THE SPRAWLING ICE SHEETS OF GREENLAND STRETCHED for miles in every direction, white upon white, as far as the eye could see. Its absence of color was one of the country’s most startling attributes, here at the top of the world, where the aberrant weather and the isolation had driven many a pilot or explorer to the brink of insanity. The constancy of the ice and the absence of color created feelings of both vertigo and confusion. From every direction the view looked the same, causing many to lose their bearings — and their minds. Victor Von Doom knew this, had read the many accounts of academic experiments gone wrong here. So he had come prepared.

Victor swung his helicopter to the right, surveying the endless expanse of white, the sun fueling a reflective glare that could easily blind him. The view shield to the copter had been fitted with a special tint that defrayed most of the glare, making his passage easier. The craft was also outfitted with the latest GPS technology and satellite direction, thereby reducing his chances of becoming lost. Victor had been asleep in that crate for who knew how long, and he didn’t welcome the idea of another unexpected nap, deep in the ice.

Victor adjusted his coordinates and slowed his speed. He scratched an itch on the side of his burned and damaged face, wincing at the pain. He feared his face was beyond repair, another lingering effect of the cosmic storm that had irrevocably changed his life, so he left it open to the elements. The infamous family faceplate remained in his laboratory in Latveria. This mission requires a bit more finesse, he thought, even with the backup firepower he carried to make sure his brute strength was more than understood. He pulled his green cowl up over his head against the dipping temperatures of the barren landscape.

Overhead, one of his sensors blinked a warning red, the quiet beeping filling the cockpit. “There you are,” he said, adjusting his flight path accordingly. It felt good to be back on the hunt.

The wide, opaque glacier pointed like a finger from the Earth to the sky. It was the highest peak in the surrounding area of this frozen wasteland, its base sometimes obscured by the gusty winds and ice flurries common to the region. In the middle of the ice sheet sat a deep crater. There was no residual debris to suggest the crater was the work of an asteroid hitting the Earth, and the surrounding ice showed no signs of deep impact. The crater was perfectly round and smooth, its flawless walls glistening silver, leading down deep from the face of the ice sheets. A glow rose from the crater, bathing it in a light that was clearly not of this world.

Inside the crater, the alien being rotated on his board, his hands outstretched. The mere motion of his hand turned the earthen walls into the smooth, silvery material, reinforcing the crater and rounding it in its luminescence. The being’s face was passive, stoic, unaffected by his task and almost robotic in its execution.

Victor Von Doom exited his sleek helicopter just a few feet from the glowing crater. He walked carefully toward it, his long green cowl blowing behind him in the icy wind. The alien paused and turned his head, as if listening for something. He began to rise, the board effortlessly taking its rider out of the deep crater to the surface of the ice above.

Victor shielded his eyes, shards of ice from the alien’s exit flying at him like broken glass, his powerful metallic arms keeping him safe. He stared at the alien, fascinated. Its long, sleek body seemed to be made entirely of a silver alloy. The radiant glow seemed to come from within him, not relying on the sun for the reflection of light. It glistened with power, standing sturdy atop his flying board. Victor was almost humbled. He doesn’t look that different from me, Victor thought. The alien, too, seemed confused by the similarity and stood motionless, hanging in the air.

Victor turned his gaze from the alien to the crater he had just made. “Don’t tell me,” he said mockingly, his scarred face even more twisted as he tried to smile. “It’s the world’s biggest barbecue pit.”

The alien remained still, staring impassively at Victor. His face showed neither acknowledgment nor concern.

“No?” Victor continued. “Honestly, I don’t really care what it is. I came here to make you an offer. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Victor said the last words slowly, as if speaking to a child.

The alien nodded his head.

Victor smiled. He could communicate with this thing. Good, he thought. Let’s hope it understands the universal language of power. “Together, we could be unstoppable. Anything would be ours for the taking!” Victor clenched his fist by his side, his metallic hand closing, an expression of his power. He stared at the alien, waiting for an answer to his offer. He knew that with this being at his side, it would be only a matter of time before the entire world would be squirming under his foot. He could at last begin to take back everything he’d lost.

The alien continued to hover in the air. Nothing about the appearance of Victor or his offer caused a change: His body, his face, his physical language were silent, stoic, unaltered. Without any change in expression, the alien started to speak. His voice carried a slight tremble and an otherworldly depth.

“All that you know is at an end.”

Victor stared at the alien’s face, a blank silver slate. He was unable to read it. “What do you mean by that?” Victor asked. He was prepared for violence if, indeed, that was a threat.

The alien raised his hand and made a simple hand gesture. As if on cue, the ice sheet beneath Victor cracked like glass and broke away. Victor stumbled on the hard ice, into the small valley made by the alien. The silent silver being started to move away.

“Wait!” Victor shouted, recovering from the fall and shaking ice from his metallic arms.

The silver being ignored Victor, continuing to move away.

Victor’s patience was at an end. Alien or not, nothing in this world or any other ignored him. “I said wait!” he bellowed, unleashing a torrent of electricity from his hands toward the being. The fingers of power reflected in the ice sheets below as they staggered and danced all over the alien’s body. The powerful glare from the blast covered them both, blinding Victor for just an instant.

He recovered his sight to see the alien hovering as before, unaffected by Victor’s powerful blast. His stoic silver face showed no sign of pain or concern.

Victor experienced a moment of panic. The charge he’d hit the creature with could have leveled a building. What the hell am I dealing with? he thought.

The alien raised a hand. Victor felt a tugging deep inside him, as if something was trying to claw its way out of his body. He clutched his chest, metal hitting metal, as his legs began to shiver and shake. The last thing he saw was an endless expanse of white: either the sky or the ground, or the distant horizon beyond. Victor was pulled apart into billions of tiny particles of matter. It happened so quickly that he did not feel a thing. The alien kept the particles floating there above the ice, the last remnants of Victor Von Doom, hovering like fireflies. With another flick of his hand, the alien sent them sailing away upon the icy wind like so many motes of dust.

The particles continued flying on the air and went sailing through a wall of solid ice, far away from the alien’s crater, into a cave. The darkness inside the cave was not helped by the presence of thick walls of ice surrounding its exterior that only reflected light away from the cold, dank space. The particles entered the cave and hovered, as if shivering in the cold. One by one they slowly gathered together, reforming the person of Victor Von Doom. Victor, reassembled, fell to the floor of the cave. He clutched his stomach and tried to retch into the cold, dark ice but nothing came. He breathed deeply and quickly, trying to calm his quaking mind, his rage balanced only by a small sense of awe at the power of the silver being.

“Aliens,” Victor said, spitting the word out like a curse. He dragged his body up from the ice floor, limping slightly, staggering to find an exit. His metallic body moved slowly, but his mind was a flurry of activity. If this silver being could rip him apart with one slight gesture, Victor realized, he needed to use more than brute strength to stop him. Yes, he thought, he would need something a bit more cerebral. Which meant it was time to pay a visit to some old friends.