The Beyonder, fed up with being persecuted, decides to fight back. Marvel heroes witness the One from Beyond go beserk, as Molecule Man tries to locate the source of the Beyonder's rage. The origin of Beyonder-Realm revealed!
The Beyonder is back at Owen Reece's apartment, and he's frustrated by everything that's happened to him. He releases bolts of energy that blast through the cosmos, wrecking everything in their path. Owen tries to calm him down, fixing all the Beyonder's damage with a flick of his finger. Taking a cue from his own long-running therapy sessions, he asks the Beyonder to talk it out, starting with his "childhood." Still sitting on a couch and easy chair, they go to the Beyond-realm. To help show Owen what it was like when he first discovered the rest of the universe, he recreates the pinhole portal that leads to our reality, exactly as he first saw it. When Owen looks through, he sees himself, at the moment he got his own powers! The accident that made him the Molecule Man is what made the Beyonder aware of our own universe, and thus started the entire subsequent sequence of events!
The Beyonder's ego is a bit bruised by this revelation, but he continues on with Reece's therapy session. They talk about what he has learned since coming to Earth, which in hindsight looks like a series of failures. His anger increases.
When they return, and Owen reassures Marsha that everything is fine, the Beyonder snaps back that if he's unhappy, then nothing is fine, because everything in the universe is what it is just because he wills it to be like that. He believes fulfillment is impossible. Owen counters that he is fulfilled in his life with Marsha. Perhaps the Beyonder might try a more vulnerable, everyday existence, like Owen's life? The Beyonder rejects this idea and says he's coming back in 24 hours to destroy everything.
He goes off to a hotel and spends the night with a random waitress whose mind he controls, an act more befitting his more immature, wastrel period, before he met Dazzler. He is regressing to a more emotional, self-absorbed personality. He starts an earthquake just to show off to the waitress.
The X-Men, who happen to be in town, attack him because of the earthquake. Most of them he dispatches without effort. Rachel Summers, however, strikes him with the full power of the Phoenix force, making an enormous Phoenix silhouette rise above the city. Even this, however, doesn't phase the Beyonder, and he stops her. Then he realizes that this whole attack is his fault, for starting the earthquake, and he leaves.
Owen and Marsha are watching via Owen's powers, and become even more afraid. Owen creates a shield around their suburb of Denver, hoping that when the Beyonder destroys everything else, they will be protected. But the Beyonder sees it and shatters it without effort. Even if Owen wants to be more active in stopping the Beyonder, what can he do? The Molecule Man next tries to absorb all the ambient energy in the universe, in the hopes that it will be enough to fight the Beyonder, but it is still not enough.
The Beyonder seeks out the Hulk, to learn about coping with infinite rage, but when he finds him, he realizes just how ugly rage can be, and it makes him uncomfortable about himself. The he looks for Peter Parker, with whom he has had a good relationship. Peter talks about what it's like to confront mortality when one knows that each moment could be your last. The Beyonder is still angry, but says that Peter may have talked him out of destroying everything.
Unfortunately, he is once again attacked, this time by the New Mutants, at the urging of Rachel. He knocks them aside without a pause in his step.
The Molecule Man is still searching for a solution. Perhaps they can make a smaller dome and hide in the Beyond-realm? But Marsha gets tired of Owen's passive, fear-driven ways: she wants him to make a stand--and he doesn't, she has a secret plan of her own.
Sitting atop a mountain watching a sunset, the Beyonder decides to apologize to Owen and see what he can do to be more like him. But when he shows up at their apartment, the Molecule Man is ready, and he blasts him several times, to Marsha's encouragement. The blasts seem to actually have an effect for once; the Beyonder says one of them could have slagged several billion entire dimensions. But he is still well enough to fight back, and is about to kill him, when Marsha suddenly grovels at his feet, begging for her own life, saying that Owen is a worm compared to the Beyonder. She runs out the door, and Owie collapses in pain and confusion. The Beyonder is so cheered up by seeing the formerly satisfied Reece crushed to such an extent by such a simple event, that he decides to put off the end of the universe for a while longer.
Outside, Marsha drives away, crying. She was just play-acting the whole time, in order to buy some time. She hates to hurt Owie, but doesn't know what else to do.
The Beyonder realized this the whole time, however, which just added to his enjoyment of the situation. However, in an example of very bad timing on their part, the Avengers approach him as he sits atop a mountaintop, and a very angry Beyonder decides to toy with them, leading into the events in Avengers 265.
The story then continues in New Mutants #37, Amazing Spider-Man #274, Uncanny X-Men #203, and Fantastic Four #288.
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