Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Up in the air Songbird fights Angar the Screamer/Scream. Songbird tries to do something to stop him but after the Thunderbolts fight with Graviton last issue Angar gets the best of her. He takes the sound from her wings and with her sonic carapace damaged she plummets to the earth. She lands in a creek and is carried downstream until she manages to pull herself out. She looks up into the sky to find a S.H.I.E.L.D. aerial craft trying to stop Angar.
Songbird thinks about to the Thunderbolts fight with Graviton and after had collapsed on the ground Angar's form came from the cybernetic enhancements in her throat.
She looks back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. unsuccessfully attacking Angar as she starts to make her way back to the scene of the battle.
Flashback of Screaming Mimi and Angar running from a bank robbery and then Angar discovering he's been shot. Mimi screams and Zemo and Fixer later arrive in a skimmer craft. Fixer takes Angar's body examining it and at Zemo's Central American lab performs an autopsy on the body. Having removed Angar's larynx he shows Zemo through other technology how Angars powers worked. Pink energy waves come of device while the Fixer is showing Zemo who is intrigued.
Flashback to Scourge watching the Commission on Superhuman Activities remove everything from Zemo's Central American lab. Among the items in the lab is the Bio-modem as well as Angar's larynx attached to equipment.
Flashback to Warton and CSA technicians operating on the equipment attached to Angar's larynx and then releasing Angar/Scream now under their control. Then another flashback of Scream looking back at Melissa who is with Abe as the Beetle and Scream leave to go back to Mt. Charteris.
Songbird arrives where S.H.I.E.L.D. is and holds her hands up in the air in surrender. She is surrounded by agents and then led into a S.H.I.E.L.D. troop transport. Inside she meets Radek and then looks at a monitor screen that shows the battle with Angar who is destroying S.H.I.E.L.D. crafts with sound.
Songbird has an idea and motions to Radek. He takes out a computer pad and stylus. They communicate by writing words, and drawing pictures. Radek offers the helps of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who are studying Songbird's carapace blueprints. They remove her carapace and start working on it and adding things to it. After they are finished she rides a hover platform with two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, now with her improved carapace that will stop Angar.
Once the hover platform is close to Angar, Songbird screams, the sound is pulled towards Angar. He tries to absorb it and a feedback loop is caused. Angar's form is twisted as it is pulled in another direction; drawing more and more until Angar is no longer visible then the carapace explodes and the hover platform loses its balance. Songbird falls from the sky leaving a trail of pink energy. As she tries to recover she looks up into the sky and sees a 'thank you' written in the sky in pink energy. Songbird gets up from the ground picks up the carapace, puts it over her head, and smashes it to the ground, finally crushing it under her heel, her plan successful and completed.
Elsewhere, a foot grinds a bird into the dirt. Mach-3, Jolt, Moonstone, and Dallas/Atlas lie motionless on the ground as shadows approach them. Fixer awakens while his tech pack repairs his body and he hears the click of a gun. Standing in front of him is a group of people that look similar to others, like Baron Heinrich Zemo, Iron Cross, Moonstone, and three others.
Comments: This month is the silent issue with a focus on Songbird, resolution of the Scream plot and the return of Bagley for a month as the artist.
Like most of the silent issues I've read so far this month this was a good issue, although it was the noisiest silent issue I've read so far. Other silent issues had a few cheats with a note, or computer screens with text. This one has much the same but with added sound effects all the way through, and a couple word balloons with simple things like 'ahh'.
Bagley's return on Silent month couldn't be any better, if there was a month for him to return this was the one. Plenty of artwork that's barely covered with no caption boxes or dialogue balloons. I like Zircher's regular work on the title but he can't compare to Bagley's work this month. The choice of panels and different angles, and those standard clouds that he draws with so much detail to them I picked out right away. I also like the fact the Songbird is the focus since she's drawn great and more like how I like to see her, the facial features, and the hair particularly. Finally that establishing shot at the end was a treat, Baron Heinrich Zemo done by Bagley one last time.
The silence doesn't really hinder the issue as scream drawing all the sound out of Burton Canyon works perfectly. It’s a planned for silence so it's not like people are walking around not talking when they usually should be. That said there were plenty of flash backs this month and it seemed to take longer to get anywhere. Without words it takes longer for things to be established and some things to be resolved. There wasn't as many things crammed into this issue as there has been in past issues. It’s a nice break though from the pace of the title and the flashbacks provided do reveal stuff, and the Songbird focus is nice.
The resolution to the Scream plot was interesting. Songbird sort of kills Angar in a way, if not kills; since he's not exactly human he certainly disappears for good. I wonder how Hawkeye would have had the Thunderbolts deal with this situation since he is so against killing. Angar wanted to die but that's still could be looked at as an excuse, and Radek went along with the plan as well since S.H.I.E.L.D. was proving ineffective against Angar. I think it will be a while before Hawkeye even finds out about this though, and even when/if he does I don't expect it to be raised as a big problem, maybe to raise his anger but he's got much bigger problems to deal with what Moonstone did on Kosmos. That's a much bigger deal.
With the script printed in the back of the issue there's some added insight and plot details, I always like extras. I didn't expect to see little sketches either since the other titles didn't have them so that was a plus. Comparing where they were followed and where they were improved. Its fascinating behind the scenes stuff, there was a shortening of Angar's message in the sky, but probably the most interesting detail was the mention of the Bio Modem in Zemo's lab. I don't think I would have picked this out if I had not read the script. Somehow this is supposed tie into the Zemo/Watkins explanation. Perhaps the Bio modem helped the process along.
The issue ends on another cliffhanger from whatever place the Thunderbolts have come too. Within the span of a year the guessing begins again just who these people are. Introducing more variants, whose visual appearances give some clues. I just hope if the Thunderbolts have ended up on Doom world the story will be better than the one that happened after issue fifty for the title is on an upswing. Will this be another team of Thunderbolts/Redeemers, there seems to be enough counterparts, with a male Moonstone, a Jolt, a tech person, an Atlas/Mach-3 combination in the Iron Cross look a like. There's enough mystery that I can't wait to get to, plus some more regular sub plots next month.
Thunderbolts and all associated characters are the property of MARVEL COMICS TM&©2003.