Avengers: The Initiative #29
Nightmares
Night Thrasher (Donyell Taylor) of the Avengers Resistance has been captured by Norman Osborn’s Initiative. Awakening in the lab of Baron Von Blitzschlag, Osborn and the Hood make him an offer: Join them and they will transfer the soul of his late brother (Dwayne) into a cloned body made from his remains.[1] Donyell isn’t interested in what the Hood’s magic can offer,[2] but Osborn points out that ever other attempt Night Thrasher has made to try and resurrect his brother have failed up to this point.[3] Norman tells Taylor that he either accepts them at their word or never get the chance to see his brother alive again. Donyell goes to the suspension tank containing the clone of his brother and ponders the offer.
Meanwhile, at the Heavy Hitters Hotel and Casino, Razor-Fist (Douglas Scott) is woken up in bed by Tigra (Greer Grant). Without his trademark weapons on, Scott tries to alert his roommate, Cutthroat (Daniel Leighton), but he was knocked out by Tigra before she woke up Razor-Fist. She demands to know where Norman Osborn took Night Thrasher, but Razor-Fist insists that he doesn’t know. That’s when the de-powered Melati Kusama (formerly known as Komodo) enters the room and tells Tigra that she saw Donyell in the Initiative’s lab when she was getting her powers taken away.[4] Tigra thanks Melati for the information and after tying up Razor-Fist and the others, is about to leave.[5] However, Melati refuses to let her go without tagging along as she wants to join the resistance. Hearing how they stripped Melati of her rank and powers, Tigra welcomes her to the team.
Back at Camp HAMMER, Trauma (Terrance Ward) is having another counseling session with Penance (Robbie Baldwin). He keeps on trying to get Robbie to stop focusing on remembering his past and instead focus on how he is being hailed as a hero after his part in stopping the Skrull invasion of Earth, and helping end a riot at Prison 42.[6] However, Baldwin can tell that Trauma is lying about something and angrily shatters the glass coffee table between them in a fit of rage. Terrance excuses himself, saying he’ll be back after finding someone to clean up the mess. In reality, he confronts Taskmaster and the Hood and tells them that he will not be manipulating Penance any further until they make good on their promise to cure his mother.[7] He then pushes the Hood too far by using his fear powers to take on the form of his dead mother.[8]
This angers Parker who is about to throw down until Taskmaser gets between them and talks everyone down. He tells Trauma to keep doing his job and within a week they will have something solid for him. Terrence uses this opportunity to get permission to get Penance a therapy animal. Taskmaster, agrees to let him do whatever he deems necessary. Once Ward is gone, he hopes that Parker has enough magic left to deal either come through on their promise or kill the kid. The Hood assures him he has everything under control and storms out of the room.[9] The Taskmaster isn’t so sure, because it feels like things are growing more out of control with each passing day.
Meanwhile, at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the Women Warriors — Diamondback (Rachel Leighton), Asp (Cleopatra Nefertiti), Black Mamba (Tanya Sealy), Quicksand, and Skein (Sybil Dorvak) — are in a battle against the terrorist group known as Radically Advanced Ideas in Destruction (RAID). The are assisted by Constrictor (Frank Schlichting) who wrangles a commercial airliner that is shot down, pulling his cybernetic limbs out of their sockets.[10] Not only does he save the life of Diamondback, but all of the passengers on board. In the aftermath of the battle, a young mother and her son thank him for saving the life of her husband. Seeing the young family together upsets Frank because it reminds him of how he abandoned his own daughter years ago.[11] When he confides in Diamondback about why he got so emotional, she thanks him for saving her life by kissing him.
By this time, Taskmaster is meeting with Cloud 9 (Abby Boylen) to reprimand her for not using lethal force when they apprehended Night Thrasher. After dismissing her, he reports back to Norman Osborn and airs his suspicion that Abby might be the mole feeding information to the Avengers Resistance. Osborn orders him to continue feeding Cloud 9 with bogus intel to ferret her out. He is also pleased that the Women Warrior’s mission is distracting media attention away from the defection of the Heavy Hitters.[12] With their leader, Prodigy, locked up in Prison 42, Norman orders him placed in solitary confinement until the public forgets all about him and they can torment him. The Taskmaster loves the way that Norman thinks, and Osborn admits that he enjoys Taskmaster’s unquestioning loyalty and promises a bright future ahead.
Meanwhile, Trauma has decided that Osborn and his people aren’t going to honor his deal. He gives Penance his support animal a cat that he instinctively calls Niels. Terrence then has Physique keep an eye on things because he is coming down with a migraine. Moments the alarm goes off, prompting Penance to be called into battle. Once he is let out of his cell, Niels the cat suddenly begins to glow.[13] Elsewhere in the facility, Hardball charges outside to see what’s going on, while Diamondback and Constrictor decide to ignore the alarm and stay in bed together. In another room, Butterball (Emery Schaub) sleeps through the emergency.
The attack on Camp HAMMER is being carried out by the Avengers Resistance, who have come to rescue Night Thrasher. Seeing this on the security monitors, the Hood tells Donyell that it is now time for him to earn what they have offered him by attacking his former teammates. Outside, Taskmaster orders Penance to attack the outlaws, but there is something about them that Robbie finds familiar.[14]
At that moment, Trauma returns to his room with a splitting headache. Suddenly, his body is possessed by his father, the dream demon Nightmare who is using the body of his son to break the barrier between the world of dreams and reality![15]
Recurring Characters
Initiative staff: Taskmaster, The Hood, Baron Von Blitzschlag, Physique, Trauma
Trainees/Hood’s Gang: Brother Grimm, Cutthroat, Razor-Fist, Scorcher
Graduates: Cloud 9, Hardball
HAMMER (Norman Osborn), Avengers Resistance (Justice, Gauntlet, Komodo, Night Thrasher, Rage, Scarlet Spider, Slapstick, Tigra, Ultragirl), Shadow Initiative (Constrictor, Badd Axe, Butterball, Penance, Ringer), Women Warriors (Diamondback, Asp, Black Mamba, Quicksand, Skein), RAID, Nightmare
Continuity Notes
At the time of this story, Dwayne Taylor (the original Night Thrasher) was believed to have died in the Stamford Disaster in Civil War #1. In reality, he was pulled forward in time by the Collector, as we’ll see in Contest of Champions (vol. 2) #5. Here, Baron Von Blitzschlag states that they got a DNA sample from Dwayne’s remains. So either they are lying, or Dwayne somehow left enough of his DNA behind to be cloned from.
It is mentioned here that the Hood was recently defeated by Doctor Voodoo and that he resurrected a bunch of villains to go after the Punisher. His defeat at the hands of Voodoo happened in New Avengers #54. Meanwhile, the Hood also resurrected villains killed by the Scourge of the Underworld to eliminate the Punisher. It doesn’t go too well, see Punisher (vol. 8) #1-6.
Dwayne tried to recover his brother’s remains in New Warriors (vol. 4) #14-15 but learned that SHIELD buried the remains. One could assume they misidentified someone else’s remains for Dwayne’s, but also “remains” is a pretty broad term when it comes to people who seemingly died in an explosion. Anyway, he also tried to alter history, accidentally creating a dystopian future for a hot minute as seen in New Warriors (vol. 4) #16-20.
Komodo had her powers taken away by SPIN Tech after she refused to continue serving on the Initiative after her ex-boyfriend Hardball was allowed back after defecting to Hydra. See Avengers: The Initiative Special #1 and issues #21-25 and last issue for all the drama around that.
It is mentioned here how Tigra previously beat the shit out of one of Brothers Grimm. That was in Avengers: The Initiative #26.
Lots to unpack about Penance here (see what I did there?):
Previously known as Speedball, he was one of the New Warriors who was involved in the Stamford Disaster in Civil War #1. At the time of this story, he is the only known survivor and was used as a scapegoat for the incident. After being dragged through the legal system, he took on the Penance persona to atone for his past mistakes, as seen in Civil War: Front Line #2-10.
Since then, he has undergone brainwashing to make him forget his past, as seen in Penance: Relentless #1-5.
More recently, he has been hailed as a hero after being involved in fighting back the Skrull invasion of Earth in Thunderbolts #122-125 and Secret Invasion #7-8. Not long after that, he helped quell a riot at Prison 42 in Avengers: The Initiative #27.
As revealed in Avengers: The Initiative Special #1, Trauma made his mother go insane by showing her her greatest fear. Osborn blackmailed Terrence to stay on the Initiative by both threatening to harm and offering to cure her in issue #25.
As seen in The Hood #1, Parker’s mother Eliza is living in a psychiatric home in a vegetative state.
At the time of this story, the Hood was depowered by Doctor Voodoo in the aforementioned New Avengers #54. He will later regain magical powers when Loki helps him obtain the Norn Stones in New Avengers #56.
The Constrictor lost his real arms battling the insane clone known as KIA in Avengers: The Initiative #10. He was later outfitted with new cybernetic limbs in issue #12. As of this writing (August, 2024), this remains Frank’s status quo.
Frank’s daughter Mia was abandoned when Frank (then a SHIELD agent) was sent on a mission to infiltrate the criminal Corporation. He suffered a mental breakdown which led to his becoming a villain, as explained in Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD (vol. 3) #36.
After having the criminal known as Boomerang placed on their team, the Heavy Hitters announced that they were breaking off from the Initiative. This caused Osborn to go down hard on them. However, the majority of the team were rescued by the Avengers Resistance. In order to allow his teammates to escape, Prodigy remained behind and was captured. This all happened last issue.
That’s because this cat is the one that Robbie owned way back when he first became Speedball. Niels the cat was bombarded with the same energy that gave Baldwin his powers, as seen in Speedball #1. Terrence clearly got the feline as an underhanded way of making Robbie remember who he really is.
That’s because a large number of the Avengers Underground is made up of former New Warriors, a group he was a founding member of as seen in New Warriors #1.
Nightmare’s relation to Trauma was revealed in Avengers: The Initiative Special #1.
