Thunderbolts #81
Getting Even More!
Daniel Axum is a rising star in a quickly growing super-human wrestling federation. However, the league has just recruited Man-Killer (Katrina Van Horn) and she remembers his old life as a villain known as the Battler.[1] She then invites him out for drinks at Limbo, the local watering hole. There he is introduced to her friends, Delilah and Mac Gargan, aka the Scorpion. All three of them want to get revenge on Spider-Man after repeated defeats and wonder if Axum would like to join their motely crew.[2]
All of them have theories of who Spider-Man is behind the mask. Gargan thinks he is some kind of deformed freak. Axum thinks that’s ridiculous and figures that the hero is just a glory hound. Man-Killer figures he’s some kind of sadist who spends his days looking at nudie pictures and takes his impotence out on crooks. Regardless, there is one thing they cal all agree on: that Spider-Man always wins because he always plays dirty. Man-Killer now suggests they should go after the wall-crawler as a team.
Axum isn’t certain he wants to do this, pointing out that their wrestling gig is a sweet deal and their boss, Rey Trueno is looking out for them. Katrina argues that Trueno is a con-man who is using them all, besides she had heard that Spider-Man is the reason why Daniel has the scar running down his face. Having this brought up angers him a bit and when they ask if he is in or not, Daniel tells the others that he’ll think it over.
As Axum walks home he thinks about that fateful day nearly four years earlier. He thought he had beaten Spider-Man into submission, but the wall-crawler was only playing possum. The arachnid hero then webbed Axum’s face and leaped onto the back of a bus, dragging Daniel along with him. When the bus made a sharp turn, Daniel ended swinging out and slamming face first into a brick wall. When he woke up in a prison hospital he was told the litany of charges against him due to that fight. Daniel spend three years doing hard time and up until Man-Killer brought it up, he hasn’t thought of Spider-Man in months. Now he sees him on the front page of the Daily Bugle and the thought of the three years he spent in prison consumes him with anger. Daniel then trashes the newspaper box, scattering all the papers inside to the four winds.
Later, Daniel returns to the gym with his mind made up. He tells Man-Killer that he is in and asks when the attack is supposed to happen. She tells him they’re going to meet at the Brooklyn Naval Yards on Saturday morning at 7 am. That’s when Lydia shows up and to apologize for their argument the day before and to make it up she wants to take him out to Atlantic City for the weekend. Axum turns it down though, saying that he has his son Benny all weekend long. However, he quickly goes to the payphone on the wall and calls his mother and asks her to babysit Benny because he is going to be busy. Little does he know that Lydia is listening in to his conversation.
Meanwhile, Rey Trueno convinces Man-Killer that becoming a fighter in his league is better than rotting in jail. That’s when Lydia approaches Rey to tell him what’s going on. The two of them manage to convince both Axum and Man-Killer to abandon their plan. Their plea works and while they are all celebrating their future success, both Daliah and the Scorpion go to New York City to face Spider-Man alone. The pair don’t fare very well and find themselves webbed up to a lamp post for the cops.[4]
Recurring Characters
Axum, Man-Killer, Armadillo, Scorpion, Delilah, Rey Trueno, Lydia, Benny Broughton
Continuity Notes
Axum had just served a three year sentence, as we learned Thunderbolts #76.
Man-Killer was humiliated by the wall-crawler last issue. The Scorpion has been part of Spider-Man’s regular rogues gallery since Amazing Spider-Man #20. While Delilah has been a foe of the web-slinger since Amazing Spider-Man #414.
The Armadillo was the champ before Axum defeated him. After which he was discarded because both Rey and Cady believed he was past his prime, as seen over the first four issues of this story arc.
This marks the final appearance of Axum as of this writing (October, 2023). The storyline was abandoned as soon as the title was cancelled. His profile in All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #1 states that eventually he and Rey Trueno had a falling out after he won the world championship. Other than that, not a whole lot else has been done with the character.
Topical References
The characters use a lot of slang that was used by both the African-American and Latino communities in the early 2000s. These usages should be considered topical as they are dated and are considered negative stereotypes to many in these groups.
Rey likens Katrina being called Man-Killer to wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who was at the height of his career when this story was published. This should be considered a topical reference as Johnson is a real world celebrity, and a more contemporary example could be used in his place.
