Thunderbolts

History (continued)

New Thunderbolts, part 1

Having trouble getting financial backing for the team, Jenkins was forced to accept money from Baron Strucker. Jenkins justified this as a means to an end, having no intention of allowing Strucker to get away with anything.

Jenkins set his new team up in New York, with a base at the Brooklyn Navy yard. Taking the name Mach IV, he recruited Blizzard (Gill), with Josten serving as the team’s mechanic.

He also approached Songbird, who was reluctant to rejoin. But she did aid them when a group of Atlantean terrorists, Fathom Five, attacked New York after similar strikes on other cities worldwide.

With help from Captain Marvel (Genis), they drove Fathom Five away. But while Genis and Josten were separated from the rest of the group, Josten regained his powers when his temper snapped at the thought of Genis getting between Jenkins and Gold. Josten beat Genis, apparently to death. He then threw his body out to sea and claimed Genis had followed Fathom Five underwater.

Later battling the Wrecking Crew’s latest rampage, the Thunderbolts were aided by Speed Demon, who claimed he wanted to join. Jenkins confronted Strucker about sending him in as a mole, but let him join anyway, needing his experience and power.

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New Thunderbolts, part 2

When Namor attended at the United Nations to address the issue of Atlantean terrorists, the Thunderbolts intruded to bring him to task on the issue. Jenkins revealed that a tracker had allowed him to locate the headquarters of At’la’tique (the terrorist sect directing Fathom Five).

Before they could discuss the matter, the assembly was attacked by agents of the Great Game sent to kill Namor. Joystick, Polestar and Tremolo attacked Namor, the Thunderbolts, and Mr. Fantastic (also in attendance). But when things began to turn against them, their Great Game controllers activated the timed bombs in their wristlets. Each bomb was capable of destroying several city blocks.

Joystick gave them the code in exchange for protection from the Game, but they were still unable to prevent the bombs going off. It was only Songbird straining her powers that kept the building from collapsing, assisted by Goliath.

Knowing that the Radioactive Man was in Manhattan, since he’d recognized his handler in the UN, Mach IV got him there to absorb the radiation from the bombs. With the danger dealt with, Songbird collapsed, her voice badly strained, and had to be hospitalized. Joystick joined the team, and the Radioactive Man stuck around to deal with Fathom Five.

New Thunderbolts, part 3

He didn’t have long to wait, as the terrorists soon struck again. The Thunderbolts, despite being spread over the city when the attack came, and even though the Mach IV armour was out of commission, managed to capture a few of them. That drove the others away.

Before the dust had settled from that threat, however, Baron Strucker’s plan went into effect. A number of Hydra battle cruisers appeared in the skies above New York. Strucker announced that a number of nuclear bombs had been hidden around the city.

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Songbird joined the team, coming from her hospital bed. She learned where Mach IV had gained the team’s funding when Strucker let her hear his communication with Jenkins.

The team managed to beat Hydra. Speed Demon, pushing his speed, managed to recover the bombs. Blizzard froze them until his suit broke, the last being run well clear of the city before it exploded. Genis reappeared at the last moment, shunting the explosion safely away. He joined the team shortly thereafter, adopting the codename Photon.

Purple Days, part 1

Having further strained her vocal chords during the battle with Hydra, Songbird lost her voice for a while. After a confrontation with Jenkins about the team’s funding, she avoided the team. Suspicious that Genis, with his cosmic awareness, couldn’t remember what had happened during the initial battle with Fathom Five, she investigated.

Songbird discovered recordings of a shadowy witness. The witness turned out to be the Purple Man. While she didn’t find him, she got close enough that he came after her.

The Purple Man turned up at her dorm room, taking control of her. However he was apparently killed by the new Swordsman, who insisted they run. The pair found the entire city after them, and clashed with the rest of the Thunderbolts, uncertain what was going on, before joining them.

When they had a moment to think about things, Songbird realised the Purple Man must have fooled her, and that the Swordsman could well be his puppet. Before she could react he’d stabbed Mach IV through his armour, and sliced Photon’s throat.

(It was at this point reality altered to the House of M continuity. But none of the team, except maybe Genis, remembers this. So this summary can skip this part).

Purple Days, part 2

The Purple Man took control of Manhattan and its inhabitants, including most super-heroes other than the Thunderbolts. They worked out that his pheromones had been released through the water system. Speed Demon and the Radioactive Man worked to clear the water.

But they couldn’t work out how Purple Man kept track of things and spoke to everyone, since his commands are verbal. Meanwhile, Jenkins mostly recovered from his wound.

Photon, who’d healed quickly from his wound, kept them undetected. He also discovered small spatial warps which were being used to pass the Purple Man’s commands.

Photon soon detected the Overmind, the telepath whom the Purple Man had enslaved to keep watch on his domain. Teleporting nearby, they fought through the controlled heroes, freed the Overmind, and stopped the Purple Man. The Purple Man was then teleported away by an unknown party.

The Purple Man had actually been forced into working for Zemo. Now in possession of the two Moongems, Zemo had used them to sneak Killgrave out of prison, and to create the spatial warps he used.

Songbird had taken over leadership of the team while Jenkins had been recovering. She agreed to return to the team full time only on the agreement that she took over leadership permanently, having lost faith in his decisions.

Jenkins, having also come to doubt his own choices, agreed. Since his Mach suit needed time to fix, he stepped back from the team for a while. Songbird also fired Blizzard, to give him time to decide that he really wanted to reform.

Right of Power, part 1

With some of their number having outstanding legal issues, the Thunderbolts had little choice in complying when the CSA forced them to confront the unlicensed New Avengers. Drawing the Avengers to a remote location, the majority of the Thunderbolts attacked them. Meanwhile Joystick infiltrated Avengers Tower to spread microscopic cameras provided by Hank Pym.

The Thunderbolts, with closer team work, and having planned their attack, beat the Avengers with relative ease.

When Nighthawk broke into the Thunderbolts dockside base, Songbird learned that their funding since Hydra had been beaten had come from Speed Demon stealing from his old team mate’s company. Before Songbird could respond, the building’s roof was torn off by Hyperion (Zhib Ran) and Dr. Spectrum (Dr. Alice Nugent).

They abducted Nighthawk and Speed Demon, whom they tried to convince to join them in Supreme Power. The Thunderbolts tracked them down and freed the pair, driving off Hyperion and Dr. Spectrum.

The immediate threat dealt with, Songbird fired Speed Demon from the team, and offered Nighthawk a place. He accepted, and with their warehouse wrecked, offered them his upstate ranch until he could get something fixed up in the city.

Right of Power, part 2

The peace of their new temporary base was broken when a Hydra single person ship crashed in. The Swordsman, revealed to be Andreas Strucker, stumbled out, warning them of an impending threat. Before they could question him, the threat manifested as Moonstone, still comatose but moving and attacking them.

She was followed by Zemo, who was controlling her, and his group of Thunderbolts. The roster was Mach IV, Blizzard, Fixer, Man-Killer, and Blackout, who was brain dead and being animated by Zemo.

Zemo had been responsible for saving Genis’ life after he’d been beaten by Atlas. However, he was still learning how to use the Moongems, and had done it the wrong way. Zemo thus had made Genis a threat to the universe. Songbird’s team defended Genis, battling Zemo’s, while Genis himself battled Zemo.

The tide turned when Zemo used Atlas’ brother Smuggler, whom he’d rescued from the darkforce  dimension, to force Atlas to turn on his team. Apologising to Genis for his mistake, Zemo sliced his body and scattered the pieces through time throughout the darkforce dimension.

The threat dealt with, the two teams merged in preparation for a larger threat Zemo had foreseen. Man-Killer didn’t hang about, but the Swordsman did join them. Nighthawk left when he realised he’d only been invited to join because of his money.

The Thunderbolts Army, part 1

The Moongems had granted Zemo visions of possible futures. A number of these saw the Grandmaster, who was secretly backing Supreme Power, seizing the Wellspring of Power. This source of mystical energy on Earth was responsible for the science-defying nature of a number of super-powers.

The Wellspring wasn’t unknown to the wider universe. Thus, the holding of its power by any individual would result in the activation of the Guardian Protocols, whereby a number of intergalactic powers would make war on Earth. Thus, Zemo had begun planning to counter the Grandmaster since before the New Thunderbolts began.

While Songbird had initially turned down Jenkins’s offer to join the group, she changed her mind. Zemo had contacted her, and shown her proof of the threat. They’d been working together in secret since then.

Gold and Zemo had grown close, beginning a relationship. But Songbird only did so to keep close to him since she didn’t trust him with the power either, which Zemo knew.

Setting up base in Zemo’s Folding Castle, a trans-dimensional space touching on a number of locations, they began competing with Supreme Power to find the Wellspring. In so doing they captured and held a number of super-villains.

The Thunderbolts Army, part 2

When the Civil war broke out, the Thunderbolts were assigned by the CSA to deal with super-villains – but had started doing just that weeks before. Most other resources were focused on the heroes.

Through the agreement he’d reached with the authorities, Zemo began using control methods on the villains willing to work with the Thunderbolts. The army he built was also intended to oppose the Grandmaster’s plans.

When the Wellspring was found, they arrived in time to stop the Grandmaster seizing it, seemingly killing him. But Joystick, secretly working for the Grandmaster, disrupted the Wellspring. Its energies flooded the planet, empowering civilians and making them act erratically.

The Thunderbolts army had been dispatched to deal with them, as Zemo had planned. But the only way to control the energies was to restore the Grandmaster.

The Thunderbolts Army, part 3

With the Grandmaster’s return, the energies became more controlled. But Zemo then attacked him before he could consolidate his control over the planet. Zemo used their energies to briefly de-power both of them, at which point he removed his pistol and shot Grandmaster in the head.

Taking the power of the Wellspring for himself, Zemo began to consider the good he could do with it, and hesitated in restoring it.

Songbird, ready for this, unleashed her powers on the Moongems. One of the stones had already been damaged by the fight, and she shattered both. Zemo vanished, Songbird was showered with the Moongem shards, and the Wellspring energies went wild. The Wellspring itself began growing.

Atlas, pushing his growth powers, managed to block the Wellspring, stopping its danger. But he was left comatose from the strain.

Songbird, merged with the Moongem, revived when she managed to restore Karla’s mind to her body. Mach IV, Blizzard, and Smuggler all lost their suits in the conflagration, so all took a kind of retirement. Jenkins was hired along with the Fixer as trouble-shooters for the CSA.

Songbird, Moonstone, Radioactive Man, and Swordsman were kept around for the government’s planned revamping of the team.

Osborn’s Bastards, part 1

The team underwent a severe restructuring under government control, despite the promises made to Songbird. Situated in Thunderbolts Mountain, with a large support staff, the criminal members were injected with nanochains. These would electrocute them to varying degrees if they didn’t follow orders.

The operation was put under the control of Norman Osborn, who assigned Moonstone as field leader. Penance, Venom and Bullseye were inducted to the team, the latter’s presence kept secret from the public.

The team was used to bring in unregistered super-humans, usually heroes. Osborn allowed them enough freedom that the more unrepentant members tended to get vicious with their targets. The most public of such operation was when the team were dispatched to catch the Steel Spider in Phoenix.

American Eagle and Sepulchre were also in the area, so the fight escalated. It ended with a slightly out of control Venom eating the Steel Spider’s arm, caught on camera. Despite this, the team remained popular with the public due to their PR department.

Osborn’s Bastards, part 2

The Phoenix operation also began Songbird’s attempts to clean up the team. She convinced Bullseye she’d disabled his nanochain. Killing his handlers, he planned to run after he’d dealt with the American Eagle.

However, his opponent proved more challenging than he’d expected. When his nanochain was activated in the middle of the fight, Bullseye took a serious beating, which left him comatose with possible brain damage.

A group of unregistered super-humans allowed themselves to separately be peaceably apprehended by the Thunderbolts, so they were all held in Thunderbolts Mountain at the same time. There they used their psychic abilities to manipulate the Thunderbolts to turn on each other.

The Swordsman bribed a contingent of the guards into his own army, and demanded he be put in charge. Venom went on a killing spree among the staff. Osborn donned his Goblin costume and killed a few guards. Moonstone tried to settle her grudge with Dr. Leonard Samson, who was there to evaluate Penance.

Osborn’s Bastards, part 3

Penance and Samson were unaffected by the psychics, but everyone else was at least blocked from considering using the nanochains. The situation was ended when Bullseye awoke from the advanced healing he’d been undergoing.

With no staff supervising him, he wandered down to the cells and killed the psychics, just to see if the damage he’d taken had affected his skills. It hadn’t.

Osborn explained the presence of the Goblin as hallucinations caused by the psychics. But Songbird acquired the camera recordings of the event, which she gave to Samson for safekeeping. She used their existence as leverage to get Osborn to make her team leader again.

Secret Invasion

When the Skrull invasion began openly, Thunderbolts Mountain was attacked by the returned Captain Mar-Vell, who turned out to be a Skrull sleeper agent. His surprise attack managed to subdue most of the team. But Osborn exploited the confusion his false identity caused “Mar-Vell”, and the alien fled before finishing them.

The team, with Osborn leading them, travelled to Washington to battle the invasion forces there, where Osborn made sure to play to the media. They then went to New York City to aid the gathered heroes against the last of the invasion force.

Osborn managed to get caught on camera killing the Skrull Queen. He was acclaimed a national hero because of it when the invasion had been driven away.

Using the political capital this gained him, along with blame Tony Stark had gained for the incident, Osborn officially disbanded the Thunderbolts. He got himself assigned head of the replacement to S.H.I.E.L.D., which he named H.A.M.M.E.R..

Secret Invasion fallout

While Osborn was in Washington, Radioactive Man was recalled to China. Moonstone began clearing the team of its unwanted elements. She drugged Penance for transport to a maximum security psychiatric facility.

This left Songbird almost alone in Thunderbolts Mountain when Bullseye, Moonstone, and Venom tried to kill her. She survived with help from the Swordsman, who faked her death, and she fled.

The Swordsman was angered that the dissolution of the Thunderbolts might mean his deal wouldn’t be honoured, and his sister might not be cloned. He confronted Osborn, who lost his temper, ran Andreas through with his own sword, and threw him out a high window.

The Thunderbolts officially finished, Osborn took the remaining members with him. He gave them new identities as members of his Avengers, so Moonstone became Ms. Marvel, Venom became Spider-Man, and Bullseye became Hawkeye.

Dark Reign, part 1

It wasn’t long before Osborn formed a new, covert, Thunderbolts team. It was a black ops unit answerable only to him. He recruited Ghost, Paladin, Headsman, Ant-Man (O’Grady), and the Black Widow (Belova) as team leader, setting them up in the abandoned Cube prison.

Their first mission was an attack on Air Force One, on board which Osborn had been called in front of the President to answer charges Leonard Samson had made. The attack had the Headsman dressed as the Green Goblin, causing a lot of noise. Meanwhile the Ghost stole the footage of Norman’s rampage in the suit which Samson had brought with him.

They also used gamma based technology to send Samson into a mindless rage. Osborn appeared to deal with the problems, protecting the President by personally throwing the Goblin and Samson from the plane, and launching a manhunt for the latter.

After an apparently successful attempt to kill Deadpool, who was after Osborn for spoiling a job of his, the team was dispatched to Madripoor. There they collected a new recruit, Mister X, while faking his death. They were also joined by the new Scourge (formerly Nuke), who soon took over leadership.

Dark Reign, part 2

When Songbird turned up alive, Osborn dispatched the team to apprehend her. They caught up to her, but were thrown off when Black Widow helped her escape, revealing herself to actually be Natasha Romanova, who’d infiltrated the group at Nick Fury’s request.

She took Songbird to a safe house after sending Fury a message to meet them there. But Ant-Man tagged along with them, and the three were soon captured by the Thunderbolts.

Osborn arrived and revealed it had actually been him using technology to disguise himself as Fury who’d assigned her the job. This way the Widow had been reporting to him on the team’s loyalty, and had led Fury into a trap. Sending Songbird and the Widow off with the Thunderbolts for execution, Osborn kept Fury for himself.

Upon execution he realized that it had not been Colonel Fury, but a decoy.

Dark Reign, part 3

The Thunderbolts were about to execute Songbird when division within the team split them. The Headsman, Paladin and the Ghost turned on Mister X and Scourge, unwilling to kill their prisoners. They managed to beat them as Songbird and the Black Widow escaped.

The Ghost zapped Mister X and Scourge to scramble their short term memories. They explained it as just Songbird and the Black Widow getting the better of them.

Osborn later used them for a retributive attack on the Agents of Atlas. He sent the Thunderbolts, with new member Grizzly, to cause a dangerous chemical spill at a remote Atlas site and waiting in ambush. The Agents arrived, but managed to keep the upper hand in the fight.

That lasted until the leaked chemicals, which the Thunderbolts had taken antidotes to, began to affect them and they had to retreat. Before they did, though, Jimmy Woo got Bob Grayson to plant a post-hypnotic command in Scourge.

Dark Reign, part 4

The Thunderbolts returned to base to receive a recorded holographic message from Osborn to prepare for their next mission. The sight of Osborn triggered the command left in Scourge, and he shot through the hologram. The shot caught Headsman square in the head, killing him.

Called up to support Osborn’s siege of Asgard , the team were tasked with infiltrating the Asgardian armoury, and recovering the Spear of Odin. They located it, but before they could take it to Osborn, they were confronted by members of the Mighty Avengers (whom Ghost had summoned for his own reasons).

They got stuck in battle, during which Scourge used the Spear to sever U.S.Agent’s left arm and leg. Ant-Man and Paladin, having entertained doubts about the team for a while, finally turned on their team mates. They kept the Spear away from them as the Avengers finished them off.

The Siege failed, and Osborn was taken into custody, along with the beaten Thunderbolts. Ant-Man and Paladin escaped.

Heroic Age

The team was again restructured under the supervision of an oversight committee, the Federal Advisory Committee to Thunderbolts (F.A.C.T.). Captain Steve Rogers assigned Luke Cage to lead the team. Situated in the new Raft prison — run by John Walker, the former U.S.Agent — it had a separate building for the recruited prisoners to use.

Songbird, Mach V, and Fixer served as squad supervisors alongside Cage, as well as having roles in running the prison.

The initial team was comprised of Moonstone, Ghost, Juggernaut, and Crossbones, despite Cage’s reservations about the latter. The basement of their tower had a habitat for the captive Man-Thing, held there at Hank Pym’s urging rather than the government destroying it due to the deaths attributed to it in the Everglades. Pym installed controls in Man-Thing that allowed the team to guide where he transported them.

Their initial mission was hunting down a pack of trolls that had escaped during the siege of Asgard. These were rampaging the countryside and eating people. The trolls were stopped, and they captured Gunna, an Asgardian who’d been raised among the trolls and considered herself one. She was installed at the Raft while her legal situation was assessed, and developed a bond with Songbird.

The team was slow to gel together, and no one was surprised when Crossbones betrayed them. He was subdued and thrown back into general population.

They initially replaced him with a Hyperion, but he turned out to be, quote, “one of the douche Hyperions”. They then decided on a magical replacement following a magical incursion into the Raft. The Thunderbolts recruited Satana with Dr. Strange‘s help, using a magical version of the nanites used to control the team.

In light of what they saw as failings in the operations, the committee ordered a back up team of Thunderbolts, to be led by Songbird. They recruited Troll (Gunna), Boomerang, Centurius, Mister Hyde, and Shocker.

Fear Itself

After Cage was irritated by Juggernaut’s actions on a mission, he grounded him and returned him to general population to cool off. Juggernaut didn’t know this was temporary, so his frustrations added to his temperament when a hammer of the Worthy landed in the Raft. Taking the hammer, Juggernaut was possessed by Kuurth.

Kuurth destroyed the Raft in his escape, and the Thunderbolts teams were recalled from their mission. After containing escape attempts of those not already fled, the primary team was dispatched after Kuurth, trying to stop him destroying Chicago. The beta team was assigned to aid rescue efforts at the prison.

Centurius took advantage of the chaos to access the medical files on the nanites controlling them (apart from Troll, whom they kept it from) while the team recovered the medical unit. He disabled their nanites, but convinced them it was a bad time, since they’d run into the heroes no doubt alerted to the prison break. They played along, waiting for a better opportunity.

The main team prevented Kuurth reaching Chicago, but were unable to capture or free Juggernaut. No sooner had he vanished than a missile landed nearby, sent by Sin. It unleashed an army of quickly growing monstrosities. Soon overwhelmed, they called on the beta team for support.

With Man-Thing briefly lost in the fight, the beta team had no easy way to reach Chicago. Satana believed she could harness the energies from his habitat though, and together with Fixer managed to turn the tower into a vehicle they teleported to Chicago.

They fought the invading monsters, and Shocker took advantage of the chaos to flee. The Man-Thing returned to help them, growing to giant size as part of the evolution Satana had helped start him on. He ended the problem, though was left in a cocooned state by the affair.

Lost

Taking advantage of the chaos in the aftermath of the affair, the criminal Thunderbolts other than Ghost teleported to Europe in the tower. Fixer came along, as he believed he was in trouble after Mach V discovered him communicating with Baron Zemo. Troll was also caught up with them.

Cage, Songbird, Mach V, and Ghost searched for the missing Thunderbolts. They also undertook missions to recapture those criminals who’d escaped the devastated Raft. But they were unable to find a trace of the team until aided by Valkyrie.

Using Asgardian magic to track Troll’s axe, they discovered the team had been displaced in time. Using magic, Ghost was able to reduce himself to a signal that travelled to meet up with the lost Thunderbolts.

The lost team were thrown about. They fought the Nazis opposite the Invaders in WWII. Hyde committing the Ripper murders in London to deal with the demons possessing the victims. They escaped from Camelot after getting on the wrong side of Merlin and King Arthur.

Homeward, part 1

The timelost team almost reached their own time, missing by a few years. They then tried to avoid the original Thunderbolts during their initial days. After a couple of clashes they called a truce as the original Thunderbolts realised who they were. This was partly due to Moonstone confiding in her earlier self to give them an advantage.

The arrangement wasn’t happy. The younger Fixer grew disgusted in what he’d become and ferreted about for history of their future to avoid that fate. His older self found him, and the heated argument ended with the older Fixer triggering his younger self’s self-destruct, killing him. This caused a paradox, and reality began to unwrap around them.

Seeing only one way to fix things so the world didn’t cease to exist, Fixer was altered to resemble his younger self, and his more recent memories erased. The earlier Thunderbolts then had their memories erased, willingly in most cases, and the others continued their travel through time.

Homeward, part 2

They finally reached the Pleistocene era. There Man-Thing finally evolved into a new, talking, state. He revealed his transformation had accidentally caused their coming unanchored in time, and they should be able to get home fine with him stabilised.

Unfortunately the time traveller they’d just rescued from giant sharks turned out to be Dr. Doom, banished there by his Master. Doom took control of the tower and transported it back to modern day.

Not wanting his survival known, and being a bit of a jerk, Doom set his Doombots on them once they reached modern Latveria. He also set the tower to travel into the future and self-destruct. Having little choice in escaping the Doombots, the Thunderbolts fled in the tower, and escaped before it exploded.

They found themselves in a post-apocalyptic future less than a century ahead. Earth had been devastated after an incident between the U.S. and the middle east country of Sharzhad. Using a beacon Pym had set up to transmit to the team, Man-Thing managed to get them back home in time to battle their replacements in Sharzhad.

Dark Avengers, part 1

Cage was on the verge of handing in his notice, believing he’d failed the team. But he learned FACT had recruited a new team from Osborn’s most recent Dark Avengers. Suspicious of their motives, and the secret new Raft facility, he led their mission to Sharzhad.

The squad was comprised of Dr. June Covington (Toxic Doxie), Ai Apaec, Trickshot (Barney Barton), and Ragnarok, with Skaar as their handler.

The team had instructions to which Cage and Skaar weren’t privy. They’d been told it was a rescue mission of a superhuman abducted by Sharzhad’s ruler, Sultan Magus. But the superhuman in question was one of twins enslaved by a U.S. agency and used for black ops where they drained the power from targets.

The initial mission had been disastrous, but the superhuman survived. As soon as they found him, after battling through the creatures defending the country, the team took the target and left Cage and Skaar to battle Sultan Magus.

Dark Avengers, part 2

Meahwhile Songbird, Mach V and John Walker had spied on FACT. They learned some of the truth behind their operation. They captured the committee members and fled the facility. Walker recruited Juggernaut to aid them, and they travelled to Sharzhad. By the time they arrived the link had been established between the twins, and the uncontrollable energies endangered the U.S..

The reinforcements broke through the force field protecting the country not long before the time-lost team arrived. The combined force beat Sultan Magus and the Dark Avengers, though they could only stop the disaster by killing the conduit. It ended the threat, and they prepared to leave the country before Sultan Magus recovered.

Walker piloted the supposedly unconscious Dark Avengers and Skaar home. But as soon as they’d gotten off the ground Covington took control of Skaar and caused him to go amok, causing the craft to plummet out of control. Moonstone tried to stop it, but it proved too much.

It would have crashed into the others if Man-Thing hadn’t instinctively teleported it away. Back to New York, he claimed. Man-Thing transported the others back to the Raft, then immediately took the criminal members away before they could be arrested. He let them choose their destinations, and they went their separate ways.

Dark World

While the Dark Avengers did end up in Manhattan, it wasn’t their Manhattan. It was one where the city had been carved into territories by insane super heroes who were engaged in a cold war. The détente was ended by the arrival, and most of the team were captured by Iron Man.

They became pawns of Iron Man, the Thing, and Doctor Strange, but fought back and freed themselves. While they were supposedly prisoners of Iron Man, Dr. Covington freed herself and took advantage of his labs to operate on the others before waking them.

She removed the cybernetic brain from Ragnarok and allowed his Asgardian physiology to heal him. She shrank Ai Apaec permanently using Pym particles. And she restored John Walker’s missing limbs. Walker, donning the U.S.Agent costume once again, and possibly under Covington’s influence led the team against the warlords.

The Thunderbolts discovered they weren’t in an alternate dimension as they’d thought, but in an artificial dimension created and heavily manipulated by A.I.M.. A.I.M. had captured a sliver of time during a battle between the Avengers and Kang. They then manipulated the artificial world to cause hostilities between factions so they could grab whatever tech was created there.

The team’s arrival caused instability in the dimension, and they barely escaped before it collapsed. The only objects recovered from it were copies of Thor’s hammer, which Ragnarok now wielded, and Captain America’s shield, held by U.S.Agent. They returned to the real world in the A.I.M. laboratory, which they destroyed behind them.

DC Universe History

The Thunderbolts were established by a covert section of Task Force X after the Suicide Squad had been discontinued (using some criminals who’d served on the squad), during a period when the JLA were inactive.

The idea was to have a controllable group of super-heroes under their thumb. Their control didn’t last however, and Zemo managed to use some of the information sources they’d allowed them as part of his world domination plan. The section made sure to destroy information linking them to the group.

They also used the product of another covert division, Scourge, to try and eliminate the Thunderbolts themselves.

By Gareth Lewis.

Source of Character: Marvel Comics.

Helper(s): Darci, Roger, Frank Murdock.

Writeup completed on the 28^th of July, 2010.