Thunderstrike #11
Battle Lines!
It’s the start of another school day for Kevin Masterson. As the morning bell rings he and his friend Joey Graves run to their lockers to get their books. As they discuss playing ball after school, a gun suddenly falls out of Joey’s locker and goes off hitting Kevin.
Word of the incident quickly reaches Kevin’s father Eric Masterson, who races to the hospital as Thunderstrike. He fears the worst because his ex-wife Marcy was so vague on the phone. He raced out of the job in such a hurry he also hopes that he hasn’t ruined his new job at Rave Architectural and Interior Design. He pushes all these worries aside as soon as he lands on the hospital roof. Reverting back to his mortal guise, Eric runs downstairs where Marcy, her husband Bobby Steele, and Kevin’s teacher Ed Marrero are giving statements to the police. Ed is telling officers that the incident was an accident when Eric arrives. As Marcy is updating him, a doctor finally comes out with Kevin and confirms that Kevin is fine. Luckily, the bullet only grazed him when the gun went off and he is ready to be released from the hospital.
Kevin assures everyone that he is fine and tells them all not to get mad at his friend Joey because the whole incident was an accident. However, the police — particularly one Officer Julia Concepcion — is interested in knowing how Joey managed to get his hands on a gun to begin with. Kevin tells them that Joey has been bullied by the 6th graders and this was likely the reason why he bought a gun, but has no idea where he could have gotten it from. Bobby Steele demands something be done about the situation and Officer Concepcion assures him that she will do everything she can as she knows what it is like to lose a child.[1] That’s when Ed Marrero asks if the police could use a little outside help, hearing the dark undertones of this comment catches the attention of Eric Masterson.[2]
Meanwhile, uptown, the novice super-hero known as Wildstreak is doing her own part to stop the proliferation of illegal guns in the city. She has tracked down a warehouse that is home to a gun smuggling operation. With her exo-skeleton enhanced speed and agility she makes short work of the gun runners down to one last man. When she confronts this final shooter she is shocked to discover that it is someone from her past, Carl Washington. Wildstreak is so stunned by this revelation that Carl manages to make his get away.
Later that day, Thunderstrike pays a visit to Captain Shelly Conklin and Marcus Stone at the metro division. He wants to get some answers about the rising gun violence that is happening in schools. Stone shocks the hero by listing off statistics that show that this is growing to become fairly common. As it turns out, the report that Stone reads from was written by Julia Concepcion herself. Thunderstrike also learns that she is in the running to replace Jock Jackson on Code: Blue, which makes Thunderstrike remember how he couldn’t save Jock’s life but he vows to honor his memory by making sure no other kid gets shot.[3]
By this time, Wildstreak returns to the mobile van that operates as her headquarters. This is just as her exo-skeleton is running out of power requiring her father, Dennis, to help Tamika back into her wheelchair. He is concerned that she keeps pushing the limits of the exoskeleton and doing so will put her life at risk. However, dismisses his concerns and explains her encounter with Carl Washington earlier in the day. She explains that Carl was one of the older kids when Tamika was still in high school. She developed a crush on him, but he hung around with the wrong crowd and dropped out of high school. While her father is willing to write Carl off as a lost cause, Tamika isn’t so certain.
At that same moment, the alter-ego of Bloodaxe has learned what happened to Kevin Masterson and has the utmost sympathy for his father Eric. However, they believe that Thunderstrike will be too soft on crime. Recovering the Executioner’s enchanted axe from a storage locker they transform into Bloodaxe so they can go out and hunt down gun smugglers in the city and put an end to them.
Elsewhere in the city, Julia Concepcion returns to her home and contemplates how to handle the situation herself. Looking at a photo of her son she then opens a closed where she keeps her costume and weapons when she goes out as the vigilante known as Sangré.
Simultaneously, Carl Washington has retreated to his apartment. He worries that Wildstreak’s bust on their operations is going to come down on him when the buyers demand restitution for their confiscated money and weapons. When his phone starts ringing, Carl decides that the best thing to do is to skip town.
Later that day, Bloodaxe makes an explosive visit to Red Eyes, a pub where the seedier side of the city goes to drink. Grabbing one of the patrons by the throat, the vigilante tells everyone that they want to know everything there is to know about gun smuggling in the city, vowing to kill them all if that’s what it takes to get answers.
At that same time, Joey Graves is brought before a judge to discuss the situation with the gun he brought to school. Joining Joey are his lawyer and Julia Concepcion. The court hears that Joey bought it off another kid at school who was trading up and didn’t need his old gun anymore. Joey explains he bought it because he was being bullied and he wanted the gun to try and strike fear into his tormentors, but admits that if the bullying didn’t stop he probably would have used the weapon.
While all of this is going on, Eric Masterson has returned to work but he can’t keep his mind off of everything that has happened. He wants to do something as Thunderstrike, even though he has heard about Wildstreak’s recent bust. That’s when he is interrupted by his co-worker Chandra O’Keefe who has brought an envelope that was dropped off for him via messenger. The envelope doesn’t indicate who its from, only saying that it is “a gift from a friend”. When Eric opens it up and looks at the contents he is shocked by what he finds. It’s from Bloodaxe and it contains the address of the person responsible the gun getting into Joey Grave’s hand. Leaving work, Eric changes to Thunderstrike heads off to check this lead.
At the same time, Wildstreak decides to go out and see if she can help Carl Washington get onto the straight and narrow. This is under protest of her father, who warns her that her exoskeleton is only half charged and she’s putting herself in potential danger.
Wildstreak soon arrives outside Carl Washington’s apartment building at the same time as Thunderstrike. Recognizing the hero from the Avengers, Wildstreak tells him to back off since this is her case. This leads to your typical superhero fight. Watching from the rooftop is Sangré who is setting up her sniper rifle and begins following Carl Washington with her sight as he sneaks out the back window. However, his getaway is interrupted when the men who tried to buy guns from his gang arrive to get their money back. Seeing Carl in danger, Wildstreak and Thunderstrike stop fighting and come to his rescue. While Thunderstrike deals with the mobsters, Wildstrike tries to get Carl to safety but her exoskeleton begins running out of powers. Hearing Tamika talk about their high school days and her old crush on him, Carol mocks her. As it turns out, he is not the redeemable troubled teenager she made up in her head but an intentional criminal who enjoys his life of crime. He thanks Wildstreak for getting her out of this jam and runs off.
As Wildstream’s father arrives in their mobile headquarters to recover her, they hear a gunshot coming from the direction that Carl ran off. The shot, of course, came from Sangré who decided to kill Washington once the heroes failed to apprehend him. As the vigilante makes her retreat she is unaware that Bloodaxe had been observing her from the shadows and finds what happened very interesting.
Two weeks later, Tamika and her father are paying their respects at Carl’s grave. While her father tries to convince his daughter that she did everything that she could, Tamika isn’t so sure. This experience has shown her how sick the world has become and how many young people — particularly young Black men — are becoming victims of gun violence in America. Shedding a year, she suggests that perhaps these deaths could be prevented if everyone cared a little bit more.
Things not quite grim enough, as Eric Masterson has shown up at the courts to hear the fate of Joey Graves. There he meets with Officer Concepcion. He tells her that he heard that the kid who provided Joey with his gun was found dead recently. Julia tells him not to shed any tears over Carl Washington, saying that he sale of weapons to kids have been responsible for the death of seven children this past year alone. Hearing this horrifies Eric who realizes that this problem is much larger than he first thought and that more needs to be done to assure that more young lives aren’t cut short.
Recurring Characters
Thunderstrike, Bloodaxe, Wildstreak, Sangre, Marcy Steele, Bobby Steele, Kevin Masterson, Susan Austin, Ed Marrero, Marcus Stone, Shelly Conklin, Chandra O’Keefe
Continuity Notes
Julia Concepcion has been moonlighting as the vigilante known as Sangré as of Thunderstrike #3. In that story we learned that her son was killed but little regarding the circumstances surrounding his death. As of this writing in November 2022, this is Sangré’s last appearance to date. She will be briefly mentioned in Civil War: Battle Damage Report #1 as a potential recruit for the Initiative, but has not been seen or heard from again.
This is because Eric Masterson is paranoid about those closest to him after discovering that his foe Bloodaxe was someone close to him in Thunderstrike #9. However, this is a red herring. We’ll discover in issue #22 that the Bloodaxe is actually Jackie Lukas.
Jock Jackson was a member of Code: Blue until he sacrificed his life during a battle with the Deviant known as Pandara in Thunderstrike #7.
Topical References
The gun violence statistics that Marcus Stone gives off were, I’m assuming, relevant to the period in which this comic was published. As such they are out of date and the specifics should be considered topical. Unfortunately, school shootings have only gotten worse since this comic saw print in 1994 so the subject matter is still pretty relevant. What a depressing world we live in, huh?
When describing Red Eyes pub, the narration states that you would never expect to find the establishment listed on a Zagat Survey. This should be considered a topical reference as Zagat is a real world business.
Carl Washington’s gravestone states that he was born in 1966 and died in 1994. These dates should be considered topical as they are relative to the date of publication. Modern readers should interpret this to mean that Carl was 28 at the time of his death. This would make Tamika 27 at the time of this story.
Errors
Julia Concepcion is a woman of an unspecified Spanish background. In her previous appearance in Thunderstrike #3 she was originally depicted as a woman with dark skin and long dark hair. In this story, she is depicted with Caucasian skin tone and a lighter hair colour. She is almost unrecognizable to her original appearance. This difference in appearance is likely due to the guest artist on this issue rendering her differently leading to colouring error when it went to print.
