Marvel originally contracted Busiek and Pacheco to produce a series called Avengers: World in Chains, but it was too similar to another project (presumably Mutant X) and was canceled by the company.

[1] Immortus sends his servant Tempus to kill an apparently critically ill Rick Jones, the possessor of the "Destiny Force", a powerful ability used during the Kree–Skrull War storyline.

The team consists of a disillusioned Captain America, who is pulled from an adventure in which he discovers a high-ranking government official is the leader of the Secret Empire;[3] Yellowjacket from a time when he is mentally unbalanced and unaware that he is Hank Pym;[4] Hawkeye from just after the conclusion of the Kree–Skrull War and war against Olympus;[5] Giant-Man (also Hank Pym) and Wasp from the present;[6] Songbird from an unspecified time in the near future; and Captain Marvel from further in the future.

Kang aids the Avengers as part of his 'rebellion' against his apparent destiny, and reveals that Immortus serves a trio of entities called the Time Keepers, with his previous interactions with the team having been motivated by an effort to keep humanity limited to prevent them from developing into a threat to the universe.

These entities eventually reveal that, in various futures, mankind will travel into space and establish the warlike Terran Empire, an interstellar dictatorship policed by the Galactic Avengers Battalion and ruled by humans with access to the Destiny Force, which will thrive at the cost of many alien cultures.