Living in a Vice

Earth

Hawkeye (Clint Barton) is part of a prison chain gang that has busted out of prison. Along with Headlok (who is possessed by Mentallo, aka Melvin Flumm), Cottonmouth, and Plantman (Sam Smithers) they are searching for the treasures of the late Justin Hammer.[1] Things were going relatively smoothly until they had a run in with a Guardsman named Chris Fallon.

Plantman believed he had a means of stopping Fallon without causing him harm. However, when Smithers attempted to incapacitate Chris with mold spores he ended up killing him instead because Fallon suffered from asthma. Clint is furious that Smithers took a life, but Sam insists that he had no idea of knowing for sure.

Cottonmouth, on the other hand, is more concerned with the fact that the authorities can track them with the manacles that they are forced to wear. However, Headlok/Mentallo figures they can repurpose Fallon’s Guardsman armor to jam their signal. As he gets to work, Clint laments the situation he is in. He is secretly working for SHIELD to stop Mentallo and the others from getting their hands on some secret weapon and wonders if the life of one man is worth all the ones he will be saving in turn.

Later, Barton makes an anonymous phone call to SHIELD to tip them off to the location of Chirs Fallon’s body. When this gets back to Commander Dum Dum Dugan, he isn’t sure if the death was intentional or not. However, the fact that they can no longer track Hawkeye and the others bothers him. So in order to track them down, Dugan enlists the aid of a former criminal, Songbird (Melissa Gold), Hawkeye’s former teammate. Melissa contemplates Dugan’s offer, as she has decided to find new purpose after the rest of the Thunderbolts seemingly died saving the world from Graviton.[2] What Mel doesn’t know is that her teammates are actually still alive…

Counter-Earth

Since arriving on Counter-Earth, the Thunderbolts have found themselves on the world that has collapsed. Learning that there is a communications rocket that is about to be launched, the team has been traveling from Russia to Germany in the hopes of using it to get back home. Unfortunately, their train is derailed by a mob of desperate people. Inside the Thunderbolts — Moonstone (Karla Sofen), Mach-3 (Abner Jenkins), Atlas (Dallas Riordan/Erik Josten), and Jolt (Hallie Takahama) — debate on getting involved.[3] Karla is afraid that using their powers will attract unwanted attention, but both Dallas and Hallie point out that on Counter-Earth, they aren’t wanted criminals.

Dallas takes this a step further pointing out how this world is in utter chaos: New York is flooded, the American southwest has become a radioactive wasteland, Paris has been totally annihilated, and earthquakes plague Tokyo every few days. She says that they can become the heroes they’ve always dreamed of becoming by helping these people in need.[4] Abner vetoes this idea, reminding everyone that this is not their world and that they have a ticket home. He wants to leave this mad world behind and how they need to stop looking at these people as real.[5] Hallie shames Abe, telling him to look out the window at the human suffering going on and how that is very real. She asks him how he can morally walk away from such horrors and still want to redeem himself for his past crimes.

As this debate is going on, the Fixer (Norbert Ebersol) is working on a problem in one of the sleeping cars. Namely, rigging up a holographic projector so it is easier for him to communicate with Baron (Helmut) Zemo, whose mind is somehow trapped inside his tech-pack. Zemo wants Fixer to help him obtain a new body. In order to force him to help, Zemo uses the tech-pack to affect Norbert’s still recovering nervous system. Helmut blames Norbert for his current predicament. He explains how after Norbert got his neck snapped his mind was downloaded into a robotic body that put his body into stasis to repair as a means of cheating death if his mechanical body were to fail.[6] While this is what happened, the Fixer admits that he doesn’t recall any of this.[6]

Zemo then goes on to explain how the Techno robot made Helmut evade death as well. Thanks to a bio-modem, Zemo’s mind was transferred out of his body at the moment he was decapitated by Scourge (Jack Monroe). Possibly out of jest, Techno had Zemo’s mind download into the comatose body of John Watkins III, the heir to the Citizen V legacy. In hindsight, while Zemo would have preferred to have had his mind downloaded into a newly cloned body instead. However, he believes that something to that effect can be facilitated again and begins detailing his plan for a new body.[7]

Meanwhile, in Germany, this world’s answer to the Thunderbolts — Baron (Heinrich) Zemo, Iron Cross, Solarr, Phantom Eagle, Chain Lightning, and Makeshift — have returned home after their successful mission in Russia. While his team works on the last minute preparations of the space shuttle, Heinrich addresses his people and heaps praise on the nationalistic society he hopes to reform.[8] While the solar powered satellite is presented as an act of altruism aimed at restoring the world, in reality these Thunderbolts are using it as a means of making the rest of the world dependent on Germany. When Makeshift and Solarr muse about what the public would think if they knew the truth, Iron Cross orders them to keep their mouth shut. They are so close to success, they cannot allow any slipups to their world domination plans. Little do any of them know that they have been bugged by Heinrich who is listening in on their conversation. He is amused at hearing Helmut (Iron Cross) talk about world domination, as he has little concept of what Heinrich actually has in store.

Back aboard the train, the Thunderbolts have learned that the people are attacking it because they want to steal its water filters, as theirs have been broken down for months. With the Norbert and Abe’s technical knowledge, this is a simple problem to fix and so they all agree to intervene and help people out. Changing into costume, the Thunderbolts emerge from the train and convince the crowd to stand down, as they will offer to help fix their water system. Using their superhuman powers, this is a very easy task and the Thunderbolts are praised as heroes. Later, Mach-3 helps a woman bury her husband before rejoining the others, and admits to Jolt that he felt bad standing by and doing nothing when he could have helped.

Soon, the train is put back on its tracks and it reaches Germany about a day later. In the meantime, Fixer has spent his time creating phony credentials for his teammates so they can gain access to the space ship that will take them home. As they reach their destination, Fixer has another private council with Baron Zemo. He tells Norbert that he wants his new body before they leave, as the digital signal that maintains his consciousness will degrade and kill him in the time it would take to return to their Earth. When Ebersol asks Zemo who he has in mind, Helmut shows him a picture of Counter-Earth’s Thunderbolts and says he has a poetic choice in mind.

Earth

Hawkeye and his fellow fugitives have set up camp somewhere in Nebraska. In the early dawn, while the rest of the group sleeps, Cottonmouth attempts to chew off Plantman’s arm to remove his manacles. The rest of the group is awoken by Smithers’ bloodcurdling screams. Clint manages to fight off Cottonmouth before he can complete his grisly task. Sam then uses his powers over plants to repair the damage to his arm. Headlok/Mentallo points out that it is only a matter of time before Cottonmouth tries this again, leaving them to wonder what they should do about him.

Meanwhile, at a stop on I-80 between Des Moines and Omaha, Songbird shows a hotel clerk photos of Clint and the other fugitives and asks if he has seen them. The old man — distracted by Melissa’s revealing outfit — insists that he hasn’t seen the men before. When he asks for her name, she tells him to call her Mimi.[9]

Recurring Characters

Thunderbolts (Moonston, Mach-3, Atlas (Josten/Riorden), Fixer/Baron Zemo, Jolt), Songbird, Hawkeye, Plantman, Cottonmouth, Headlok/Mentallo, SHIELD (Dum Dum Dugan, Jasper Sitwell), Thunderbolts (of Counter-Earth: Baron Zemo, Iron Cross, Solarr, Phantom Eagle, Chain Lightning, Makeshift), Guardsmen

Continuity Notes

1. Hawkeye agreed to go to jail in exchange for Presidential pardons for the rest of the Thunderbolts back in Thunderbolts #50. While in prison, Hawkeye was contacted by Mentallo who convinced him to break out of jail in order to find the lost treasures of the late Justin Hammer. What nobody knows is that Clint agreed to do this as part of a covert SHIELD mission. See Thunderbolts #51, 52, and Life Sentences #1. Justin Hammer, FYI, had just recently died as seen in Iron Man: Bad Blood #4.

2. The Thunderbolts fought Graviton to their seeming death in Thunderbolts #57-58. Although everyone believes they died, the group actually survived and are stranded on Counter-Earth, as we saw last issue.

3. Here, Karla notes that Hallie isn’t slurring her speech quite as much. Hallie was nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet in Thunderbolts #34. When she was revived in issue #46 (and revealed in issue #48) it came at a cost: Hallie was partially paralyzed. She has been undergoing physio-therapy since issue #51. Hallie will be totally back to normal by the time she appears in Exiles #81.

4. Counter-Earth has been beset by various cataclysms thanks to the machinations of the Dreaming Celestial, as explained in Heroes Reborn: Ashema #1. It’s version of New York flooded in Heroes Reborn: Doomsday #1, the southwest irradiated in Heroes Reborn: Rebel #1, and Paris destroyed in Heroes Reborn: Young Allies #1. The earthquakes in Tokyo will be explored more fully in Thunderbolts #66, 68, 70, 72, and 74-75.

5. The notion that the people of Counter-Earth aren’t “real” likely stems from the fact that they were originally created by Franklin Richards a few short years ago, as seen in Onslaught: Marvel Universe #1 and explained in Heroes Reborn: The Return #1-4.

6. Finally some clarifications! Mostly. See, Fixer (then going by the name Techno) got his neck snapped in Thunderbolts #7. His mind was downloaded into a mechanical body in the following issue. This robot version of Techno continued to operate, claiming to be Norbert in a mechanical body. Techno later sacrificed his mechanical life to resurrect Jolt in issue #46. Later, Norbert’s body was recovered and revived by the Commission on Superhuman Activities in Thunderbolts #49. However, the damage to his body wasn’t fully healed, necessitating him to wear his tech-pack 24/7. The Fixer profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4 states that the Fixer’s inability to remember his time in his robotic body was actually a momentary issue and that he would gradually remember it within time.

7. So the foundation of Zemo cheating death were laid in Spider-Man Team-Up #7, when the Thunderbolts secretly stole the bio-modem. Zemo was offered to have his mind transferred into a cloned body in Thunderbolts #14. He turned it down as a matter of pride. He was later decapitated in by Scourge in issue #39. John Watkins III woke from his coma in Thunderbolts #45, but we didn’t learn that Zemo was in control until Citizen V and the V-Battalion #3.

8. The narration here states that Iron Cross has served his country for over sixty years (more on that below). The length of time he remembers is actually irrelevant. Although everyone on Counter-Earth remembers decades of history, carbon dating done in Heroes Reborn: The Return #1 revealed that this world is only as old as when Franklin Richards first created it, making all memories of a past prior to that creation point a fabrication.

9. Mimi is the name that Melissa gave herself when she ran away from home and had to fend for herself. It was a new tough-as-nails persona that she created for herself, as explained in Thunderbolts #21. She later began calling herself Screaming Mimi when she first became a costumed criminal circa Marvel Two-In-One #54.

Topical References

• The narration states here that Iron Cross has served his country for over sixty years. If we assume that this implies the length of time between World War II and the Modern Age, this measurement of time (as fictional as it may be given Counter-Earth’s origins) should be considered topical. This is because the as the Sliding Timescale pushes the Modern Age forward, the length of time between WWII and the present will continue to increase.

• Fixer creates credentials for the Thunderbolts, some of the IDs he created identify Karla as an employee of McDonald-Douglas and Dallas as working for Lockheed Martin. These are two aeronautics companies that, at the time of publication, were regularly contracted with government organizations to manufacture aircraft for various applications (usually military). This should be considered a topical reference as these are real world companies.