Matters of Gravity

In an attempt to prove to the world that they reformed, the Thunderbolts have travelled to Wyoming to stop the rampaging Hulk.[1] However, after a brief battle they discover that they aren’t fighting the Hulk at all, but a life like robot. Worse, the robot is able to absorb energy, making many of the Thunderbolts’ powerless against the robot monster. To make matters worse, the Lightning Rods arrive on the scene to deal with the Hulk as well. They are annoyed to see the Thunderbolts already on the scene especially after they were defeated by them recently.[1]

While Moonstone is distracted by the Lightning Rods, the Hulk robot leaps up into the air and grabs her and starts painfully extracting energy from her body. Suddenly, the Hulk robot explodes from an overload and from its remains the villain Graviton appears, finally free from his eternal prison.

As it turns out, the Hulk robot and it’s intended goal — to pull Graviton from his dimensional prison — were all the work of Baron Zemo. Working from his castle in Mexico with Techno, the pair sent the robot as part of a revenge plot to destroy the Thunderbolts. As Zemo gloats over his impending victory, Techno is ambushed from behind by an unknown attacker, rendering his robotic body incapacitated. When Zemo turns to face the intruder he is shocked to discover it is Citizen V, the hero he posed as when he led the Thunderbolts.

While in Madison, Wisconsin, Erik Josten — aka Atlas — had gotten his brother to a hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound. Unfortunately, he was too late and Carl died in surgery. Erik blames himself as his family fell apart after he ran away from home and became a super-villain.[3] As he vows that he will stop running from his responsibilities in life he overhears a news report about the Thunderbolts battle in Wyoming and knows what to do.

Back in Wyoming, the Lightning Rods foolishly try to attack Graviton head on, but they are no match for his power over gravity. Songbird — who has regressed into her aggressive Screaming Mimi persona — also unwisely tries to attack him that way next. Mach-1 then swoops in to protect her from flying debris, damaging the wing of his body armor in the process.[4] Moonstone tries sneaking up on Graviton by phasing through the ground, but the villain can detect her presence and increases her mass so she fall through the ground once more. Jolt attacks next, but he takes her down in mere moments. Seeing all the defeated heroes at his feet, Graviton revels in his victory.

While in Mexico, Baron Zemo is locked in a sword fight with the new Citizen V. They claim to be the grandson of the original Citizen V. Something that Zemo believes to be impossible due to the fact that when his father killed the original hero during World War II, he had no known offspring.[5]

Back in Wyoming, Graviton — aka Frank Hall — is still gloating over his victory and thinks back to how his life had dramatically changed over the years since the scientific accident that gave him his powers. Over the years he has fought the likes of the Avengers, the Thing, and Spider-Man, among others. However, his most recent defeat came when the Vision phased into his body and made his body diamond hard. The sudden change in density caused Graviton to collapse upon himself like a star turning into a black hole.[6] Hall found himself in on an alien world in a micro-dimension. The citizens that lived there were primitives he called the Ptah due to the fact that this was the only sound they could make. They worshiped him like a god and so he ruled over them for a time, having them harvest materials he could use to try and escape that dimension. However, he didn’t have the scientific knowledge to build a device to do that so instead he built a signal beacon in the hopes someone on Earth will detect it and bring him back home. Luckily, someone did and brought him back to Earth.

Now, with the Thunderbolts and Lightning Rods pinned down by extreme gravity, Graviton promises they will be but the first to die by his hands before he tracks down his past foes and eliminates them as well. That’s when a man jumps out of a passing plane and when Graviton sees him, instinctively increases their gravity. This turns out to be a big mistake as the person is question is Atlas, who uses his size changing powers to grow in size, landing on Graviton with crushing force. When Graviton uses his powers to push the hero off him it weakens his hold on the others, allowing them to get free.

Since brute force hasn’t helped them in their battle against Graviton, Moonstone decides to use a psychological approach against their foe. She asks Frank what his plans are once he has destroyed his foes. This would only bring him more grief as other teams of heroes step up when the others fails and then what? She points out that he lacks any ambition and has no vision of what he wants to do.[7] This gambit pays off and Graviton takes off to figure out what his goals are, but vows that he’ll be back to deal with the Thunderbolts once he figures things out. While the rest of the team congratulate Moonstone on outthinking their opponent, Jolt is upset that Gaviton escaped, pointing out that this is the second time that Karla has cut corners to achieve victory, like when they were stranded in Kosmos, explaining that while the battle is over Graviton is still a threat.[8]

Moonstone counters this by saying they can’t know what Graviton’s ultimate goal might be, he might decide on something more benign than world domination, like collecting old baseball cards. With the battle over, the Lightning Rods admit that the Thunderbolts are trying to redeem themselves and agree to let them go. However, public opinion doesn’t hold the same view as a reporter on the scene makes a point of reminding her viewers that the Thunderbolts are fugitives and were allowed to leave the scene of the battle without arrest.

Back in Mexico, the sword fight between Baron Zemo and Citizen V continues until rigged explosives start going off in the castle. Citizen V decides to let Baron Zemo go, as they intend to strip away all of his assets before utterly defeating him. Citizen V flees the scene just as the castle completely explodes. They are certain that Zemo got away alive and vows to utterly humiliate the villain before taking him down, a fate they also intend for the Thunderbolts as well.

Recurring Characters

Thunderbolts (Moonstone, Atlas, Mach-1, Songbird, Jolt), Lightning Rods (Mister Immortal, Big Bertha, Doorman, Flatman, Dinah Soar), Citizen V, Graviton, Baron Zemo, Techo, Megan McLaren, Karl Josten (corpse)

Continuity Notes

1. The Thunderbolts were originally members of the Masters of Evil who took to posing as superheroes as part of a plot to take over the world. However, in the end they came to like being heroes and turned on their leader Baron Zemo. The team has since been trying to show the world they have reformed. See Thunderbolts #1-12.

2. The Lightning Rods were originally named the Great Lakes Avengers. However, they had recently changed their name to capitalize on the popularity the Thunderbolts had before they were exposed as super-villains, as seen in Deadpool (vol. 3) #10-11. When the Thunderbolts were exposed, the Lightning Rods became determined to take them down as we saw last issue when they got their asses handed to them.

3. As we learned last issue, Erik ran away from home after his sister Lindy was killed. After Erik became a super-villain his family was ostracized by locals leading to the family farm being foreclosed. His parents soon got sick and died, his brother Conrad also left, leaving Carl to wallow in alcoholism and get in deep with a loan shark, which led to his own death. See also Thunderbolts #10 and Avengers #21-22.

4. During the fight, Mach-1 is concerned by Songbird’s sudden change in demeanor. Her change in personality is a complex situation. The details:

   • Melissa got her start as a criminal called Screaming Mimi and 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. At the time she was ruthless and amoral.

   • 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). Angar’s death shook Mimi to the core, making her meek and defenseless.

   • 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. This started in Thunderbolts #8 and carry on until Thunderbolts #21.

5. The identity of the new Citizen V and their history is actually quite complicated. The details:

   • The original Citizen V, John Watkins, fought during World War II and was choked to death by Heinrich Zemo late into World War II as seen in Thunderbolts #-1.

   • It’s later revealed in Captain America Annual 1998 that Watkins had a romance with an allied spy known as the She-Wolf and that she became pregnant with his child prior to his death.

   • The person who is posing as Citizen V here is not actually an heir to the Watkins family. It is actually Dallas Riordan who was hired by the V-Battalion to get revenge against Zemo to sullying the Citizen V name as we’ll learn in Thunderbolts #38. Dallas appears male here because she is wearing a padded costume as we’ll learn in Captain America Annual 1998.

   • As revealed in Citizen V and the V-Battalion: Everlasting #1, She-Wolf (agak Paulette Brazee) took on the Citizen V mantle until her son, John Watkins, Jr. was old enough to take the mantle in the 1950s. John, Jr. was killed in the line of duty. His son, John Watkins III, was the next in line but was put into a coma before he could take on the mantle of Citizen V, as we’ll see in Thunderbolts #49.

6. Gaviton goes over his origins and the different foes he has fought over the years:

   • His origins and first battle with the Avengers were originally told in Avengers #158-159. He mostly fought the west coast team after that, battling them in West Coast Avengers #2-4 and (vol. 2) #12-13. He also fought Thor solo in Thor #324. His downfall at the hands of the Vision happened in Avengers Unplugged #2.

   • Graviton has fought the Thing on three different occasions: First in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #4. He was also part of Mephisto’s Legion Accursed who fought the Thing in Secret Wars II #7. He fought Ben Grimm again alongside the rest of the Fantastic Four in Fantastic Four #322.

   • Graviton also went up against a cosmically powered Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #326. He fought the web-slinger again sans cosmic powers in Web of Spider-Man #64-65.

7. Moonstone mentions various other superheroes teams that might go after Gaviton. She mentions two team that have long since disbanded. The Defenders (who broke up in Defenders #182) and the Champions (who broke up in Champions #17), but apparently Frank doesn’t know this.

8. The Thunderbolts were abducted by the Kosmosians in Thunderbolts #13-14. While there, Moonstone manipulated the political situation to fast track their way home.

Topical References

• One of the bystanders watching the Thunderbolts/robot Hulk fight is filming it with a camcorder that has a flip out screen. This type of camera recorded media on tape. It’s appearance here should be considered topical as it is an obsolete technology, especially when most people have smart phones that they can record video with.

• The televisions in this story are also depicted as CRT models. This should be considered topical as this is also an obsolete technology.

• Citizen V refers to themselves as the grandson of Citizen V, something that becomes increasingly impossible due to the Sliding Timescale without some kind of intervention. Given that the V-Battallion has access to exotic and alien technologies, it is not impossible to consider that the Watkins family had access to technology to extend their lifespans making this reference factual as opposed to topical.

• When theorizing what Graviton might do in the future, she specifically states that he might decide to collect 1957 Fleer rookie cards. This wouldn’t necessarily be a topical reference as she is referring to a vintage collectable. The reference to Fleer could be considered topical as it is a real world company. YMMV.