| The Presence attempts to kill the unconscious Quasar outright, but when Jack refuses to take part in murder, he blasts him instead. Then with a close-range blast to the temples he think Quasar is now dead. However Quasar recovers and quantum-jumps at the last possible second. Finding that the Presence is heading Earthward in one direction while the tethered refugee ships head into the atmosphere in another, threatening to burn up. He catches up with the ships as they enter Russian airspace and he renders them invisible to radar and plants them down in Siberia. Quasar questions the occupants of the ships and finds that despite their very alien appearances, in most cases, they are all very human. Eon alerts Quasar that he is under direct attack and Quasar is forced to leave them there. He radios ahead to the Fantastic Four, telling them that a couple of cosmic level menaces are breaking into a lower level of their building. The FF is able to capture the Starlight, and Quasar is able to arrive in time to protect Eon by trapping the Presence in the trackless Quantum-Zone. Feeling that he had saved his mentor from the âCosmic Assassinâ, Quasar decides it was time to celebrate. He instead finds the girl he was just starting a relationship with in the arms of his best friend, Makkari. He leaves the scene without a word to either of them. He travels to his fatherâs house and finds him dead on the kitchen floor. He learns to his shock that his father had been dead since Quasar was at the Strangerâs Lab world. Quasar fells betrayed. Eon chose to animate him because he was certain that the Cosmic Assassin had killed him to throw off Quasarâs mental stability, and Eon was not convinced that the Presence had been the threat that Quasar had been appointed to combat. Quasar quits as Protector and orders Eon to stay out of his life. |
