As Jack Monroe lies dead from a gunshot wound in the parking lot of a bar near Pittsburgh, the story moves on to review his life and career….
One year ago, Monroe was told by Dr. Jane Foster that he was dying, the result of the Super-Soldier variant he was injected with plus the nanites placed in his body at the time he became Scourge. There was no treatment that would stop the progression: first he would lose his strength and stamina, then his immune system would break down, then his mind would go…. As he left her office, he pondered his own life: recruited to become the 1950s Bucky, he and his Captain America slowly sank into paranoia and were placed in suspended animation. Freed by his Cap, the two of them battled the real Cap and the Falcon. He was befriended by Steve Rogers who supported him through his cure by SHIELD and even made Steve’s partner as the new Nomad. But through it all he was never his own man: he was a replacement Bucky, the second Nomad, the third Scourge, but had no identity of his own. On a late night adventure fighting criminals, he found himself coughing up blood. Soon after he was seeing visions that the real Bucky was mocking him and having dreams from the first Bucky’s life.
Nine months ago: seeking some connection in his life, he tracked down his daughter Julia who was given up for adoption, living with her new parents near Pittsburgh, and watched her from a distance. While in a nearby bar later, he overheard two men talking about selling to the kids near the schoolyard and Jack decided his daughter still needs protection. As Nomad, he went after the drug dealers, smashing up a car and savagely beating the hoods inside; as he left however, the readers see that the "gangsters" were a bunch of innocent young men. He feels the madness beginning to take hold of him and tries to stay sane for his daughter’s sake….
Last night, he attacked two more innocent men, thinking he was getting closer to the druglord Gunnar. The following evening he waits nervously in the bar to trap his quarry but storms out after an argument with the other patrons…and is murdered in the parking lot by the assassin. Moments later Gunnar arrives to meet his partner, and is revealed to be selling ice cream, not narcotics, near the schoolyard….