Thunderbolts #49

Title: “Explanations! The End of the Beginning…”

Writer: Fabian Nicieza

Penciller: Patrick Zircher

Inker: Al Vey

Colorist: Joe Rosas

Editor: Tom Brevoort

Charcoal shouts “Liar!” at Hawkeye and grabs him in his giant hand. MACH-2 grabs Charcoal from behind and tells him to back off. Moonstone says that this isn’t the time for this, but Songbird tells her not to stick up for her boyfriend. Songbird says that Charcoal is right to be angry about this. Hawkeye says that Charcoal wasn’t even on the team then and that he has no criminal record so why should he care. Songbird says that a teenager knows more about friendship than the “high and mighty” Avenger. Hawkeye asks Moonstone for a hand getting up, but Karla doesn’t give him one.

Hawkeye admits that he was wrong. He tells them that he did go to the Commission of Superhuman Activities and that he did ask them, but that they turned him down. Hawkeye says that he thought that was a dumb decision so he stuck his neck out and made the proposal anyway. He says that at least his presence kept the Avengers off their backs and gave them a chance to prove themselves. He apologizes to them for lying to them, but says that they have come such a long way that he thinks of them not only as teammates but as friends. The team doesn’t respond but just looks at him. Moonstone says that this isn’t the place to have this discussion and grabs “Steve Rogers”, the unmasked Scourge, to fly away.

An hour later the team arrives back at their jumpship in the Canadian Rockies. Inside Hawkeye knows that “Cap” is a fraud, but Jolt worries that another of the heroes she looked up to might not be all that great, and the others all worry that if Captain America was really against them that they never stood a chance of clemency. Moonstone spots the holographic inducer under Scourge’s face. She crushes it and Hawkeye recognizes Scourge as Jack Monroe, former Bucky, Nomad, and sidekick to Captain America. Jolts asks if Nomad isn’t supposed to be dead too. Charcoal adds that he can’t wait for the first time he gets to die.

At Mount Charteris Sharon Carter tells G.W. Bridge that SHIELD is done there. She explains that since the place has been designated a “non-military protocol” that the Commission of Superhuman Activities is sending out a team to clean the place up. She says that she negotiated to have a couple of agents left behind as liaisons. Ogre watches as Sharon Carter talks to G.W. Bridge. Above him hovers the third containment chamber. He thinks how he can’t reveal himself to them or trust them. His only concern is to make sure that the containment unit is never opened.

At the CSA’s training facility in Cliff’s Edge, Virginia, Citizen V uses the infrared sensors to locate his target- the new Meteorite, Valerie Barnhardt. She is surrounded by anti-graviton particles and hard air molecules that would protect her physically, however Scream strikes out with a sonic attack that causes dogs for miles to bark. Meteorite covers her ears and curses as she freefalls. The new Beetle armor stands in her way and tells her to let her catch her so she can put her out of her misery. Meteorite pushes the forward thrust control and causes her to slam into the Beetle armor so hard that it knocks them both over. Meteorite curses again. Smuggler comes up behind Meteorite and grabs the emblem off her back. Citizen V compliments Smuggler, but adds that they need to do better. Citizen V says that perhaps when their last member joins them that they will be ready for what is coming up. The team starts asking Citizen V what they are supposed to do that will earn them the pardons that they were promised for taking place in this exercise, but they are interrupted by Warton, their CSA representative. Warton tells Citizen V that “he” is awake and ready to make a deal.

Within the nation of Symkaria, inside Castle Masada, Andrea Sterman jokes with Roger Aubrey and Elizabeth Barstow of the V-Battalion that now that she can’t write her book about Omega-32 that at least when they kidnapped her they gave her a great subject for her next book. The humor isn’t appreciated and Roger says that she wasn’t kidnapped. He says that he saved her life because she is the only one who can convince their guest of the conspiracy within the CSA. They enter the administrative chamber where the rest of the Penance Council, and Andrea’s former boss in the CSA Valerie Cooper are waiting. Valerie Cooper isn’t thrilled that their source is a woman who shilled her last book on the Jerry Springer show.

Back at the Canadian Rockies, Hawkeye demands some answers from Nomad. Charcoal adds that if he doesn’t answer them that he is going to smack him around a bit. Munroe says that he can’t answer. Charcoal says that is the wrong answer, or from where he sits the right one. Munroe says that it isn’t that he doesn’t want to it is that he physically can’t. MACH-2 says that Munroe is telling the truth. Abe says that he is picking up cybernetic relays from the helmet that would indicate mind control. Jolt chimes in with what she knows about Nomad’s past and origin. She says that everyone assumed that Jack Munroe was killed when he was trying to expose U.S. Senator Bart Ingrid as a member of a Neo-Nazi organization. They assumed he was killed in an explosion at Washington DC. Jolt adds that Munroe was accused of the explosion, but Andrea Sterman’s book suggests that he was trying to stop Ingrid from doing it. Moonstone says that she doesn’t care how he came back from the dead. She just wants to know how he became Scourge and why he is coming after them. MACH-2 reveals that Munroe is covered in nano-probes, little robots that can are within him. MACH-2 says that Munroe is aware of what he is being made to do, but that he can’t stop himself from doing it. MACH-2 says that he might be able to influence how the orders are carried out though. MACH-2 finds the wavelength that the nano-probes are being transmitted on. He blasts Munroe with it and frees his mind. Munroe says that they are going to pay.

Munroe tells them all that he survived the bombing in Congress, and that his body was found by Vernon Hatchway. Hatchway put him back in suspended animation. Munroe and Andrea Sterman then begin to tell similar stories to the Thunderbolts and Valerie Cooper respectively. Munroe was taken from suspended animation and exposed to the nano-probes. He was shown the Thunderbolts and given a vast expanse of weapons. Scourge wound up killing Jolt- the heart of the team, and then Gayle Rogers and Roberta Haggert, both of whom came to close to discovering the truth between Roxxon and the hard air bullet used to kill Jolt. Munroe used the bullet to draw attention to his actions. As it turns out the CSA funded the project that allowed hard air to be manufactured into bullets, and that was why they had the Beetle steal the Omega-32 compound.

Roger Aubrey tells Valerie Cooper that their man inside the CSA Miles Warton confirms everything that Sterman is telling her. He says that they became involved when a new Citizen V, who wasn’t one of them, appeared on the scene. He says that through Warton’s influence that they gained knowledge of the sweep of Zemo’s castle. They know about the deceased cloned bodies of Zemo, which were promptly destroyed, and one other vegetative but sentient body. He says that they assembled the Redeemers to stop the conspiracy. Roger says that they tried to get Dallas Riordan to kill Gyrich, but she refused and defected from the group.

The Penance Council and Munroe reveal that the mastermind behind it all is Henry Peter Gyrich. Munroe says that the scariest thing about it all is that the Thunderbolt’s murder is but the first testing phase of the equipment Gyrich is going to use to kill every superhuman on Earth. Songbird says that maybe they should call the Avengers, but Jolt insists that it’s important that they be the ones to stop the plan so that they can show that they aren’t the threat they have been made out to be. Hawkeye agrees and Munroe says that he is also in.

At the Cliff’s Edge CSA Facility Citizen V tells the Redeemers that he will tell them what their mission is as soon as their last member arrives. A voice says that he can start and that an audio enhancer he designed allowed him to hear Citizen V a hundred yards down the hall. Citizen V introduces the final Redeemer- P. Norbert Ebersol, the Fixer.