Thunderbolts #128

The cover shows more Thunderbolts than are in this issue. It presumably includes Paladin, Mr X and Nuke/Scourge, 2 of whom won't be added to the team for several issues.

The new President is supposed to be Barack Obama.

Songbird got hold of the backup copy of the security videos in #121 and gave them to Doc Samson to take out of the Thunderbolts base. She used that to blackmail Norman Osborn into letting her lead the team (rather than Moonstone).

Next issue we'll learn that this Green Goblin of course isn't the real 1 (or any of the previous non-Norman versions). It's a villain called the Headsman - more on him next time.

NO asks Yelena Belova how she survived her destruction (as an Adaptoid) in New Warriors Annual #1. She brushes the question aside. But the revelation later in this series that she's really the 'real' Black Widow, Natasha Romanova, doesn't negate the question because YB has been already seen since then in an arc in Marvel Comics Presents v2. The Marvel Chronology Project gets out of this by dubbing the char in NAv#5-6 & An#1 as an imposter, but other sites just seem to treat it as the usual villain recovery.

I'll return to NR when she's officially exposed.

Headsman, Ant-Man and Ghost are part of Belova's Thunderbolts team.

Ant-Man was an Initiative trainee but he was selected for the Thunderbolts in Av:I#20. But Osborn sent him with HAMMER troops to rescue the Shadow Initiative from Madripoor in Av:I#24.

Ghost is an old Iron Man villain who last tangled with him in the IM: Inevitable limited series. But he was then hired by Osborn to break into IM's store of armours when NO took over Avengers Tower in Dark Avengers #1. And now he's in full-time employment.

Osborn and Victoria Hand were last in Dark Reign: Elektra #2-5 where Norman sent his Dark Avenger Bullseye to get rid of another embarrassment. The MCP put the flashback recruiting YB just before that, after NO's involvement in Ms Marvel #39-46 (where Moonstone took over the mag as the DAv's MsM after Carol Danvers' apparent death, through to Carol's triumphant return).

Doc Samson has this habit of turning into a Hulk-lite as we'll see next issue. But with his psychiatrist hat on he was treating Penance in #117-121 and most recently counselling Skrull abductees in Av:I#20-23.