Faced with a number of multiversal groups also trying to survive the incursion crisis - the faceless sorcerers the Black Priests, the adaptoid robots the Mapmakers, and the mysterious Ivory Kings - the Illuminati built a device to allow them to view other Earths' pasts so they could see how incursions there were handled. They learned about Mapmakers and Black Priests, but also discovered that the Black Swan had teamed up with alternate Illuminati groups in the past, and had even killed alternate versions of Iron Man and Reed Richards when they were no longer useful. Just before the team could confront Black Swan about her deception, another incursion occurred, this time pitting the Illuminati against the Great Society, a team of heroes which, like the Illuminati, had thus far fought off incursions to save its world.