Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue, taking Moonstone's claim literally that the 1 with the Moonstone gem should lead the team because she's the most powerful, the little girl/Cosmic Cube Kobik ripped the jewel from Karla Sofen's chest. Now Kobik has the Moonstone power and costume, and Karla is bleeding out.
Kobik now claims to be team leader but doesn't understand why nobody follows her orders to play with her. While Fixer and Mach-X try to staunch the bleeding, Atlas stands around helpless and Winter Soldier tries to convince Kobik this isn't a game - Miss Moon (as Kobik calls her) is really dying. Eventually Kobik restores the jewel to its place and Karla revives. And her costume leaves Kobik and gradually rebuilds itself around Moonstone as the stone repairs the damage to her body.
This all takes place in an abandoned warehouse in Georgia. Bucky Barnes is the Man On The Wall, inheritor of Nick Fury's job of protecting Earth from alien threats. He's organised this incarnation of the Thunderbolts to help him. Last issue Fury's system alerted them to an alien threat here, and they arrived to find the warehouse full of cocoons similar to those created by the Terrigen Cloud to produce Nuhumans. But Fixer's analysis indicated that they were different from that.
Now Fixer continues his investigation with a drill. But the cocoon responds by opening, and a large alien steps out and grabs him by the throat. Still-coughing Moonstone blasts the alien to make him drop her team-mate. But other cocoons crack open and other aliens emerge, all different. Battle commences. And more cocoons start to crack.
A lot of aliens mob large Atlas and submerge him. But he grows to super-giant size, bursting through the roof. He picks up 2 aliens and hurls them away. Bucky/WS complains that they are supposed to be containing the threat, not spreading it. So Erik Josten treks off to retrieve them, and Bucky sends Mach-X to help. Atlas finds the aliens menacing a couple of boys. He splats 1, and Mach-X arrives to shoot the other.
They get back to find the team have killed the other awake aliens, and no more cocoons have burst. They did this without the 'help' of Kobik because WS didn't trust her judgement. Now they follow Moonstone's original suggestion and burn all the other cocoons.
But then a flying vessel appears and a bunch of Inhumans emerge led by Crystal, who demands to know what they've done.