Caged Angels, Part 5

Thunderbolts Mountain is on a total lockdown because Venom (Mac Gargan) and Swordsman (Andreas Von Strucker) are both on the rampage. Director Norman Osborn has decided to take matters into his own hands. As he heads down to his private storage room, he rants and raves about how he has to do everything.[1] This eventually devolves into a fantasy where he pictures himself becoming the President of the United States. In his private room, Osborn finds his stashed Green Goblin costume and equipment and suits up. As he heads off into the sector where his targets were last seen, he puts some fright into a pair of guards.

Meanwhile, a unit has found Venom and report back to Songbird (Melissa Gold) up in Norman’s office. Gargan was impaled with Strucker’s sword, but his symbiote is already healing the pain. A field medic reports that Mac is claiming that the symbiote started talking to him and was forcing him to do things he didn’t want to do. Overhearing this, Moonstone (Karla Sofen) tells Melissa that is impossible as the Venom symbiote can’t actually talk. That’s when Radioactive Man (Chen Lu) suggests that they interrogate the four prisoners they have in the hold, as they might be responsible for the chaos that has been going on.[2]

Lu’s suspicions are correct as the four prisoners — Caprice, Bluestreak, Mindwave, and Mirage — have intentionally allowed themselves to be arrested. This is because they plan on using their telepathic powers to force the Thunderbolts into killing themselves. Until now, they have been influencing the the team to forget about their prisoners. Bluestreak quickly informs his co-conspirators that the Thunderbolts are now aware of their presence and that they’ll have to deal with them more directly.

As this is all going on, Penance (Robbie Baldwin) has been in a psychology session with Doctor Leonard Samson. Relaxing in the rec room, Baldwin was able to use his powers without inflicting pain upon himself.[3] Samson makes Robbie realize that his time at Thunderbolts Mountain have not been good for his mental health and suggests that he can atone for the deaths he caused in Stamford without having to be Penance in the process.

Elsewhere in the facility, the Swordsman searches for Norman Osborn in order to force him to hand over a clone of his sister.[4] However, when he runs into Norman in his Green Goblin regalia, Andreas is filled with fear and tries to run. However, the Goblin quickly overpowers and disarms him.

Meanwhile, Songbird and Radioactive Man are racing down to the holding cells when they run into a guard who tells them that the Swordsman has been secured and the Green Goblin has been sighted in the facility. As Melissa tries to decide what to do, Chen suddenly gets the idea in his head to flood the facility with radiation and give everyone cancer. Luckily, he announces this plan out loud, causing the guard to panic and beat him unconscious. Songbird then decides to go check on Swordsman. When she arrives at his location, she discovers that Osborn crucified her teammate onto the wall. Fearing he might strangle before his wounds can be treated, Melissa orders the medic to get Andreas down off the wall.

With everything going as planned, Caprice and the other prisoners prepare the final phase of their plan: Forcing the Thunderbolts to murder all the facility staff. This slaughter would be something the Thunderbolts can’t spin in their own favor. However, Caprice is concerned that Samson and Penance might interfere with these plans. In order to prevent that from happening, she implants an idea into Moonstone’s head. Since she has hated Samson for years, the idea of killing Leonard is not a very difficult idea for the telepaths to influence.[5]

With that out of the way, the telepaths then begin pushing the Green Goblin to start killing the any of the guards who he happens to cross paths with.

Recurring Characters

Thunderbolts (Norman Osborn, Songbird, Moonstone, Radioactive Man, Swordsman, Venom, Penance, Bullseye), Caged Angels (Mindwave, Caprice, Mirage, Bluestreak), Doc Samson

Continuity Notes

1. While ranting and raving, Norman Osborn makes multiple mentions to impregnating and murdering a blonde. He is referring to Gwen Stacy and like any other bit of Spider-Man lore, this is more complicated than it appears.

   • Gwen Stacy was the first love of Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, Norman’s arch nemesis. In order to punish the wall-crawler, the Green Goblin murdered her in Amazing Spider-Man #121.

   • Years later, in Amazing Spider-Man #509-514 it was revealed that — prior to her death — Gwen had an alleged affair with Norman Osborn. This one-night-stand led to Gwen getting pregnant and giving birth to twins in secret.

   • However, it is later revealed that the affair was all an elaborate hoax created by Norman’s son Harry to torment both his father and Spider-Man. The twins, in reality, were test tube babies he created with stolen DNA. This sliver of a much more convoluted series of events was revealed in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 5) #73.

2. Got ourself a parade of obscure characters with names shared by other characters in the Marvel Universe. They were all captured over the course of Thunderbolts #116 and 117. Lets break it down:

   • Caprice was once a trainer for the Scourge of the Underworld program, as seen in US Agent #1-4.

   • This Bluestreak should not be confused with Don Thomas, the original Bluestreak. At the time of this story, Thomas had been dead for years after being killed by Scourge back in Captain America #318.

   • Mindwave is a new character who first appeared last issue as well. He shouldn’t be confused with Mind-Wave (with a hyphen) who was a Scourge victim who died in Captain America #319.

   • Mirage is also a new individual and should not be confused with Desmond Charne, the man who also called himself Mirage. Like Bluestreak before him, he was killed by Scourge in Captain America #320.

   • It is unclear why Caprice’s co-conspirators all named themselves after past Scourge victims, it’s kind of a weird flex but whatever. Oh, in case anyone is interested the dead namsakes of Caprice’s allies will all later be resurrected in Punisher (vol. 8) #5.

3. Penance was once the carefree hero known as Speedball. That was until he and his fellow New Warriors were responsible for the explosion in Stamford, Connecticut, the inciting incident that led to the passage of the SHRA in Civil War #1. Apparently the lone survivor, Robbie was used as a scape goat and dragged through the legal system. After a series of near death experiences and beatings, Robbie discovered that his powers now only activated when he was in pain. He reinvented himself as Penance, with armor that had spikes on the inside to atone for the lives he was responsible for. See Civil War: Front Line #1-10.

4. Recently, the Swordsman’s twin sister, Andrea was killed by Baron Zemo, as seen in Citizen V and the V-Battalion #3. Osborn secured Swordsman’s loyalty by promising to clone his sister in Thunderbolts #113. However, Osborn said that producing an adult clone of his sister would take some time to produce That is until he tanned a piece of her skin and wrapped it around his sword, as explained in New Thunderbolts #17. While his sister will remain among the deceased, a clone of her will turn up in Thunderbolts #122. Here, there is mention made of Andreas’ mother. However, her true identity has yet to be revealed time of this writing (November, 2023).

5. The reason why Moonstone has a massive hate on for Len Samson is because he defeated her during her first outing as a supervillain. See Incredible Hulk #229.