Marvel's Avengers: Armageddon Reading List and Summary

Marvel has started their latest event book titled Avengers: Armageddon, featuring Marvel’s heavy hitters going against the Red Hulk and his army, who has effectively taken over. But I feel like fans glossed over the One World Under Doom storyline and subsequent books that came out connecting to Armageddon, so I’m making a post that tries to tell this story before Avengers: Armageddon # 1.

Will of Doom # 1

In this issue we see Red Hulk / Thunderbolt Ross getting rescued from Latveria after being a captive by Doom for a few months. Rulk and Reed Richards and The Thing find themselves defending the president in the White House against a rogue Doombot. Rulk ends up saving the POTUS.

That action earns him back the trust of the US government for Ross leading to the first steps to Armageddon.

Meanwhile Doom’s will left everything to his goddaughter and Reed Richard’s daughter Valeria Richards. She gives away most of billions but keeps Doom’s private island as well as his hidden Fantastic Four Doombots she plans to use in the future.

Chip Zdarsky’s Captain America (2025) #1 – 11

To further understand what’s happening in Armageddon, you also have to read up on the current volume of Captain America written by Chip Zdarsky which not only tells us what happened to Captain America, Steve Rogers in the first week since he was thawed out of the ice, but also introduced to a retconned replacement character named David Colton.

In the days after waking up from the ice, Steve Rogers passes up on joining the Avengers immediately and instead returns to the US Military and is welcomed by none other than Thunderbolt Ross who hasn’t been exposed to gamma radiation yet. In this retcon story, he is assigned to go to Latveria on a rescue mission while working together with Major Colton and the newest version of the Howling Commando.

In Latveria, the group connects with the Latverian rebels led by Marius Wolf who plans to outright fight Doctor Doom while Colton and the new Howling Commandos rescue the remaining US embassy people before they are killed by the Latverian army. Rogers joins Marius and sneak inside the palace where they eventually meet with Doctor Doom who tries to woo over Rogers but fails. Meanwhile, Colton is getting flashbacks about a botched mission in the Middle East that turns his life sideways. While Roges successfully defeats a powered Doombot, he is eventually taken down by an explosion while Colton suffers severe PTSD while on the field.

Doom starts a public execution for Marius Wolf but is foiled by Captain America, now up and running and wearing his classic uniform, which he got from Doom’s collection. Colton and his team discover the ten bodies of the US Embassy employees and decide to rescue the last two who have been sequestered to a nearby asylum. In the Asylum, Colton reaches the father and daughter but is shocked to see the father murdered in cold blood. So while Colton is fighting his former team, Captain America is fighting Doctor Doom one-on-one. He wins the fight by disabling Doom’s armor and removing his mask in front of his people.

After Doom’s defeat and Colton taking out his Howling Commando team, things are poised to settle down until David Colton reveals that he plans on murdering every member in the Latverian army base. Cap thinks that’s a bad idea and gives chase and the find end up fighting when Steve reaches the barracks.

The two Captain’s fight but ends with Chill shooting both Captain Americas and David Colton shielding Steve Rogers and taking a bullet that seemingly kills him. Before passing out Colton also reveals that the USA helped Doctor Doom in taking out the past regime and installed Victor Von Doom as the new leader.

Later and back in the states, Tony Stark pitches in in helping operate on David Colton’s heart and hearing the conversation between Ross and Captain America. Rogers wants to leave the military but Ross does not want that to happen. Stark threatens to retired and stop supplying weapons to the army forcing Ross’ hands.

For the second story arc of the current Captain America book, we get reintroduced to Nick Fury who returns along with SHIELD.

Fury asks Steve to join his operation in strip-mining Doom’s castle for weapons before it falls in the wrong hands. Steve declines and then gets offered a similar mission by General Thunderbolt Ross. After a quick conversation with Sharon Carter, Cap decides to join Fury and SHIELD. Two weeks later and after meeting his team, Steve drives into Latveria but encounters the Red Hulk. Before anything bad happens Fury appears and the red giant in line. Inside Latveria, Steve and his team encounters the man known as Salvation who is apparently Cap’s old friend Marius Wolf.

Cap teams up with Alina Von Doom and discover the mass grave that contains all of Wolf’s enemies, thereby making him the real bad guy in the story. Now after Captain America beats Salvation, he finds out a neat secret Doom left behind in Latveria. He left a teenage clone that was raised normally and with an upstanding and good moral background.

Young Victor also has a secret tech that could be used to take over the world or repair it also left behind by Doctor Doom before his death at the end of One World Under Doom. Young Victor makes a break for the city border because he wants to enact Doom’s plans now but he is quickly intercepted by Red Hulk who wants to kill him and take the Doom tech.

We also get to see the rest of Red Hulk’s Hulk squad who we also saw in Avengers: Armageddon.

Captain America tries to stop Red Hulk from killing Victor’s clone, but is badly injured.

Victor gets away free thanks to the last-minute save of Sam Wilson aka Captain America but the bag is left behind. Steve tries to run support but saves a kid from falling debris and when they start recovery, the team finds Steve Rogers comatose and badly injured.

Red Hulk getting this tech is the first win in his ideal of taking over the world.

Rulk also takes over Latveria, just like what he always wanted. Meanwhile Steve’s soul wakes up in hell, and Doctor Doom confronts him…

Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon # 1 – 4

The Wolverine miniseries is also written by Chip Zdarsky and focuses on Wolverine’s adventures leading up to Avengers: Armageddon. This is important because it explains how David Colton returns, why he’s extra powerful when he officially meets the Avengers and more. This also neatly ties up to the Ultimate Universe and the Origin Boxes concept they introduced there.

In this story, Wolverine is roped in to rescue a mutant boy by former mutant tracker Teri O Barnes. The same woman who marked Logan that night he was kidnapped by the CIA and handed to the Weapon X program. Teri is making ammends for her past which convinces Logan to help her.

The first stop is a Primewarrior facility that was bombed by a mystery bomber which eventually released the young mutant Tyler Tollins who was recently experimented. Logan and Teri learn about what happens to the mutant as well as the source of their power, a bunch of Origin Boxes from the Ultimate Universe brought back by Miles Morales to the 616. Logan and Teri escape and continue tracking the boy.

The crazed super soldier Nuke is tapped to hunt down Wolverine and the boy.

Wolverine eventually reaches a cabin which is owned by David Colton who is the mystery bomber. Colton bombed the facility and set Tyler free because he wants to stop governments from creating more Super Soldiers. Teri and Logan manage to convince Colton to work with them and get a fix on Tyler’s location.

Nuke tracks down Colton and Logan, guns down the cabin and bombs it, fatally injuring Teri in the process. Tyler reaches the PrimeWarrior headquarters and offers the Origin Boxes to PrimeWarrior’s CEO Pruit. Logan and Captain America reaches the PrimeWarrior office but encounter a hulking Nuke clone.

Wolverine and Colton take down Nuke clone which frees up Tyler who quickly disappears. Logan catches up and stops Tyler from killing the Primewarrior CEO.

Tyler doesnt kill the CEO but Nuke does. After that the rest of the Primewarrior clones attack Wolverine, Colton and Tyler which trickles out into the snowy fields outside. During the fight, Colton gets cornered by one of the clones and Wolverine tries to hand Colton the shield. Still unable to use the shield, Colton is shot by the mutates and everything goes black.

Wolverine is stunned and shocked at what happens to Colton. In his rush to save Colton’s life, Wolverine is forced to use one of the few Origin Boxes.

The next we see Wolverine in this miniseries, he is already preparing Tyler as he begins to live off the grid together with his parents. After sending him off, Logan goes to see how Colton is doing. We learn that Colton has survived thanks to Wolverine and the Origin Boxes. Not only is he alive, he can also fly but still chooses to live away from civilization.

So what happened to Colton really?

It was explained in “Weapons of Armageddon” that there were two people who have received the new Super Soldier Serum. Colton was the first one and the second one was a guy named Charles or Chuck. Before their mission, Chuck was already teasing Colton that he will be the new Capatin America while BColton will be the new Bucky.

During their mission, Chuck tries to apprehend one of the terrorists pushing his super-soldier serum-powered body to its limits.

Chuck exerts too much effort and collapses due to a heart attack caused by this new version of the Super Soldier Serum. You see, the drawback of this version is that when you use the enhancements, the serum enlarges your heart thereby killing you if you depend on the power too much. This explains David’s hesitation during combat or deployment. But since his heart has been replaced by a Repulsor heart thanks to Iron Man, he can pretty much use the powers as much as he wants. But he’s also emotionally damaged and this makes him doubt himself at every turn.

When we see David in Avengers Armageddon # 1, he’s already accustomed to his new powers, which makes him so powerful that he is able to kick Captain Marvel’s ass.