They were separated by the forcefield that the Zodiac'd thrown over Manhattan.

The teenage Tony Stark opened a temporary hole in the barrier, spending the last power in his life-preserving chestplate to do so. Some innocent people inside got out, and all the Avengers outside got in.

Tony was saved from death, thanks to Hank Pym; the forcefield was saved from death, thanks to that.

Quicksilver went looking for the base in Manhattan the Zodiac almost certainly had to have; he found it.





" Light! "

The Zodiacs who'd seen it opened fire.

Cap blocked the bullets with his shield, explicitly telling his comrades that they'd been spotted.



" - we're taking back the ship! "

They shortly met resistance of a different rank- the self-proclaimed general of the Zodiac, Libra, who said that they could call him that..



(I love how his demonstrated abilities don't require the art to particularly stretch itself.)



Libra was then taken by surprise.



(It's a good thing all that shrapnel is flying away from his exposed parts.)



Libra cleared his side of the board..



.. and walked away, promising another game.

(It never happened- Heroes Reborn ended this Avengers run before it could.

Kurt Busiek and George Perez's following run did have a Zodiac story in the planning, but it never came off- first because of Steve Seagle and Duncan Rouleau's Alpha Flight doing its own Zodiac, and then because of things related to Maximum Security.

It's no matter, anyway- that run ended up tying off another dangling thread and its mildly visually interesting Avengers-beating villain, with Madame Masque and the tentacled stealth operative Benedict.

Oh yeah, pagecount- 7 of 21 from Avengers #396. Writing's Terry Kavanagh.)