The Thunderbolts revealed as the Masters of Evil – Thunderbolts # 1

Let’s go back in time for this spoiler post for the first volume of Thunderbolts where the Thunderbolts are revealed as the Masters of Evil.

Thunderbolts # 1 was written by Kurt Busiek with art by Mark Bagley and featured a brand new set of heroes who takes over NYC after the “death” of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four during the Onslaught saga in the late 90s.

This is also a great hook for comics especially in the 90s when everything was grim and gritty. I mean yeah, T-bolts was grim and gritty too but they had a really nice hook.

So here’s the tl;dr of the whole story. There’s a bunch of villains called the Rat Pack who are taking corpses after the destruction of New York at the hands of Onslaught and his sentinels. Citizen V together with the Thunderbolts appear and fight them but the bad guys escape.

The team made sure that the choppers had followed them to their base of operations and make their public introduction before getting summoned again because the Rat Pack (who escaped them earlier) showed up again in another part of the city. As they wrap up the Rat Pack, the Wrecking Crew also make an appearance. The ‘bolts initially get their asses handed to them but they eventually win the day.

The public loves them, the surviving superhero community also welcomes them (namely Spider-Man and the New Warriors) and then we see them celebrating in their base. Citizen V has removed his mask and wears a different mask, one that belonged to Helmut Zemo. Then its confirmed that Citizen V is actually Baron Zemo – the leader of the supervillain team known as the Masters of Evil.

So:

• Fixer – Techno
• MACH 1 – Beetle
• Songbird – Screaming Mimi
• Atlas – Goliath
• Meteorite – Moonstone

This was a nice surprise back then and its a nice binge read too.

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