Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Beast, Captain America, Iron Man, Jack Of Hearts, She-Hulk, Thor and US Agent are waiting to be interviewed by accountants from the Maria Stark Foundation which funds the Avengers. Edwin Jarvis ushers in chief accountant Maxwell Caton and new Foundation recruit Janice Imperato. The Foundation has tax-exempt status and maintains that by doing expenditure audits on random missions. This time they are covering a case from a month ago. Cap asks IM if as Tony Stark he could just rubber stamp it all. Tony says this is better than dealing with the IRS. Max is gratified that so many of the mission participants have been able to make this meeting. Janice is angry that it's not all of them.
1st up is Beast who is called to task for wrecking a quinjet. Henry McCoy of course can't help but annoy Ms Imperato by joking around. He says that most of the main team were away when the problem arose in St Louis so any available Reserve or ex-Avengers were roped in, including himself who was just visiting. They set off in 2 quinjets. He piloted 1 of them containing Iron Man, Silverclaw, US Agent and Wonder Man. Hank omits to tell the interviewers that he was showing off his piloting skills to Maria de Guadalupe Santiago (Lupe to her friends) when they ran into a sentient cloud over the city. He claims that only his reflexes got the craft down safely at all (we see it ploughing down a street balanced on a wing) and at the epicentre of the problem where various beings are showing their 'new masters' what they can do. Max overrides Janice and accepts Beast's account.
Next is Iron Man who has to account for a bill with triple penalty fees from Comsat. As the 5 Avengers waded in to distract the foes from attacking citizens he heard 1 of them call himself Neodymium and detected that another was made of Arsenic who was engulfing some bystanders. IM used a widespread mild repulsor blast to disperse the gas. The he commented to Wonder Man that he recognised the enemy from Avengers files. WM confirms that he was there when the team fought them in Russia (#188). The radio link in the quinjet was damaged so IM bounced a message of a Comsat satellite to Avengers Mansion in New York to tell them what was happening. Janice Imperato says that Iron Man didn't have the authority to commit the Foundation to pay for the disruption to communications - he's not Tony Stark. Then Max Caton whispers to her that she's missed the news that Tony Stark recently revealed that he *is* IM (in his #55).
Stark adds that Cap and Jack Of Hearts had arrived at the Mansion and got the news that the enemy was the Elements Of Doom. Cap explains to the newbie that the Elements were artificial beings created in a nuclear experiment. So someone must have recreated them, and Steve Rogers knows just where he and Jack should go to find out who.
Bur we won't hear about that for while because the next victim is US Agent who says he can't remember anything about the mission. So Max reports what they've heard happened next. Beast asked USA to help fight Ruthenium who was menacing fleeing office staff, but John Walker said effectively 'you're not the boss of me' and went after another Element. He broke open a fire hydrant and squirted it at the Element. WM tried to stop him but the water hit Sodium, a chemical reaction released hydrogen and the gas exploded, burning several folk and the Foundation has to pay their hospital bills. Imperato wants to know why he was so foolhardy but USA takes it as typical sniping at heroes and stalks out.
Thor comes in next and tells how he and She-Hulk were in the 2nd quinjet with Triathlon as pilot. As they arrived their craft was broken apart by a (huge) Element (probably Caesium). Thor promptly tackled Caesium who generated electricity which the Thunder God absorbed into his hammer Mjolnir. He completed the defeat by throwing his foe into an empty building, demolishing it. Caton queries the needless destruction but Thor gives him a bag of Asgardian gold to pay for it. Max accepts the money but still complains about the paperwork, which the Lord of Asgard thinks beneath him and leaves.
Next Janice questions She-Hulk about another demolished building. Shulk saw Nickel and Tungsten smashing the support columns of the front of the building with people in. She quickly KO'd the pair and held up the building while the people got out. But then the owner approached her and threatened to sue her for the destruction. She told him she couldn't hold it up much longer and he wisely ran away. But now he really is suing. But then lawyer Jennifer Walters opines that it's just a nuisance suit that he hopes they'll settle rather than fight. She suggests they tell him to prepare for a long expensive legal battle including investigations into his business practices, and he'll go away again.
Captain America comes in to explain why he got a parking ticket and a request for a voucher for taking something out of a Federal Prison. He and Jack Of Hearts flew another quinjet to a Pennsylvania prison. Because its parking lot was full they landed in a side street, hence the parking fine. When they got to the prison they found it was under attack by Platinum of the Elements. Cap left JOH to fight the baddie while he went inside to see Dr Vasily Khandruvitch who created the original Elements Of Doom in Russia and is in jail here for recreating them in the US (Thunderbolts #7-8). Khandruvitch told him that AIM holographically approached him in his cell to help them create a new batch. When he refused they said they'd send his creations to kill him. Then he wrote down instructions how to destroy the creatures. But Cap didn't have time to sign the document out, hence the request for a retroactive voucher. And he hands them all the relevant paperwork plus names of people who can confirm the events. Janice wishes all the Avengers were like him.
Last up is Jack Of Hearts who apologises in advance for not knowing how these meetings go. He'd just defeated Platinum when Cap and gave him Khandruvitch's solution. Jack flew it to St Louis because he is much faster than a quinjet. He gave it to scientist/engineers Beast, Iron Man and Wonder Man. They used stuff from the crashed quinjets to create a Chemical Destabilisation Cannon. JOH flew it up into the sky and fired it at the Elements which dissolved. After that they all hunted down the AIM cell, but he's told that for accounting purposes that's a separate mission. Jack apologises for the dissolved Elements clogging up the sewer system but Max tells him not to worry about it.
The interrogations are over and the accountants take their leave. Max says there'll be a report in tomorrow's mail. On the way out he tells Janice that meeting was fairly normal. There's only 1 point to be raised. He and Mr Stark agreed beforehand that US Agent wouldn't be cooperative, so they're going to forward all bills related to him to the Commission On Superhuman Activities, since he works for them rather than the Avengers now. Ms Imperato is still not happy with most of the results, but Caton says they'll just fudge things a little. He considers their job is to help keep the Avengers running, and advises her to treat the problems as a challenge.