These issues comprise a 2-part “Road to Civil War” story. The team go to Oklahoma, where Thor’s hammer has fallen from the sky and created a huge crater. They find a fleet of Doombots there.

They all fight.

After the ‘bots are destroyed, the real Doom appears. When we last saw him, he was in Hell. How did he get out? If you didn’t remember where Doom was for the last bit (I had forgotten), you also may not remember that all of Asgard was destroyed. Turns out, when Asgard blew up, Thor’s hammer fell and the destruction of Asgard shook across many dimensions, including Hell. Doom saw the hammer fall and magically “grabbed it” as it passed through on its way to Midgard.

Thus, the villain and the hammer came to Earth together. I love that JMS undid both the deaths of Thor and Doom in one fell swoop and did it in a really creative and different way.

After he reclaimed his place in Latveria, Doom noticed the crater in Oklahoma and sent his army of Doombots to clear the way for him.

Then, after fighting off the Fantastic Four himself, Doom goes to lift the hammer and finds he cannot.

As an epilogue, a man with a duffel bag and the initials “DB” buys a bus ticket to Oklahoma.

Despite the tags on the cover, this really is much more a “road to JMS’s epic run on Thor” than a Civil War tie-in.