Thunderbolts #133: Review

Aug 2009

Andy Diggle, Miguel Sepulveda

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Thunderbolts #133 Review by Rob Johnson (August 7, 2017)

In Wolverine: Mr X Logan had his latest bout against telepathic fighter/killer Mister X. At the end Norman Osborn (in his last app before this) offered X a job in the Thunderbolts. In #132 the team went on a mission to extract Mr X from Madripoor in such a way that it appeared he died, to keep his involvement with the team covert. But Mr X isn't in this issue.

Headsman isn't here either.

Scourge is far from the 1st person to use that super-id - it's difficult to count because the original was a group sharing the role. (The Marvel Chronology Project calls this 1 IX.) In #136 we'll discover that this 1 was previously Nuke, a psychotic super-soldier who painted his face with the US flag, and this is what he's done over the new face Osborn gave him - now hidden by his mask.
In #136 we also see that he's a cyborg, as shown in his last app in Wolverine: Origins #1-5. He ended up in a very bad way under the care of Emma Frost, and NO probably got access to him via that Cabal member. The new face is a covering over his cyborg head.

Nick Fury has been in hiding and operating behind the scenes since his Secret War. Since Secret Invasion he's been busy with another private war with Hydra in Secret Warriors. He's only surfaced once during that time in W:O#32-35 to help Logan against his son the Dark Avenger Daken.

The series is moving towards the revelation that this Black Widow isn't Yelena Belova but the Avenger 'Tasha Romanova.

NO does a lot before he's back for the next issue - including the Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia and Exodus stuff, DAv#5-12 and New Avengers #54-60.
Meanwhile his Thunderbolts go on other missions. Black Widow leads Ant-Man, Ghost and Paladin (and the here-absent Headsman) to 'help' in Spider-Woman (2009) #5-6 where she's hunting Skrulls for the SWORD agency. Scourge (maybe) does his own thing in a tale in Dark Reign: Made Men. (The absent Mister X doesn't do anything.)
And Songbird doesn't go anywhere until then either.

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Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Thunderbolts #133 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

Ghost interrupts Thunderbolts leader Black Widow's training session in their Cube HQ because he heard she wants to talk to him. She wants to know why *he* is in the group - she understands the motivations of the others. But she knows his paranoia won't let him tell her in front of the security cameras. Ghost responds that he's hacked the security system so that it doesn't record him unless he wants it to, and at this moment it's off in this room because he wants to speak freely.

He tells her he knows why *she* really joined the team, and where she spends her night (but we get left in suspense). BW picks up a gun but Ghost reminds her he's intangible. But then Yelena Belova tells him she's inserted a nano-bot in each of his meals for the last 6 weeks and they've combined to form a bomb in his intestine which she can trigger any time.

Ghost says they should trust each other because they share a goal. He's an anti-corporation saboteur and he intends to bring down Norman Osborn's edifice from within. And he knows that BW's *real* boss wants the same thing.

Meanwhile in Cleveland H.A.M.M.E.R. troops are forcibly relocating the homeless from the city. They try to resist and HAMMER opens fire on them. Then 1 of them reveals herself to be Songbird and throws the troops into their own relocation trucks. She decides she's been hiding long enough and flies off.

In Avengers Tower Osborn greets his latest recruit. He comments that they've given the guy a new face which he's now defaced to something he's more comfortable with. However Norman tells him he's going to have to wear a full-face mask he gives him anyway. And he'll now go by the name of Scourge.

Victoria Hand interrupts to show her boss the news about Songbird. Norman is annoyed because Swordsman (Andreas Strucker) told him she was dead in #127. He's now even more glad he killed Strucker in Secret Invasion: Dark Reign.

Back in the Cube it's Ant-Man's turn to interrupt Paladin's training session. He's worried about the killer Mister X who joined them last issue. But he's also concerned about the whole Thunderbolts deal. He isn't really suitable for the job - he was only a computer-guy in SHIELD but he hacked his own file to make him seem more. Norman Osborn isn't going to let him quit, but Paladin suggests he just sweat it out - psycho Osborn will smash his own empire eventually. Eric O'Grady tentatively suggest they could help the process along, but Paladin is more cautious.

Black Widow welcomes Scourge to the team but then slips away to a secure place to contact her real boss - Nick Fury. She tells him that Ghost is on to her, and Fury wants to pull her out. (He almost calls her by her real name - gets as far as Ta...) But she thinks she can use Ghost to achieve something.

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