File:Marvel Team-Up Vol 1 55 001.jpg

Description
As the missile rises into the upper atmosphere, the air starts to leak out of the unsealed compartment containing Spider-Man. Still stunned from having been thrown into the rocket by an exploding atomic cannon, Spider-Man partially regains consciousness. But the tremendous acceleration, together with the growing lack of air, causes him to hallucinate, and loved ones and various criminals that he has battled seem to swarm around him as he tries to clear his head. On the ground far below, in the New Mexican desert, the Hulk watches the rocket disappear and then bounds away into the mountains to rest. Woodgod also watches the missile, and he leaves Tranquility Base determined to hunt "Scream." When he finds it, he vows, he will destroy it and mankind along with it. Consciousness fully returns to Spider-Man, but the force of the rocket's acceleration keeps Spider-Man pinned down. As he feels the air getting thinner, he realizes that he will almost certainly die. But as the rocket reaches escape velocity, a shimmering aura approaches it from somewhere in space. Then, when the apparition is moving alongside the rocket, it suddenly transforms into the gigantic figure of Adam Warlock. Warlock senses someone alive, though just barely, inside the projectile, and he realizes that if he is to save whoever it is; he will have to act at once. He recalls that when he was last in the solar system, something made it seem as though the atoms of his body had drifted very far apart, so that he was billions of miles tall. But now, apparently because he has warped through space several times, he has grown smaller, and he is only slightly larger than the rocket. Using the power of his Soul-Gem, Warlock teleports himself and the rocket to the Blue Area on the moon, the nearest place where there is oxygen for the person inside the spaceship to breathe. Microseconds later, Warlock arrives a few hundred feet above a lush lunar garden. Then, carefully concentrating, he uses his Soul-Gem to reassemble the molecular structure of the spaceship and set it somewhat less than gently on the ground. As a side-effect of this feat of teleportation, he finds himself reduced to normal human size. He is disappointed that he could not bring the spacecraft in more gently, and he muses that his Soul-Gem seemed to obey an outside command rather than him. Fortunately, the rocket is not badly damaged, and a hatch opens part way and then gets stuck. Concluding that the mechanisms were fused by the heat of the launching, Warlock tears the hatch off with his hands and enters. There he meets Spider-Man, who is most grateful for the rescue and is most surprised to find that they are on the moon. Warlock does not know why this region of the moon happens to have an atmosphere, but Spider-Man explains that this is the residence of the Watcher. Then Spider-Man asks Warlock whether he can send him home. Instead of answering, Warlock suddenly starts to concentrate, because he feels his Soul-Gem pulse with approaching danger. Then a huge hand reaches out for him. It belongs to the giant being known as the Stranger, and in thunderous tones he announces that he has come to remove the Soul-Gem from Warlock's brow. He has already acquired one such gem, he continues, but now he wants them all. Warlock strikes the hand with an energy bolt from his Soul-Gem, but the Stranger's Soul-Gem completely enfolds Warlock with its own energy. The gem that Warlock wears is one of six, says the Stranger, and its power must belong to him. Spider-Man is surprised and bewildered by this turn of events. Unable to think of anything else to do, he covers the Stranger's face with webbing. Annoyed, the Stranger cleans the substance from his face, but Spider-Man web-Swings up on the Stranger's fist and punches his nose with all his might. Now thoroughly irritated, the Stranger increases his size and grabs Spider-Man with his giant hand. Then he contemptuously pitches the crimefighter into the surrounding garden. Spider-Man tries to catch one of the plants with his webbing, but the branch breaks, and he heads for a bone-crushing meeting with the ground. But Just as he is about to hit, one of the plants reaches out and catches him. The impact knocks the wind out of Spider-Man, and the plant lowers him gently to the ground. Then other plants position themselves beneath his unconscious body to form a comfortable bed. So Spider-Man slumbers, unaware of the figure that watches over him. Meanwhile, the Stranger demands that Warlock hand over his Soul-Gem, but Warlock replies that to surrender the gem is to die, because his life force is bound to it. The Stranger then tries to overcome Warlock with the power of his own Soul Gem, but Warlock uses his to counteract it. Warlock wonders whether the Stranger plans some scheme of intergalactic conquest when he gains a second Soul-Gem, but the Stranger replies that he answers to no one and needs to explain nothing. Then the Stranger causes the chunk of ground on which they are standing to rise from the lunar surface. He commands cosmic forces far beyond Warlock's ken, he says arrogantly, and he will destroy him. Then the chunk of rock explodes in an intensely brilliant white flash, leaving Warlock to plummet toward the lunar surface. As he strikes the atmosphere above the Blue Area, his body burns with the heat of re-entry, and then he slams into the ground. A few seconds later, the Stranger's face appears in a reddish-orange glow above Warlock. He says that he demolecularized himself when he exploded the moon chunk around them as they battled. Then, he continues to gloat, he reassembled himself safely while Warlock fell. So saying, the Stranger prepares to remove Warlock's Soul-Gem. When Spider-Man regains consciousness, he sees a tall, bearded figure before him, standing among several peculiar animals. The figure introduces himself as the Gardener, and he confirms that Spider-Man is in the Blue Area of the Moon. As he and Spider-Man walk through the garden, he relates how he used the oxygenated atmosphere to grow the plants they see around them. It was all barren until he arrived, he says. Then he recalls how, after he planted the garden and made it a haven of life and peace, the Stranger arrived, searching for something. Spider-Man replies that the Stranger is looking for a certain gem that Warlock wears on his forehead. But the Gardener says that that is none of his concern. All he cares for is his garden and peace. Suddenly, much to Spider-Man's surprise, the Gardener vanishes. As Spider-Man web-swings away, he thinks he must be in some kind of hallucinatory dream. That would explain why trees move and why air exists on the moon, he says to himself. But then his web-swinging brings him to a clearing in the garden, where he sees the unconscious form of Warlock held vertically within a circular arrangement of machines. In front of Warlock stands the Stranger. The field created by his stasis arcs will hold Warlock immobile long enough for him to remove the Soul-Gem, he says. Spider-Man quickly places a fresh web-fluid cartridge in his web-shooter and rapidly covers the Stranger in webbing. The Stranger is surprised to find Spider-Man still alive, but he quickly increases his size and bursts out of the webbing. Infuriated, the Stranger tries to obliterate Spider-Man with energy bolts, but Spider-Man nimbly keeps out of the way. As the battle continues, the Gardener comes to a decision. He could have let the Stranger simply take Warlock's Soul-Gem and depart, which would have left him and his garden in peace. The Gardener has masked the power emanations that initially drew the Stranger to his garden. Those emanations came not from the Warlock's Soul-Gem but from the one the Gardener himself wears. The Gardener realizes that if he does nothing he would most likely be safe, but he also realizes that he cannot let someone else die. Thus he begins to exert his power, and suddenly the vegetation of the garden twines around the Stranger's legs. Annoyed by this new delay, the Stranger hurls energy bolts at the plants, and each time he attacks, the Gardener feels the pain. The Gardener's voice then speaks telepathically to the Stranger, defying him and denying him what he seeks. When the rocks of the garden fling themselves at the Stranger, Spider-Man realizes that the Gardener must have joined the battle. Spider-Man tries to free Warlock, but when he touches the stasis arcs, a burst of energy throws him a dozen yards away. Then he picks up a large boulder to throw at the machines, but the Stranger shatters it with an energy bolt. Fortunately, after it passes through the rock, the bolt strikes the stasis machine, and Warlock breaks free. Then the Gardener approaches, saying he must pool his power with Warlock's to repel the Stranger. Thus the green glow of Warlock's Soul-Gem soon merges with the red glow of the Gardener's Soul-Gem to force the yellow glow of the Stranger's Soul-Gem back at him. The Stranger screams in agony. For this, he promises, he will destroy Warlock and the Gardener slowly. But then he remembers that his mission on Earth is too urgent for him to continue the battle, and he changes into a yellow aura that vanishes from sight. Warlock announces that the Stranger is defeated. Spider-Man then asks the Gardener why his garden just seemed to shrivel up and die, and the Gardener explains that the garden was a creation of his Soul-Gem. Now that his gem has been corrupted by battle, never again will its power make green things grow. It is merely a weapon now, he says. Then he says that he must go on to other, perhaps greener, worlds and start again. So saying, he vanishes in a burst of light. Warlock wipes a tear from his eye and tells Spider-Man that he was on his way to a world called Counter-Earth, on the other side of the sun. But he promises to make a detour to drop Spider-Man off at his home planet, and suddenly both of them are gone. And so the Blue Area of the moon lies silent once more, while on the surface, where the garden once was, lies a silver, egg-shaped object awaiting the right moment to open.