Thunderbolts #44: Review

Albert Deschesne works with Richard Starkings on the lettering again. Richard and Tanya Horie colour the cover again.

The subtitle for this issue is "The Nefaria Protocols continue". We only heard of the NP in Avengers #33 and it will be the title of Av#34, but many sites list The Nefaria Protocols as the title of the whole crossover event.

The jokey title "Keeping an ion the crowd" is echoed in the credits for Kurt Busiek "keeping an ion everything" and Bob Harras "keeping an ion the aspirin".

After several issues with a few chars wandering between titles we at last enter a proper crossover.

Iron Man is in an old armour because his latest armour became sentient and went rogue in IM#26-30 and he hasn't had time to invent a new 1 yet.

Abner Jenkins started his Marvel life as the villain Beetle for the Human Torch in Strange Tales but quickly diversified. During that career he killed someone in Deadly Foes Of Spider-Man #3. He joined the Thunderbolts as Mach-1, and when Hawkeye took over Clint persuaded him to go to jail to pay for his crime (#26). The Commission On Superhuman Activities recruited him from prison as an undercover operative. Later Clint 'persuaded' the CSA to let Abe rejoin the TBolts under a new identity Mach-2/Matt Davis while officially pretending he was still serving his time in jail (#37). Ogre (Techno) gave him an African-American disguise.

Norbert Ebersol was Fixer beginning in the SHIELD story in Strange Tales #141. Again after a long career he joined the 'Bolts as Techno. But he was killed and his consciousness transferred to a robotic body (#7-8). Then he was the only 1 to stay with Baron Zemo when the rest of the gang chose to really be heroes (#11). He secretly replaced Ogre in #33.

She-Hulk hasn't done anything since she left the Avengers in their #32, but Captain America has been busy since he quit in #25. He popped back for #27 and the 2000 Annual, and since then he's popped up in #15 of the Spider-Woman (Mattie Franklin) series and attended the bedside of a WWII veteran with Nick Fury in his own #32.

Iron Man comments that Quasar and Thor weren't available to answer the call to arms this issue. This was probably meant as a reference to them being away in space in the Avengers: Infinity mini-series which was on sale at this time, but the Marvel Chronology Project has that happening a little later.
Quasar spends most of his time out in space but still normally answers a call from the Avengers, as in #1-4 of the current Av series which was his last chronological app and his next *will* be Av: Infinity mentioned above.
Thor hasn't been seen since *he* quit the Avengers in #27. But he has some apps before Av:Inf, particularly in his paramedic guise treating US Agent in CA#34 which Cap hasn't got to yet.

Karl Malus has been a practising evil scientist specialising in superhuman abilities since #30-32 of Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)'s 1st series. He has most prominently been involved in augmentation for the Power Broker and the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation, but most recently worked for the Corporation in Cage (1992) #13-14. After this he'll get back ikn the Power Broker business in CA#615.1.

Jack Norris was the husband of Barbara Norris whose body was for a long time occupied by Valkyrie of the Defenders, and as such he spent a lot of time in their series. Later he became a SHIELD Agent investigating Nomad in that vigilante's 2nd series, which is where he met Andrea Sterman. This here will be his last app (to date).

Nomad was Jack Monroe who has been retconned as the Bucky to the 1950's Captain America. But their inferior Super-Soldier serum lead to insanity and the Government put them in cryogenic suspension from which they emerged in CA#153. Jack worked towards becoming a hero again and was given his 2 series as Nomad but wound up back in suspension, officially dead.
He'll eventually be exposed as the new Scourge, working for the CSA.

Attilan has been a very mobile city. It was originally on an Atlantic island until Black Bolt moved it to the Himalayas. To escape increasing pollution it was moved to the Blue Area of the Moon (Fantastic Four #240). Morgan Le Fey moved it to the site of Atlantis, risen to the surface in the Atlantis Rising event. Then Black Bolt moved it back to its Himalayan site (Inhumans (1998) #12), but in the Inhumans (2000) mini-series the Kree took it into space - which is why Moonstone can't find it.

Invisible Woman and Mr Fantastic will meet the Avengers again in Iron Fist/Wolverine #2 and then MrF will be in #1 of the Marvel Boy (Noh-Varr) mini-series before they get back to the FF(1998) series for #35-36 against Diablo.