Endgame

The Thunderbolts have been exposed as former members of the Masters of Evil. Retreating to a space station in Earth orbit, Baron Zemo has now used a bio-modem to enslave the armies of the world to conquer the planet. Jolt, the team’s only non-supervillain, has convinced the rest of the Thunderbolts to turn against their leader. In the final battle it seemed as though the Thunderbolts were going to win when the Avengers and Fantastic Four arrived. However, they soon find out that they too have been enslaved by the bio-modem as well![1]

Stuck in a stand-still, Baron Zemo gloats about his impending victory. He decides that he is going to teach his team a lesson in obedience by shooting Jolt point blank in the face.[2] However, before Zemo can pull the trigger, Atlas swats him away because Jolt reminds him of his late sister.[3] The Thunderbolts use this opportunity to flee to another part of the station. Recovering from Atlas’ blow, Baron Zemo orders the Avengers and Fantastic Four to hunt down and kill the Thunderbolts.

The Human Torch and Quicksilver catch up to the Thunderbolts first as they are the fastest among the enslaved heroes. At first, the Thunderbolts are intimidated by the more seasoned heroes, but they soon discover that a side effect of Zemo’s bio-modem mind control is that it has dulled their reaction time. After they defeat the pair, they are attacked by Techno, who has merged his mechanical body to the entire space station making him able to attack them from literally anywhere.[4] The Thunderbolts manage to flee to the hangar bay where they steal one of the Avengers Quinjets to escape. However as they make their retreat, Techno (his face appearing on the surface of the space station) reminds them that Zemo has control of nearly half the planet below and the Quinjet only has so much air.

Effectively trapped, the Thunderbolts begin to panic about what to do next. That’s when Mach-1 remembers something he read in the Avengers files. He pilots the Quinjet to a satellite built by Egghead that the government had since converted into a weather monitoring station.[5] Since it is still in use, has air and supplies that will allow the team to regroup and figure out their next move. Jolt wants to start planning a counter attack but the others think that it would be a suicide mission. Hallie then reminds them that they all have friends and family that live down on the planet and that they will all be enslaved by Zemo if they don’t do something. This impassioned plea gets through to the others and they agree to try something.

This is good news to Iron Man who followed the Thunderbolts onto the space station. There is a brief battle between him and the Thunderbolts until the hero convinces them that his armor shielded him from Baron Zemo’s mental control and he was only posing as a loyal slave.[6] Although he is not a fan of the Thunderbolts, Iron Man knows that working with them is the only way he is going to be able to save the world. They all compare notes and determine that their first order of business is shutting down the bio-modem.[7] However, this will be difficult with Techno completely merged with the space station. However, Jolt has a plan but it will be risky.

Soon, Iron Man and Mach-1 are getting to work on a jamming device that will protect them from the bio-modem as well as allow them to shut the machine down. Both men commend each other on their engineering skills. This makes Abner wonder what will happen after this battle is over. He has grown to enjoy being a hero and doesn’t think he could go back to his criminal persona of the Beetle.

Elsewhere on the space station, the rest of the team have split up and are thinking about what the future holds for them. Songbird thinks of the battle ahead and is deeply afraid of the danger. However, she reminds herself that she used to be the fearless villain known as Screaming Mimi and a member of the Grapplers.[8] Atlas is thinking about all the people he has let down or betrayed over the years: His sister Lindy, Dallas Riordan, even Baron Zemo the man who saved his life. He is still plotting to work against Zemo. However, Erik decides that no matter what goes down he vows never to betray anyone ever again.[9] Jolt is struggling with the dualistic nature of the team. Although the Thunderbolts betrayed her trust they also brought saved her life and became a surrogate family of sorts. She also got to know them all and despite their duplicity she knows that there are good people inside them all. She now wonders how far she is willing to follow them when she has nowhere else to go.[10] Elsewhere, Meteorite is using her powers to not only repair but change her costume. This is to represent her new start and new possibilities. She is determined to salvage this situation to her benefit and know that the key to victory will come from both Jolt and Iron Man.

By this time, Iron Man and Mach-1 have completed their jamming device and the Thunderbolts begin preparing to return to Zemo’s space station.

There, Baron Zemo has a one-on-one and one sided conversation with the enthralled Captain America. Helmut admits that while he has came at Cap to avenge the death of his father, he knows that the hero was too much of a do gooder to actually be responsible, that Heinrich Zemo died by his own hands. Zemo now admits that when Captain America was reported dead following Onslaught it forced him to rethink his plans. For so long he pre-occupied himself with doing his father’s unfinished business rather than forging his own legacy and become the master of the entire world. A goal that he is nearly close to achieving with nearly 70% of the world now surrendering to him. He assures Captain America that he will die by his hands, but it will no longer be to avenge the death of Zemo’s father, but as a casting off of the past and embracing his future destiny.[11][12]

Zemo then orders Captain America to step through the airlock to die in the vacuum of space. However, that’s when he spots an Avengers Quinjet speeding toward his station through one of the port holes. This Quinjet — carrying Iron Man and the Thunderbolts — smashes through the space station’s bulkhead allowing them to get inside. There, Mach-1 activates the jammer device freeing the Avengers and Fantastic Four from the bio-modem’s control. However, rather than team up with the other groups, Iron Man convinces them that the Thunderbolts are still a threat, causing a massive brawl to break out in the middle of the space station. However, the idea of the Thunderbolts attacking in the face of impossible odds starts making everyone else suspicious. Iron Man was worried about this, but luckily, Techno starts spawning robotic drones to attack them, intensifying the battle to a degree where nobody has a chance to think about what’s really going on.

This entire time, Jolt has been jockeying with Quicksilver and manages finally outmaneuver the speedster. When Captain America arrives and tries barring her path, Iron Man pretends to accidentally shoot a “stray blast” their way in order to allow the youth to slip past Cap. Eventually, the odds start tipping out of the Thunderbolts favor. While Atlas manages to beat down Giant-Man, he is soon overpowered by the combined might of Thor and the Thing. Songbird tries getting through the Invisible Woman’s force field to stop Mister Fantastic from fiddling with some of the controls. Unfortunately, when Melissa witnesses Mach-1 getting taken down by the Scarlet Witch’s hex bolts, she starts to panic. Seeing that his uneasy allies are taking a drubbing, Iron Man decides to turn their attention away by asking for help against the endless sea of drones being produced by Techno. As they fight off this army of robots, Iron Man hopes that this gives Meteorite and Jolt enough time to do what they need to do.

Elsewhere on the station, Jolt heads down to the signal room in an effort to try and shut things down before Techno can relocate the device. In another part of the station, Meteorite tracks down Baron Zemo, unable to use his agony inducer against her this time, Zemo is entirely at her mercy. She begins pummeling Zemo out of revenge for forcing her into the Thunderbolts. All Karla wanted to do was to sever out her sentence at the Vault so she could leave with a clean slate and plot something under the radar. However, these hopes were all dashed when Zemo and the fledgling Thunderbolts broke her out.[13] Shattering his body with her blows, she mocks Zemo and his ambitions calling him as much as a failure as his father, the Nazis he supported, and Adolf Hitler himself.

Its by this point that Techno relocates the bio-modem then shifts his attention to helping Baron Zemo. Meteorite then uses her psychology skills to play into Techno’s insecurities. First by mocking his new robotic body for being incapable of enjoying the pleasures of having flesh and blood. She also accuses Techno of being nothing more than Zemo’s lackey and a minimal threat at least. This begins to work, however, as Techno’s ego is chipped away, Baron Zemo manages to slip away unseen. Seeing Techno losing his shit makes Mister Fantastic deduce what the Thunderbolts are up to and instructs the Human Torch and Iron Man to blast a hole into the facility to open up access to the space station’s power core. He then has the Scarlet Witch fire a hex bolt into the core, causing the space station to begin coming apart at the seams.

Elsewhere, Atlas is recovering from the beating he sustained and is found by Baron Zemo. With multiple broken bones Zemo pleads with Erik to help him escape, reminding Josten that he owes Zemo his life. Erik does help the Baron get to an escape pod but refuses to accompany him. He tells Zemo that they are now even and jettisons the escape pod. As the pod heads toward Earth it’s surface briefly takes on the form of Techno’s face as his mind is transferred to the escape pod remotely. Erik is soon found by the rest of the Thunderbolts who tell him that they have to abandon ship immediately. When Jolt asks what they should do about the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, Meteorite tells her to forget about them as they are skilled enough to escape the space station on their own.

Moments later, the station explodes and the other heroes are left stranded in space. Luckily, Mister Fantastic was able to stretch his body around them in an air-tight ball. However, there is only so much air and the pressure from the vacuum of space will push Reed Richards beyond his endurance. Luckily, the Thunderbolts have made their way back to the weather satellite and are quickly able to rescue the Avengers and FF from the void of space.

With the battle now over, the two teams of heroes try to figure out what to do about the Thunderbolts. While they acknowledge that they helped foil Zemo’s plans and liberate the world, they were the ones who assisted Zemo’s rise to power. The Wasp points out how many of them — as Masters of Evil — were responsible one of the most heinous attacks on the Avengers to date.[14] The Thing also reminds everyone that the Thunderbolts also blew up Four Freedoms Plaza.[15] Captain America says that the matter is out of their hands and they should leave it to the law to figure out what kind of punishment the Thunderbolts deserve.

Meteorite states on behalf of the team that they will surrender to the authorities once they are back on Earth. However, seconds later the entire team is teleported away to points unknown. While the Wasp thinks they escaped, Hawkeye points out they seemed about as shocked as everyone else. Thor wonders where the Thunderbolts have gone and if they will ever return.[16]

Recurring Characters

Thunderbolts (Meteorite, Atlas, Mach-1, Songbird, Jolt), Baron Zemo, Techno, Dallas Riordan, Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, Wasp, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver), Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing)

Continuity Notes

1. The Masters of Evil began masquerading as the Thunderbolts starting in Thunderbolts #1. Their true identities were exposed by Zemo in issue #10 once he had gathered everything he needed to take over the world. Jolt convinced the team to turn against Zemo last issue.

2. This is a technique used to demoralize resistance that Helmut learned from his father Heinrich in Thunderbolts #-1.

3. Atlas first told Hallie that she reminded him of his sister in Thunderbolts #4. In issue #10 we learned that Lindy Josten tragically died after getting hit by a car when she was still a kid.

4. Techno brags about his new body. After his neck was snapped by one of the Elements of Doom in Thunderbolts #7, his techpac copied a brain engram into a new machine body in the following issue. However, this is not the real Techno but rather just a copy of his mind. The real deal will be resurrected and resurface in Thunderbolts #49.

5. Egghead first put a satellite into the sky to try and ransom the world, but he was ultimately stopped by the Avengers as seen in Avengers #63-65 as part of a larger scheme that also took place in Sub-Mariner #14 and Captain Marvel #14. He mentions how it was converted into a weather station and that it still “gave the Avengers some trouble”. He is referring to the time that the station was taken over by the evil Weathermen in Avengers #210. Mach-1 also states here that he enjoys reading the file about the time he defeated Captain America as the Beetle. This is a somewhat coloured recollection of Avengers #28, during a period when the Beetle as an agent of the Collector.

6. Iron Man states that he developed a means for his armor to block attempts at controlling his armor or his mind, stating that this has happened too frequently to him of late. A footnote here references Avengers (vol. 3) #2 (when he was mentally controlled by Morgan le Fay) as the most recent. This is also a hint toward the revelation made in Avengers Forever #8, which reveals that Tony was mentally controlled during The Crossing event.

7. Songbird mentions how they stole the bio-modem from the Enclave. That happened in Spider-Man Team-Up #7.

8. As Screaming Mimi, Songbird was a member of the Grapplers, a group of all female wrestlers in the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation who also moonlighted as mercenaries for hire starting in Marvel Two-In-One #54. The group later drifted apart when their leader, Titania, was murdered by Scourge in Thing #33. Mimi later started working with Angar the Screamer starting in Avengers Spotlight #28 until Angar was seemingly killed in Thunderbolts Annual 1997 (he’ll be back in issue #49). Since joining up with the Thunderbolts, Melissa has been both insecure and frightened on missions. This moment is the start of a regression for her as she drifts back into her more aggressive Screaming Mimi persona. She’ll snap out of this by Thunderbolts #21.

9. Eric blames himself for Lindy’s death, as per Thunderbolts #10. Dallas Riordan was the Thunderbolts’ liaison to the mayor’s office starting in Thunderbolts #2. She and Josten hit it off an even went out on a date in issue #6. When he tried to apologize to her for betraying her trust last issue she was not having any of it. Baron Zemo rescued Atlas from the Kosmos dimension in Thunderbolts Annual 1997, ingratiating himself and securing Erik’s loyalty.

10. Over the course of Thunderbolts #1 through 4, Jolt was kidnapped, experimented upon, escaped, and helped the team bring down Arnim Zola with her newfound powers. Meteorite convinces Citizen V to let her join the team as it would increase their PR. This forced the Masters of Evil to pose as the Thunderbolts 24/7. Jolt was clueless to their duplicity until they were exposed in Thunderbolts #10.

11. Heinrich Zemo and Captain America’s antagony goes back to World War II ever since Cap caused Adhesive X to glue Zemo’s mask permanently to his face, as explained in Avengers #6. Zemo was also responsible for Cap being put in suspended animation from 1945 until the modern age, as seen in Avengers #4. When Cap returned, Zemo resumed his attacks on the hero. Ultimately, in their final battle Heinrich was caught in a rockslide of his own making, claiming his life in Avengers #15. Helmut first started coming at Captain America in Captain America #168.

12. At the time of this story, Captain America along with the Avengers and Fantastic Four were believed to have been killed in action in Onslaught: Marvel Universe #1. In truth, they were actually transported to a pocket dimension where they lived reimagined versions of their past lives. They were just recently fought and brought back to their proper reality in Heroes Reborn: The Return #1-4. The alleged death of the Avengers and the FF served as the catalyst for Zemo creating his whole Thunderbolts scheme as seen in Thunderbolts Annual 1997.

13. Baron Zemo broke Moonstone out of prison in Thunderbolts Annual 1997, much to her chagrin. She had no choice but to join up with him as surrendering herself back to the authorities would have meant a longer senteance.

14. The Wasp is referring to the siege on Avengers Mansion which saw Hercules and the Avengers butler Jarvis seriously beaten by the Masters of Evil. See Avengers #273-277.

15. The Thing mentions how the Thunderbolts blew up the FF’s old headquarters, the Four Freedoms Plaza. The Thunderbolts convinced Franklin Richards to let them set up shop in the then abandoned building in Thunderbolts #2. It was blown up in issue #10. The ruins of the building will be removed in Fantastic Four (vol. 3) #13 and a rebuilt Baxter Building put in the former lot in its place in issue #38 of that series.

16. As we’ll discover next two issues, the Thunderbolts had been kidnapped by the people of the Kosmos Dimension. The ruling class there believe that they are somehow involved with Kang the Conqueror who is destined to enslave their dimension to build his Growing Men. They have based this on the Thunderbolts’ battle with a Growing Man back in Thunderbolts #5.