Once it arrived at the Earth, Brainiac began to implement its usual program of delusional destruction, but this time it was confronted by a force powerful enough to soundly defeat it. The heroes of the Earth, including the Cholonu men called Zero Man, stuck at Brainiac from both without and within, and finally ended its threat to the civilizations of the galaxy.

    During the battle, however, Brainiac encountered Zero Man and, still confident in its deluded vision of itself as a preserver of knowledge and civilization, remarked on how valuable Zero Man was to it. And why.

    Once Brainiac has been dealt with, Zero Man went off alone to think very hard about the mad computer’s ravings. Was he  really the last of the Cholonu? How could that be true? What could possibly have happened while he had been away? He had to know.

    He had to return home.

    Although Zero Man now possessed the ability to survive in a vacuum and even propel himself at velocities beyond the speed of light, Cholonu was still far distant from Earth. Located on the other side of the galaxy, it would take Zero Man several years to reach his home world on his own.

    Luckily, a human colleague of Zero Man, a prominent human scientist—perhaps their greatest—named Reed Richards, who had worked closely with Zero Man on several occasions in the service of earth’s fledgling space exploration program, had independently created a rudimentary, yet powerful, hyperdrive and was organizing an expedition to field test it. Richards calculated that his experimental starship, called the Argo, could transverse the distance to Cholonu in mere days, instead of years. He offered Zero Man a place in his expedition, and Zero Man eagerly agreed.

    The other members of the expedition were the ship’s human pilot, Alex Ryan, who as a human female could only pursue her dream of space flight in the more enlightened atmosphere of Reed Richard’s private organization; the metahuman Simon Williams (called Wonder Man), whose extreme sturdiness, ability to function unprotected in space, enhanced strength, and other abilities made him an ideal choice to help provide protection for the expedition; and the ship’s main computer, the faintly humorous artificial intelligence prototype dubbed H.E.R.B.I.E.

    Departing Earth, the crew of the Argo encountered many of the problems typical of a race’s first steps into the unknown. For example, while the ship’s star drive worked well, the ship’s inertial dampeners were in need of refinement. A more dangerous hazard developed when one of the ship’s fuel injectors became stuck, feeding an uncontrolled flow of drive plasma into the engine’s reaction chamber. The Argo accelerated out-of-control, requiring a dangerous EVA repair even as the ship started to breach the highest levels of hyperspace. While Wonder Man made the repairs, the ship passed through a powerful field of cosmic rays at very high speed, exciting the rays even further. Wonder Man was almost blasted off the side of this ship by the force of the rays, but the more interesting reaction occurred inside, where Alex Ryan was rendered unconscious.

    Suddenly without a pilot, the Argo careened wildly. Luckily, Wonder Man completed his repairs, allowing the ship to decelerate safely back into normal space. Bringing the ship to a complete stop near an asteroid field, Wonder Man and Zero Man then tended to the unconscious Alex Ryan. She soon revived and seemed none the worse for wear, although she felt very odd, her first indication that her exposure to cosmic rays had radically changed her being that she could now see the complete electromagnetic spectrum.

    After a check of the ship, the expedition decided it was best if they again got underway. As they prepared to leave, however, the crew noticed angry flashes from the nearby asteroid field. Investigating further, they saw that another spacecraft was being attacked by an automated missile battery located deep inside it. The small alien spacecraft was already heavily damaged and listing into the field, as another volley of missiles converged on it.

    With no regard for their own safety, Wonder Man, Zero Man and Ryan at the control of the Argo, swung into action, engaging the missile battery. Although the Argo was damaged during the battle, the missile battery was soon destroyed and the other ship rescued. While the alien ship had been utterly wreaked, its single inhabitant was alive and well, and the Argo soon made contact with him.

    I must admit some affinity for this being, as he, too, has a special calling that pulls him into the unknown. He is a member of a mysterious race called the Noirmer, who live on a nondescript world at the very edge of the galaxy. For cultural reasons, the Noirmer never leave their planet.

    The Noirmer that the Argo soon brought on board, however, was the one exception. He was The Traveler, whose duty was nothing less than to represent the Noirmer in all ways throughout greater galactic society. He was the their diplomat, their explorer, their merchant, and whatever else that was needed. His unique form housed within a robotic encounter suit to help facilitate communication with the mostly humanoid races of the galaxy, he possessed the sum knowledge of all the other Traveler’s who had come before him, and now his path took him to the peace conference on Dressilus, certainly one of the most historic events the galaxy would ever see.

    Communicating with the earth expedition through telepathy, Traveler explained to them the importance of his mission and of the conference. Zero Man inquired if the Traveler knew anything of his race, the Cholonu, but the Traveler had heard little, save that the mighty Warpsmiths had just stopped short of obliterating the Cholonu's masters, the K’te.

    Realizing that the Traveler’s knowledge could be invaluable in transversing the war-torn galaxy, the crew of the Argo offered to take the Traveler to Dressilus after they went to Cholonu. The Traveler was quite grateful and immediately proved his usefulness by helping to diagnose the nature of Alex Ryan’s cellular alternation, which was also  causing her weakness, and warning the crew that the asteroid missile base has probably been a Skrull trap laid for Kree military convoys headed into a nearby sector still hotly contested by both races; a sector the Argo’s current course to Cholonu would take them straight through.

    Realizing that they would need to avoid the sector, Zero Man somewhat presumptively took over the navigation station and began plotting a new course to Cholonu. Being somewhat territorial and definitely protective of her role as ship’s pilot, Alex Ryan had previously warned the crew repeatedly that they were not to sit in her chair at the command console. As Zero Man again ignored her, Alex Ryan simply glared silently at him. She was quite surprised a moment later when two golden beams of light shot from her eyes and blasted Zero Man across the bulkhead. Zero Man was unharmed, but never again sat in her chair.

    And with that, the Argo was again underway, none of the souls in that small ship having any conception of the magnitude of the events they would soon be at the heart of.