Writer: Fabian Nicieza
The Thunderbolts arrive in the Canadian Rockies an hour later. Moonstone says that there is no way that Captain America's psychological profile would have let him do what Scourge did so Moonstone finds and breaks the holographic disguise. Underneath the disguise Scourge is revealed as Nomad.
At Mt. Charteris Director Sharon Carter tells G.W. Bridge that the base is being turned over to the CSA. Ogre hears this information as well and attends to the mutant within his containment chamber.
Meanwhile at the CSA Superhuman training centre the redeemers continue with their training. Where another member is introduced as Scream who is in combat with Meteorite. The Beetle says that the CSA offered the Redeemers pardons if they put on the costumes but nothing was said about what they have to do to earn the names. Warton arrives and informs Citizen V that the last member is awake and ready to make a deal.
In Symkaria the V-battalion has brought Andrea Sterman to the Penance Council so she help them convince Dr. Valerie Cooper of the conspiracy within the CSA.
Back with the Thunderbolts, they find out that Nomad literally can't tell them the information they need to know because of Scourge's armor that Nomad is wearing and the nanoprobes that are in his body. Nomad knows everything he is doing and might be able to influence his actions on how to carry things out but otherwise he's under control and can't stop what he is doing.
Mach-2 figures out the frequency wavelength that the nanoprobes are working on and frees Nomad from their control. Nomad then relays the story of what happened to him. About how someone stole the chamber he was recovering in and then put the nanoprobes in his system and made him into an assassin. He was self aware as Scourge to make him more fluid as an assassin. Nomad was told about his targets the Thunderbolts and was taken to a weapons depot that had gathered many weapons from super villains over the years that Nomad would use as Scourge.
Meanwhile Andrea Sterman is explaining the same story to Valerie Cooper and talks about the deal with Roxxon, hard air bullets, and the Alpha-32/Omega-32 projects.
Nomad went through many weeks of training to become Scourge. Since Nomad had a choice in what weapon he could use to kill Jolt, he choose Hard air bullets to show a deeper conspiracy going on.
The V-battalion explains to Valerie Cooper that their man within the CSA confirmed what Andrea Sterman said. Their operative within the CSA was Miles Warton; he was in the mayor's office. He found out of CSA's scrub of Baron Zemo's castle that had dead cloned bodies that were destroyed, and a vegetative sentient body. With these discoveries the V-battalion went into action and created the Redeemers to stop the conspiracy.
Valerie Cooper asks why the convoluted approach to eliminate the Thunderbolts. One of the V-battalion answers that the one behind the operation wanted to keep it quiet for professional reasons and wanted to cause as much pain to the team as they could.
The Thunderbolts ask Nomad who did this and he tells them it was Henry Peter Gyrich and the reason he did it was because he could. Killing the Thunderbolts was only part of his plan, that would include killing every superhuman on earth. With what Nomad has seen Gyrich is just about ready to start doing that.
The Thunderbolts decide to attack CSA headquarters to prove to everyone involved with the whole conspiracy how wrong they are, to save lives, and to help the Thunderbolts cause. Nomad hears of their plan and decides to go along was well.
The V-battalion finish their story to Valerie Cooper by saying that when they heard of Gyrich's plans they wanted Citizen V to assassinate Gyrich but Citizen V refused, which lead the V-battalion to use their contingency plan creating the Redeemers.
Back with the Redeemers their last member is introduced.
"I'd like you all to meet the last redeemer -- P.Norbert Ebersol, once better known as -- the Fixer."
Comments: Explanations indeed! Everything you ever wanted to know about the Scourge plot is revealed this issue and I was impressed. It all held together and things fit rather well given the clues presented in previous issues.
First the art this issue without Bagley was very good and solid work, better than the other fill in issue by Zircher. Avoiding the mistake of making the first page and the next few uninteresting like the last fill in, but then he didn't have to draw Techno's lab this time either. The first page was just fantastic with Charcoal's giant hand coming down upon Hawkeye to crush him. Had me thinking there goes Hawkeye the Thunderbolts are going to kill/injury him now for lying to them. So with issue I'm looking forward to Zircher taking over as regular penciller after #50.
With Hawkeye trying to explain himself to the Thunderbolts it looks like Hawkeye will be all right and stay with the team at least for now. The Thunderbolts are a better off team because of him and they don't need him as much as they used to but until they are fully accepted and reformed it would probably be a good idea to have Hawkeye around. It does seem like more of the conversation gets pushed aside in favour of the Scourge revelation in the Canadian Rockies though. Perhaps the Thunderbolts will talk it over more with Hawkeye in the coming issues.
Scourge's identity didn't come as that much of a shock, but given the clues and speculation I didn't expect it too. The real secrets and fun stuff would be seeing everything pieced together.
With Ogre and his containment chamber in the Mt.Charteris and finding out that in the containment chamber it's a mutant, it's probably someone from some old x-men issue or something similar, much like where Ogre was taken from and brought into the title.
The team of the redeemers has me really intrigued now and really looking forward to seeing more of them. They are just like another Thunderbolts team only developed through different means, and mirror the Thunderbolts. Hard air is still being put to use with Meteorite. A pink creature on the team turns out to be scream, which is the strangest member to me. Then with the Fixer introduced on the last page, it looks like the "Bring back Human Techno" campaign still has life in it for a moment longer again. With a vegetative sentient body that was recovered from Baron Zemo's castle I wonder if this was Techno's old human body. It says that the clones of Zemo were promptly destroyed but nothing about the other body. Either that its robotic Techno as the Fixer but I doubt that. Maybe it's another ruse like the Contest of Champions II with Forge looking like Techno.
The CSA has nice double standards with giving the redeemers a pardon but not the Thunderbolts. Of course I kind of expect to CSA to promise it and then never deliver much like they like they did to Abe. I guess it's also all right for the CSA to grant pardons if it works to their agenda only as well too, they are corrupt.
The whole conspiracy explanation was well done and helped fill in on what I didn't know about Nomad. Alternating between the V-battalion and Nomad telling basically the same story was good showing events spiralling forward from two different directions that will eventually confront each other again.
Henry Gyrich as the mastermind of this whole plot seemed like one of those far off possibilities to me. Hawkeye's comment "Gyrich was always a jerk, but not a psychopath!" is exactly what I was thinking. That has me still wondering if he is the real boss behind everything. A line seems to have been crossed with the character now that he has started waging a real war on the super human community. I can see plenty more stories coming out in later years about more aggressive attacks by Gyrich upon super heroes. After his scheme is stopped in #50 what will happen to Gyrich? Thrown in jail, or maybe he will be protected by some friends in the government. It seems like there will be no turning back for the character now that he is doing this. Maybe Gyrich has had a story like this in the past and recovered and it didn't affect the character that much and Gyrich can return to his old jerk, hating superheroes role. Another interesting note is that Gyrich as the mastermind means that he encountered Hawkeye after he had Scourge kill Jolt. Gyrich must have been fuming even more than normal about the whole situation with the Beetle.
I like Hawkeye's uneasiness when trying to talk about the goal of redemption. After lying to them and then having to deal with at the beginning of the issue. He should be stumbling over his words when using the word 'our' and then saying 'your' since they the Thunderbolts are the ones really trying to redeem themselves not Hawkeye.
The scene with the Thunderbolts deciding to break into CSA headquarters reminded me of when the Thunderbolts went after the Crimson Cowl's Masters of Evil before #25. The team was unsteady ground then but wanted to show the Masters of Evil who was the boss and push back. This time Hawkeye leads the Thunderbolts, a bit on unsteady ground with Nomad, to stop Gyrich's plans.
Finally with Charcoal making a joke about waiting for the first time he gets killed is how this title seems sometimes. While the people that got in Scourge's way that were not super heroes are still dead, it seems like very few issues someone is returning from the grave. Atlas is still coming back some time in the future and who knows if Baron Zemo will show up in a few years as well. The deaths seemed to have stopped but if this avenue is going to be used again many have already died to make it a less dramatic the next time, and the selection of Thunderbolts for their first deaths has been narrowed. I'd rather not see first deaths, second deaths, and then third deaths it can become rather pointless.
Plenty of plots covered this issue but there's still enough around and a few hanging around from more than a few issues back so it looks like that will carry the title forward. I'm really looking forward to the fifth issue and how this whole scourge storyline will wrap up and send things off in a new direction.
Thunderbolts and all associated characters are the property of MARVEL COMICS TM&©2003.