Nomad (vol. 2) #22
American Dreamers Part 1: Weapons Masters
Maximillian Zaran, the self-proclaimed weapons master, is running through a training regimen. He has been hired to eliminate Jack Monroe, aka Nomad. As he goes through the motions he wonders if Nomad will recognize how much Zaran loves to hunt down and kill a target.[1]
Meanwhile, Andrea Sterman is continuing her long running investigation into Jack Monroe. This has taken her back to the basement archives at the Capitol Building in Washington. Going through some McCarthy Committee records that have been forgotten for decades. Its here that she uncovers classified records about a Nazi ring that was exposed in Iowa. However, the faces of all the arrested individuals and their children have been redacted, making it impossible for her to identify who they might all be. She is soon joined by SHIELD agent Jack Norris who asks if there has been any progress.[2] She says that everything she uncovers just creates more questions and she is no closer to figuring out why people in the government want to see Jack Monroe dead.[3]
While in Clutier, Iowa, Bucky’s mother enters a local diner and orders something to eat. That’s when one of the local men comes up to her to flirt with her because she is wearing sunglasses inside. She takes them off, revealing that she has a black eye and says an abusive boyfriend gave it to her before she left him, implying that he was Black. The man, a racist, buys into this story and when she puts a hand on his lab he gives her a business card for an organization he works for. He tells her to call that number if she wants some help with her problem, saying that he and his friends can show her why white means right. Turns out, this is exactly what Bucky’s mother was hoping to achieve and begins plotting her infiltration scheme.[4]
In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Nomad has spent the past few days working as a groundskeeper at a local golf course. As he is working, Zaran throws a golf ball at him with enough speed to be deadly. Luckily, Jack hears the ball coming and is able to catch it before it can strike. Thinking nothing of it, Monroe returns to his hotel room at the end of his shift. As he is getting out of the shower he is ambushed by Zaran who shoots him with a drug tipped arrow that causes Nomad to pass out.
When he wakes up again, Jack is fully clothed and has been brought to a warehouse. There, Zaran ambushes him and Jack finds himself fighting for his life. The master assassin has also rigged the room with a bunch of death traps, making the battle a difficult one. Zaran refuses to reveal the identity of his employer, but brags about how he turned down the opportunity to use the super-soldier gun to eliminate his target. Zaran thought such a weapon would make things too easy and not worth a man of his skill. Ultimately, Nomad manages to overpower Zaran and wrap him up in a factory winch-system and threatens to pull him apart if he doesn’t talk. At first, Zaran refuses until he is subjected to the winch’s pulley system. It is agonizing and eventually he cracks, claiming at Giscard Epurer was the one who hired him. Unaware that this was a lie, Jack leaves the warehouse wondering why the favor broker is messing with his life again.
Meanwhile, Jack Norris meets with FBI agent Vernon Hatchway at a bar in the Georgetown district of Washington, DC. This meeting is in secret so Jack can talk to Vernon about the sanction order on Jack Monroe. Hatchway is a fan of Jack Monroe and agrees to use his FBI resources to find out why the government is so intent on killing him.[5]
A few blocks away, Giscard Epurer meets with a government official who owes him a favor and he has come to call on the marker. She gives him a letter from a third party trying to gain traction in the next federal election. It discusses individuals that should be considered as Vice Presidential nominees. The top of the list is Senator Bart Ingrid. Reading this, Giscard decides to order some champaign as he owes her big time for this favor.
Recurring Characters
Nomad, Zaran, Jack Norris, Andrea Sterman, Vernon Hatchway, Giscard Epurer, Bucky’s mother
Continuity Notes
Zaran was hired to eliminate Nomad by Bart Ingrid as seen in Nomad (vol. 2) #18.
Here, Andrea Sterman states that, in the 1950s, the government was trying to create anti-communist superheroes. That’s actually not correct at all. As explained in Captain America #155, the government considered the idea in 1953 when William Burnside came to them with the uncovered Super Soldier formula and demanded he become the next Captain America. However, they decided against it after pulling out of the Korean War. Burnside then recruited Jack and used the formula on themselves so they could operate as Captain America and Bucky anyway. The formula, however, was imperfect and the pair became increasingly paranoid and violent to the point that the government had to put them in suspended animation where they remained for decades before being thawed out in the present day.
The person who wants Nomad dead and why within the government is quite complicated. Allow me to explain:
Initially, the Commission on Superhuman Affairs wanted to go after Nomad after he screwed up their development of a new super-soldier gun in Nomad #1-4.
However, they kind of stopped actively pursuing him Dead Man’s Hand Event in Daredevil 307-309, Punisher War Journal #45-47, and Nomad (vol. 2) #4-6.
Bart Ingrid was revealed to be behind the development of the gun in Nomad (vol. 2) #13. As stated above, he is the one who is still trying to kill Nomad.
The reason is because both Monroe and Ingrid’s parents were Nazi sympathizers, the ones that Andrea finds the photo of. Maintaining his family’s fascist ideals, Bart is secretly funding a Neo-Nazi organization and wants to kill Jack to get revenge on him for ratting out their parents. See Nomad (vol. 2) #18-19 and 23-24.
How Ingrid could still be an active Senator in the Modern Age will become difficult to explain without some method of expanding his lifespan due to the Sliding Timescale. Unfortunately, Marvel (as of this writing in October, 2022) has not provided an official explanation for this. I posit a theory in my summary of Nomad (vol. 2) #15.
Bucky’s mother was enlisted by Giscard Epurer to get compromising information on Bart Ingrid back in Nomad (vol. 2) #20. To ensure her compliance he took Bucky away from her. Epurer has been investigating Ingrid since Nomad (vol. 2) #18. This woman is never identified by name and as of this writing (October, 2022) she has yet to be identified.
Hatchway mentions how he has encountered Nomad twice. The first was when they worked together to stop a Gambit doppelganger’s murder spree at LAX in Nomad (vol. 2) #7. The second was when both men were on opposite sides of a dispute over opening a casino on a Cheyenne reservation in Arizona in Nomad (vol. 2) #10.
Topical References
Andrea Sterman is depicted smoking while indoors at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. This should be considered topical as indoor smoking has been banned in all federal buildings since 1997.
When Zaran throws a golf ball at Jack he refers to the person who hit it as a “Strom Thurmond-wanna-be”. At the time this story was written Strom Thurmond was a member of the United States Senate for the State of South Carolina. A position he held until shortly before his death in 2003. He was the oldest living Senator to serve in the US government. I guess he was big into golf? I Googled it and didn’t find much. His political career is way to long and boring for me to get into here but he was a Republican who has a history of scandals so you draw your own lines here.
The warehouse Jack was brought to is identified as a UNICEF food relief distribution center. This should be considered a topical reference since UNICEF is a real world organization.
The United We Stand letter is dated September 14, 1993 and states that it is naming a potential Vice Presidential candidate for the 1996 election. United We Stand was the citizen action organization formed by Texas businessman Ross Perot that was formed after he lost the 1992 US election as a third party candidate. Capturing 18.9% of the popular vote he sought to boost his popularity. It was eventually renamed the Reform Party of the United States of America in 1995 and would run third party candidates in state and federal elections. In the 96 election they only managed to get 8.4% and since then have barely managed to get more than 1%. At any rate, references to United We Stand, and the dates in question should be considered topical.