been active since the 19th century. Kasparov notices that the blonde seems particularly interested in any mention of posthumans, like Project Zarathustra.

As the field team is leaving the building through a back door, they are intercepted by the invisible German man, who demands the documents. A brief battle ensues, in which the German displays other powers, like telepathy, intangibility, super-strength and shapeshifting. He eventually falls to Kasparov's mind kill attack and summons a portal by saying "door". As a yellow glowing rectangle -- a shiftdoor -- appear, the German rolls into it. Farmer follows him through and finds himself in a high tech room circled by other yellow shiftdoors. In front of him stands a tall Caucasian man, with black hair and blue eyes, dressed inn a black skintight suit. The stranger's eyes turn red and Farmer's danger sense goes off the scale. The Englishmen jumps back through the portal in time to dodge a pair of red heat beams that destroy Farouk's building. The field team flees quickly and goes directly to the airport, where they board the first outbound flight. On the way to São Paulo, the flight's destination, the plane's captain informs the passengers there was another large scale terrorist attack in New York. This time the target was a Fifth Avenue building, which happens to be the location of Planetary's central office.

Aware that the threat level hasrisen, the field team contacts the São Paulo office through unofficial means and acquires fake Brazilian passports for all. Examining the leather case where the documents were kept, the group finds a letter saying that if they want to find out what is happening, they should be at the last floor of the building on 54 Tottenham Road, in London, at midnight of July 10th. They decide to accept the invitation and arrive on the English capital at the day requested on the letter. Shortly thereafter, Wurfel receives a call from Al-Fayad who, after hearing the news, wants to know what's happening. The German informs his companion that the group is in London and Al-Fayad decides to fly there from the Red Sea. At midnight, on 54 Tottenham Road, the field team meets Rachel van Horn, a 73 year-old woman who is the last surviving member of the Watchers, an organization that has spent centuries hunting immortals and other supernatural creatures to "protect" humankind. Rachel tells the group the Watchers were destroyed in 1945 by a "Century Baby" -- immortals who are born every hundred years -- called Elijah Snow and his allies. She believes Snow now heads a worldwide conspiracy, one responsible for many of the attacks on the field team. Rachel wants Planetary's help, even though she despises its posthuman operatives, to bring Snow down. The field team asks many questions of Rachel, but before they can get all the answers, a shiftdoor opens and the black leather-clad man from Kasparov's dream shows up. In a whirling display of death-dealing technique, the man, who later identifies himself as Nightwing, kills Rachel with a single blow and avoid most of the field team's attacks. Eventually, Kasparov saves the day again and the group captures Nightwing. However, he manages to intimidate Wurfel by mentioning Katrin. The German still doesn't know what happened to his sister, who was supposed to be at the central office before the bombing. Al-Fayad arrives in time to see Wurfel release Nightwing and the latter leave through a shiftdoor.

Farmer contacts Jack Carter and arranges to meet him in a secure place. The field team takes Rachel's body with them and ask Carter to perform a ritual to summon the woman's spirit. The English mage agrees and the group finds out Rachel has certain artifacts and documents that can prove advantageous in the upcoming battle against the conspiracy. Unfortunately, the ritual ends before they can discover how to recover the items. Searching through Rachel's body, they find a matchbox of the Oxford Hotel. A quick computer hack attempt later, Kasparov finds a registration at the hotel under the name Regina Langley, Rachels's fake ID. The field team goes to the Oxford after disposing of the body and get rooms at the ninth floor. Wurfel and Al-Fayad leave through the window and go down to the window of Rachel's room, the 301. Through his X-ray vision, Al-Fayad can tell a woman is sleeping in the room. Back at their own quarters, Farmer tells his companions he thinks the woman is Magdallena Perticcaro, his former lover and colleague as field agent of the Sacred Order of the Hunt, a splinter group that defected from the Watchers in 1930. They all go down to 301 and Farmer tries to talk to Magdalena, but she attacks him through the room's door with her katana. The field engages Magdalena and is able to overpower her. Despite her hatred of Farmer, whom she considers a traitor, Magdalena agrees to help the field team and takes them to an abandoned plant on the Thames south bank where Rachel hid the items she intended to give them. They include several documents that shed new light on the conspiracy, including one of its members, the Orphan, an alien that fell on Earth as a baby and was held captive by the Watchers until Elijah Snow and his protegé, Bruce Wayne, freed him. The Orphan is probably the most powerful member of the conspiracy. Farmer believes he's the man he saw on the other side of the shiftdoor in Cairo. Rachel's items also include a green glowing rock supposedly capable of sapping the Orphan's powers. Meanwhile, back at the Oxford, Kasparov, who remained behind to recover the fake passports, sees StormWatch agents Winter, Hellstrike and Fuji teleport down to investigate the "attack" on the hotel.

Later, while waiting for the rest of the field team, Kasparov learns that the US government has discovered new evidence connecting the Planetary foundation to international posthuman terrorism. The officials believe the Fifth Avenue bombing was an attempt to throw off the investigation. After meeting up, the field team is contacted by the Fourth Man, who has closed all the local offices around the world. The Fourth Man informs his agents of a convoluted plan to smuggle them from England to the US without arising the suspicion of StormWatch. After a close call, when Al-Fayad is almost teleported to Skywatch, the group leaves England. Hours later, they find themselves in a secret Planetary base where they finally meet the Fourth Man face to face. The Planetary's leader is none other than Lex Luthor.

Luthor explains to the field team that he always suspected there was some kind of conspiracy controlling the world and that the Wayne family and their organization were part of it. Waynetech's meteoric rise during the 60s was, in Luthor's opinion, impossible, since the Gotham-based corporation did not have the human resources to produce such advanced technology, unlike the then fledgling Lexcorp, which had his genius. Luthor spend considerable resources investigating the matter and, in 1972, he acquired a copy of a Planetary Guide, an underground publication that appeared every five years from 1925 to 1950. Luthor's copy, from 1940, convinced the Metropolis billionaire to devote even more resources to uncover the truth. He founded the Planetary Foundation to do just that, setting it up to run independently and without any connection to Lexcorp or to the Luthor name.

With all the new information brought back by the field team, Luthor decides to take the fight to the conspiracy. Assuming that Bruce Wayne III, current CEO of Waynetech and president of the Wayne Foundation, must be directly involved with the conspirators, Lexcorp's president uses his influence to get invitations for Wayne's annual masquerade ball, to be held at his manor, in Gotham City. The idea is to either kidnap Wayne III or interrogate him, possibly using Kasparov's abilities. Wurfel, who knows through tabloids that Wayne III is a womanizer, suggests using a woman as a way to distract the billionaire playboy. Luthor agress and hires exotic dancer and actress Felicia Hardy. The field team will not include Farmer, who leaves the base to find Magdalena and convince her to join them. Meanwhile, Luthor informs Wurfel that his sister has been found and is under care in the Beth Israel Hospital, in New York. The young German wants to check on her, but the billionaire convinces him that such an action would not only compromise their security, but also hers. After special arrangements to prevent their trip being detected by either the conspiracy or StormWatch, the group arrives at Gotham City and checks in into a hotel. A few hours later, they are ready for the party: Wurfel has a vampire costume, Al-Fayad is dressed as the Whisperer, Kasparov is wearing a ninja uniform, and Felicia has skintight black outfit on together with a kind of domino mask, which she calls her Black Cat costume.

Stately Wayne Manor is an impressive property, made even more astounding by the large number of people gathered there. The party is in full swing and eventually the group locates Wayne III in an elaborate bat costume. Felicia works to get Wayne's attention while Kasparov mind reads a security agent, finding out that the manor has psionic dampers and psimines, mostly clustered at sensitive points, like the upper floors. Felic a manages to charm Wayne and he takes her upstairs, severing her mind link with the rest of the group. The field team quickly hatches a plan to neutralize the security at the party. Kasparov causes a light heart attack at one of the attending aldermen. This causes enough of a distraction to allow Wurfel to teleport into the security station, neutralize the three agents there and deactivate the psionic defenses. Kasparov goes upstairs, invisible, and walks to the corner study -- previously located by Al-Fayad's x-ray vision --where Wayne and Felicia are. She opens the door for him, but he's surpised by a kick from Wayne, who can see through his mental invisibility. The billionaire quickly downs Kasparov and opens a shiftdoor through which steps out the green creature that masqueraded as a German man in Cairo. He grabs Felicia and Kasparov and tries to read the Russian's mind. Al-Fayad takes this time to attack, blasting the green man with his optic lasers. The attack forces the green man to step through the shiftdoor with his captives. Al-Fayad follows him through at the same moment that Wurfel teleports into the room. The German spars with Wayne a bit and also walks through the shiftdoor. On the other side, he frees Kasparov and Felicia, while Al-Fayad battles the green man, and takes them back through the shiftdoor. Kasparov then attacks Wayne and succeeds in giving him a heart attack. The billionaire recovers, but before he can do anything, Wurfel injects him with sodium pentothal and teleports away from the manor. Felicia jumps out of the window and Kasparov leaves with Al-Fayad, who exits through the shiftdoor at that moment. The two are pursued at Mach speeds by the green man, but manage to evade him. Meanwhile, Wurfel finds that Wayne resisted the drug. The billionaire once again threatens Katrin, causing the German to fly into a blind rage and attack him. Barely avoiding the barrage of attacks, Wayne escapes through a shiftdoor. Wurfel then decides to head to New York to check on his sister.

Al-Fayad and Kasparov have also also gone to the Big Apple. Fearing that cellphone calls might be traced, they decide on another method of communication. While the Iraqi man waits in a coffee shop in the SoHo, across the street, in a cyber cafe, the Russian sends an e-mail to a secret Planetary address asking for instructions on how to evade pursuit. Meanwhile, Wurfel arrives in New York, going straight to his sister's room in the Beth Israel Hospital. As he touches her, she glows blue and disappears. He realizes it was an illusion at the same time he looks through the window and sees another blue-glowing object -- a locomotive -- ram the hospital's wall, hit him full on and proceed through other walls until it has cleared the building. While falling amid the corpses of Beth Israel employees and patients, the teleporting teenager sees the lens-wielding man the field team fought at Yorushima flying towards him. Wurfel teleports to the roof of the hospital and then on top of the flying man, quickly disabling him with his Bleed blade. The German teleports back to the Beth Israel with the apparently unconscious foe. The man was faking his unconsciousness and uses the same trick he employed at Yorushima: he turns intangible and sinks through the floor. Wurfel has little time to worry about that, since above him he detects the telltale effects of a teleportation beam. A robotic figure materializes, identifies itself as Nimrod and orders the "unidentified posthuman" to stand down, because he is under arrest. Wurfel teleports down to the hospital.

Back in the SoHo, Kasparov finally gets a reply from Planetary instructing them to cross to New Jersey, where they will be picked up by a team that was dispatched as soon as the situation in Wayne Manor deteriorated. The team includes Magalhães and the recently-returned Farmer. As Al-Fayad sips his coffee, Jack Hawksmoor,a StormWatch agent, emerges from the floor next to him. Hawksmoor tells his former teammate to accompany him, but the Iraqi man is not ready to turn himself in. Al-Fayad takes off and flies high in the New York sky, attracting the attention of Nimrod, who has just lost Wurfel. A brief, but powerful battle, ensues and the ex-StormWatch is defeated. Falling on a random Midtown rooftop, Al-Fayad is quickly surrounded by a teleporting squad of Black Razors, the elite powersuit troopers of Internal Operations, an American government agency that deals with posthuman threats. Witnessing the air battle from New Jersey, Magalhães and Farmer decide to intervene. The Brazilian fly them to Manhattan, where, from a nearby rooftop, the Englishman uses his powerful Dim Mak attack to take Nimrod out. Further shots and Magalhães' magnetic abilities take care of the Black Razors. However, in the confusion, Hawksmoor emerges from the floor, grabs Al-Fayad and sinks again taking the Iraqi. They go to another location in the island, from where they are teleported to SkyWatch.

Wurfel, who also followed the posthuman commotion, meet up with Magalhães and Framer, and the three of them head to the Planetary vehicle in New Jersey. A short while later, Kasparov joins them and the group heads back to the secret base. At the StormWatch HQ, the Weatherman tries to convince Al-Fayad to reveal what is going on, but he refuses to say anything and is sent to the brig.

Jackson King finally convinces Al-Fayad to trust him and the Iraqi man reveals the truth about the Planetary Foundation and who is backing it. Meanwhile, at Planetary’s secret base, Luthor has decided it is time to eliminate the threat posed by the Conspiracy, since the capture of Al-Fayad may mean the end of his organization. Combining Wurfel’s sensory memory of the Conspiracy base’s bleed signature, Paulo Doherty’s reality manipulation power and a teleportation platform, the Fourth Man intends to send the field team in to destroy the base and capture – or even kill – the Conspiracy members. The preparations are interrupted when Lexcorp contacts Luthor and informs him that the Weatherman is requesting a meeting with him. Certain that Al-Fayad has betrayed him and time is of the essence, Luthor orders the group to go on with the mission while he flies to Metropolis to deal with Jackson.

An hour later, the field team is surprised by the news that Luthor’s private jet has crashed, killing all aboard. Unsure what their next course of action should be, the group is faced with a new surprise as the Planetary secret e-mail account receives a message. The writer states that they have a friend in common and the he wants to meet the field team at a specified set of coordinates in one hour. The message is signed ‘W.’ Wurfel believes the message was sent by the Weatherman and the group decides to meet him. Since the coordinates point to a place in orbit, they dress in space suits. Before leaving, the head technician warns the field team that using the teleportation platform may alert the Conspiracy about their location. Although the chance of detection is slim, it still exists – and increases with repeated use. Despite the danger, the field team carries on.

They materialize inside the cargo bay of a StormWatch shuttle. Jackson King and Al-Fayad are aboard. The Weatherman tells the field team that when Luthor’s plane crashed, the Iraqi man gave him the secret e-mail account so that he could contact them. King says he had suspicions of his own, but that he needs proof of what is going on – and that the Planetary Foundation is not a terrorist organization -- if he is going to help them. The field team, aware that they might have to bring the Weatherman around, had brought evidence of what the Conspiracy had been doing. The data and the field team’s testimony convince King and he releases Al-Fayad and offers StormWatch’s resources to help the field team. With that, the now complete field team beams back to its base for the final preparations for the mission.

When they arrive, John, the mysterious man the field team found in a bar in Rumania, approaches them. He tells the group that, thanks to Planetary’s psych team, he has finally remembered his past. He is John Storm and in 1961 he took part in a secret attempt to reach the Moon. Project Artemis, as it was known, was the brainchild of Storm’s future brother-in-law, Reed Richards. Aware that someone was trying to shut down the project and unable to know whom and get some answers, Richards decided on an audacious course of action. He convinced his childhood friend and war pilot Benjamin Grimm and his fiancé Susan Storm to help him hijack and take off in the Artemis rocket. John refused to stay behind while his sister put herself in danger and went along. The flight went well until they reached space where the insufficient shielding exposed the crew to cosmic rays. Out of control, the rocket plummeted to Earth, but Grimm miraculously managed an emergency landing. Getting out of the ship, the four soon realized something was wrong – they had been transformed: Susan was becoming transparent, Reed stretched, Grimm acquired a rocky hide and John burned up with a high fever. However, before they could do something about it, soothing grabbed Susan. She rose in the air while her captor became visible – a green man. He easily broke her neck and moved on to Reed and Grimm, also killing them without much effort. When the green man went after John, the horror of the situation made the young man lose control and he burst into flames, burning the green man, who shrieked and fled. John stayed on the site for a while in shock, but then realized he had to move or the green man would come back. He fled and had been fleeing for 40 years until the field team found him. He tells them that, after reading the Planetary files, he now knows it was the Conspiracy who tried to shut down Artemis and that the green man is the one they refer to as the German. He wants revenge and he asks to join them in the mission. The field team agrees

A short while later, as the group is about to initiate the mission, the base is rocked by a tremor, as if something is tunneling from the surface towards it. The field team realizes their location has been compromised and that the source of the tremor is probably the Orphan. They know they still have time to teleport to the Conspiracy base, but that would lead the technicians defenseless. Contacting King, the field team asks for his help and he immediately dispatches StormWatch Prime – Winter, Fuji and Hellstrike – to help the group. The UN agents teleport in as the field team – Al-Fayad, Farmer, Magalhães, Kasparov and Wurfel -- plus John Storm and Paulo Doherty, climbs on the platform. Just before leaving, Wurfel gives Winter a shard from the green stone they found in Rachel van Horn’s things, which is supposed to weaken the Orphan. As the group dematerializes, their last sight is of the Orphan breaching through the ceiling.

The group appears in a large corridor. To one side there is a very large window and beyond it the swirling crimson energies of what the field team will later learn is the Bleed, the interdimensional space between realities. Almost immediately, Wurfel is wracked by great pain and falls to the ground, seemingly changing into something else. Kasparov discovers there’s a living creature inside the German teenager and neutralizes it temporarily, allowing Wurfel to return to normal. Unable to explain what has happened, the field team decides to move on, but without Paulo who shifts back to Earth. Eventually, they find some sort of communications panel and find out they are aboard a massive vessel 80 miles long and 50 miles wide. They also locate the bridge, which they believe is their best chance of finding the Conspiracy. Suddenly, the panel is deactivated, leading the field team to believe their presence might have been discovered.

Meanwhile, Kasparov realizes the ship is sentient and contacts its mind. He learns that it is a shiftship, able to move between realities. The Carrier, as it is called, does not remember its previous existence because its black box was erased. Its earliest memory is of being found adrift in the Bleed by J’Onn J’Onnz, the green man from the Conspiracy. By melding with the Carrier, Kasparov earns its trust, but the shiftship is still loyal to the Conspiracy members and refuses to add the field team. The group moves on towards the bridge. After a while, they are attacked by J’Onnz, the lens-wielding man and a speedster. The fight is short but violent. Storm finally gets his revenge against the green man, who proves vulnerable to fire. Al-Fayad, seeing that his optic lasers are not penetrating the lensman’s force field, decides to change their frequency. Turning them red, he fires again and to his surprise bypasses the force field completely, killing the lens-wielding man. Wurfel immediately cuts the lens hand off the fallen man’s body to prevent his regeneration kicking in and keeps it. Farmer uses his entropic attacks to deal with the speedster.

Emboldened by its victory, the field team proceeds. A couple hours later, the group is crossing a 2-km bridge that stretches over a seemingly endless chasm. As they reach the middle of the bridge, it suddenly dematerializes, plunging the group into the chasm. At the same time, diving from way up high, comes the Orphan, sporting a few bruises; Nightwing, mounted on a fusion-powered sky cycle; and a warrior woman in a golden armor holding a sword and a shield. Wurfel engages Nightwing while Al-Fayad and Storm go for the Orphan, and Magalhães catches Farmer. The Orphan proves impervious to attacks until Farmer, propelled by the Brazilian’s magnetic powers fly up and shoots the Orphan with slivers of the green rock. Taking him out of the fight. Continuing upward, Farmer summons his Dim Mak power like never before and clashes with the warrior woman at the same time she swings her sword. The Englishman explodes the woman’s head, but is cleaved in half. With no time to mourn their fallen comrade the rest of the group concentrates on defeating Nightwing, but he proves a lot more difficult to put down. Even after Wurfel destroys the sky cycle, the leather-clad posthuman manages, with the help of a grapple gun, to grab the Orphan’s body and escape through a side door.

Pursuing Nightwing, the group arrives at a large room filled with Coda warriors – female assassins from a millennia-old cult led by Diana, the battle-clad woman that Farmer died killing – and Deep Ones, the fish men that controlled Happy Harbor. Beyond this massive force, on a balcony on the other side of the room, stands a Coda lieutenant, a Deep One sorcerer and Arthur Curry holding a high tech rifle. Wurfel teleports to the balcony and the others follow his lead, while Magalhães takes care of the massive force. The group gets rid of the lieutenant and the sorcerer, but not before Curry tries to hit Wurfel with rifle shots. The weapon fires coherent Bleed radiation beams that can do a lot of damage to the German boy’s Bleed-attuned physiology. Fortunately, Curry proves no match to the combined power of the field team.

Determined to end the confrontation once and for all, the group moves on to the bridge. As they close on it, they arrive at another great room, where they face Nightwing, who proves himself one of the most difficult Conspiracy members to defeat, although, in the end, he also succumbs. That is when, beyond a force field wall, the group spots Wayne III wearing a Bleed suit. He goes on to tell them how they remind him of Snow, his mentor, who believed that all the wonders ever held from humankind by the Watchers and others should be revealed. In the process, Wayne also reveals that he is actually the senior one – the one that was born in 1914. The billionaire tells them how his idea about the future of the knowledge held by the Watchers diverged from Snow’s. Wayne thought that their discoveries should be contained and only leaked to the world after they had thoroughly investigated them and ascertained that they posed no threat to the world.  The differences became so great that Wayne had no other option but to kill Snow and take control of the organization. His next step was raiding Wakanda for its advanced technology. Wayne even reveals he was the one who orchestrated the Miracle War and the creation of StormWatch in order to have a way to control the crescent posthuman population after the Comet Event.

Fed up with Wayne’s gloating, Wurfel teleports beyond the force field and attacks the billionaire, who defends himself and reminds the German that he has Wurfel’s sister, Katrin, in his power. Wurfel teleports back to his friends at the same time that Wayne activates a massive hull door that exposes the room to the Bleed. Knowing the radiation will kill them, the group leaves the room. Kasparov contacts the Carrier and asks where Katrin is. Aware that Wayne might try to escape, he also inquires about how he might do that. The ship informs him that Katrin is in the sickbay and that the junction room is the place that generates the shiftdoors. The group splits, leaving Kasparov and Storm at the junction room, while the rest head to the sickbay. Arriving there, the field team finds Katrin sedated and an autodoc repairing the also comatose Orphan’s body. They stop the process, killing their foe. Meanwhile, Kasparov and Storm are surprised by a flashbang grenade that knocks the Russian out and stuns the American long enough for Wayne to dash through the room and jump through a shiftdoor. Storm recovers quickly and follows the billionaire through the portal. When the rest of the field team gets to the junction room, Kasparov asks the Carrier where Wayne went, but the shiftship refuses to answer that out of loyalty to its old crew.

Having defeated the Conspiracy, the field team finds itself with a massive shiftship, insane amounts of information and technology and no consensus on how to use it. While they are discussing what to do, Al-Fayad decides to make use of the treatments available, repeating the same processes that were applied to Nightwing: injection with the super-soldier serum and cybernetic augmentation. For the next several days, the field team discusses not only their situation, but also their future plans. They finally settle on releasing the technology to the world in slow amounts through a new organization, the Monolith Foundation, that will direct this in order to accelerate ongoing research. They also decide to invite the Planetary Foundation’s old employees to relocate their activity to the Carrier.

Thus, the field team takes over the Conspiracy’s structure and uses it to do what Elijah Snow had always desired: make the world a finer place.