Busted!

Thunderstrike and Spider-Man have been battling the Deviant known as Pandara at Salon Steele, the health club owned by Thundestrike’s ex-wife Marcy Steele. In the ensuing battle, Pandara’s demons have swarmed the pair. With his enchanted mace having fallen into the health club’s inground pool, Thunderstrike has less than 60 seconds to recover it before reverting back to his mortal form and insta-killed by the demons in the process. Luckily Spider-Man gets free and fights off the demons swarming Thunderstrike.[1] This is just as the enchantment wears off, reverting Thunderstrike back to ordinary Eric Masterson. Eric then quickly leaps into the pool to recover his mace, changing back into Thunderstrike on contact.

This causes all the water in the pool to suddenly erupt into the air, washing away the demons and soaking Pandara. Furious at having her clothing ruined she tries to make a run for it. Thunderstrike tries blasting her with energy from his enchanted mace and misses, blowing a hole in the wall. Pandara then uses her magic box to flood the room with a thick cloud of smoke to cover her escape. As Spider-Man and Thunderstrike try to navigate their way out of the smoke, they end up bumping into each other and engage in a brief scuffle before realizing what’s going on. The two hurl insults at each other for bungling things up but can’t help but start laughing at themselves before regaining their composure and following after Pandara.

However, once they get outside they discover that Code: Blue has arrived on the scene and Pandara has escaped. With police securing the scene, they ask Mary Jane Watson to head downtown to make a statement on the attack. Spider-Man, wanting to be reunited with his partner, makes a hasty exit leaving Thunderstrike to explain things to Code: Blue’s leader Marcus Stone. Thunderstrike has his own personal business to attend to and convinces Stone to let him go under the promise he’ll return later to give a statement of his own. Marcy Steele tries to stop Thunderstrike so she can ask him to become a spokesperson for her spa, but he flies off before she can talk to him.

Meanwhile, the mystery person who has been secretly helping Thunderstrike on his recent battles has been tailing Pandara.[2] They follow her into the sewers and locate her secret hideout. There, they listen in as Pandara contacts her master a Deviant named Tantalus. He is furious that Pandara blew her cover as this may expose the secret holy war they are waging on Earth.[3]

At that same moment, Eric Masterson changes back to his civilian guise to meet up with his friend Jackie Lukas at Rave Architectural Design. Since Eric is in need of work, Jackie has landed him an interview with the eccentric Barbara Rave. When Rave enters the room she is delighted to meet Eric and invites him into her office for an interview.

While at police headquarters, Mary Jane Watson gives her statement to Code: Blue’s Rigger Ruiz. Although she is anxious to be reunited with Peter, she is asked to look through some mug shots in the hopes that she might identify her attacker. Not far away, Marcus Stone has Mother Majowski go through the NYPD’s database to see what they have on Pandara. There are a number of deaths associated with her, leading Majowski to think that they are dealing with some kind of super-powered serial killer. There are also references to someone called Tantalus but the files associated with him on the National Crime Network are locked. However, Majowski assures Stone that he has the hacking skills to get into those files. As soon as he gets to work on trying to get access to these files a security breach alarm goes off at a SHIELD database. A superior officer working for the spy agency assures his staff he’ll deal with this personally.

Meanwhile, the remaining members of Code: Blue — Mad Dog Rossitano, Fireworks Feldstein, and Jock Jackson — are killing time until they’re needed again. Jock decides to go out and get everyone some lunch and takes orders. As he passes the front desk, Peter Parker recognizes Jock as one of the cops at the scene at the health club and asks when Mary Jane will be released. Jock tells him it shouldn’t be much longer and offers to get him something to eat as well. As Jock leaves the building he is unaware that a ship has just landed on the roof of the police station. However, this doesn’t go unnoticed by Peter Parker whose spider-sense begins buzzing like crazy.

Elsewhere, Kevin Masterson is out in the park playing with his nanny Susan Austin. Neither are aware that they are being watched from the bushes by Bobby Steele, Kevin’s step-father. He has been acting erratic recently and hasn’t been home for days. Seeing Kevin dressed up like Thor rankles him since he thinks the boy she idolize him as Bobby is a football player for the New York Smashers. He wants the boy to be loyal to him, just like Bobby was to his own father. In his paranoid mind he believes that this is something his wife Marcy doesn’t understand as he fears that she might be trying to get back together with her ex-husband Eric Masterson. Believing that Masterson is trying to ruin his life, Bobby vows to get to him first.[4]

Back at the station, the ship that landed on the roof belongs to SHIELD, who have sent Agent Alex DePaul to investigate the data breach. He has ordered a meeting with the members of Code: Blue to tell them that the file on Tantalus is deeply classified. When Stone tries to justify the need for the data in order to catch a serial killer his admission proves that they were guilty of intentionally hacking into SHIELD’s files and they are all put under arrest. SHIELD then escorts Code: Blue and Mary Jane upstairs to the waiting craft so they can all be interrogated aboard the SHIELD helicarrier. They are secretly followed by Peter Parker who has become increasingly worried about Mary Jane. He follows them up to the roof but can’t do anything to stop the plane from taking off. Instead, he tosses a spider-tracer onto the ship so he can track it down later as Spider-Man.

That’s when Thunderstrike returns to the police station to give his statement. He is greeted by Jock Jackson who just got back from getting lunch and tells him what just happened. The two go inside the station where Captain Shelly Conklin is on the phone with SHIELD demanding answers as to why some of her best officers were taken into custody. When she is stone walled, both Jock and Thunderstrike decide to take matters into their own hands and liberate the other members of Code: Blue. That’s when Spider-Man arrives with his long range scanner to pick up the signal from his spider-tracer. With the tracker, Thunderstrike flies Spider-Man and Jock onto the SHIELD Helicarrier high above the city. In order to make their presence known, Thunderstrike uses his enchanted mace to fire a massive flare into the sky.

Seeing this, Agent DePaul is furious that there are intruders on the ship and decides to deal with it himself. Moments later, DePaul is leading a group of SHIELD agents in Mandroid armor to confront the intruders.

Recurring Characters

Thunderstrike, Spider-Man, Pandara, Code: Blue (Marcus Stone, Rigger Ruiz, Mad Dog Rossitano, Fireworks Feldstein, Jock Jackson, Mother Majowski), Shelly Conklin, Mary Jane Watson, Alex DePaul, Marcy Steele, Bobby Steele, Kevin Masterson, Jackie Lukas, Susan Austin, Barbara Rave, Tantalus

Continuity Notes

1. Spider-Man quips that the next time he and Mary Jane decide to sign up to do something together he’ll suggest something safer like bungy jumping. While making this comment he refers to MJ as his wife. The two were married in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21. However, years later, their marriage was erased from existence by the demon Mephisto in Amazing Spider-Man #545. In the new timeline they never got married but are still engaged. One could even say they are a common-law couple.

2. This mystery person has helped Thunderstrike during his fights with Bloodaxe in issue #1 and Juggernaut in issue #2. They are revealed to be Stellaris in Thunderstrike #6.

3. Pandara is part of a group of universal Deviants led by Tantalus that are engaged in a secret war against the baseline members of their races. You know the whole Deviant/Eternals/Normies thing that Kirby started in Eternals #1? Well that, but on a planetary scale. Blackwulf is part of a resistance trying to foil their plans. See Blackwulf #1-10.

4. Bobby’s erratic behavior is for a few reasons: He was apparently brutally mugged recently. His performance on the Smashers has also been flagging leading to him to start abusing steroids to try and enhance his game. See Thunderstrike #5 and 8. His strange behavior is being used here as a red herring to lead readers into believing he might be Bloodaxe. However, as we’ll learn in Thunderstrike #22, Bloodaxe is actually Jackie Lukas.

Topical References

• The cover states that it is the 1990s. This statement should be considered topical relative to the date of publication.

• When Thunderstrike calls to Spider-Man for help, the wall-crawler quips that he should be calling Triple A instead. He is referring to the American Automobile Association, an car insurance company. This is a topical reference as it is a real world company.

• Mother Majowski is depicted smoking a cigar inside the police station. This should be considered a topical reference as smoking indoors in the state of New York has been banned since 2003. Later on, we also see Agent Alex DePaul smoking a cigarette while questioning Code: Blue. This would be considered topical for the same reason.

• Peter Parker is wearing a sports jacket with the logo for The Late Show with David Letterman on the back. Letterman hosted The Late Show from 1993 to 2015. This should be considered a topical reference for that very reason.