The Road To Marvel’s Secret Empire

Thunderbolts #1

Marvel continued to set up the consequences of Avengers: Standoff and one of the most important elements was undoubtedly Kobik, the sentient cosmic cube. She wound up allied with Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, who assembled a new team of Thunderbolts. Their mission was to deal with the most dangerous threats that Nick Fury had learned of and to keep a watchful eye on S.H.I.E.L.D..

This hasn’t played into the main story just yet, but let’s face it; the fact we’ve got the Winter Soldier and Kobik in this book makes it pretty certain we’ll see the Thunderbolts become a major part of the eventual payoff.

Civil War II

2016’s major event, Civil War II – timed to align with the release of Captain America: Civil War – revealed a new Inhuman, whose power was the ability to project visions of the future. The most important element was a vision, in which he foresaw Miles Morales – the Ultimate Spider-Man – killing Steve Rogers in Washington D.C..

Seeking to avert the future, both Steve Rogers and Miles Morales made their way to Washington, and – to everyone’s relief – both survived. Here’s the catch, though; Ulysses’s visions never came with a date-stamp attached. That vision may well become far more important in the future; especially when you consider the political symbolism. Miles Morales represents a youthful, diverse new generation of superheroes, while Steve Rogers has become an agent of Hydra. The potential conflict is just too symbolic.

Thunderbolts #7-8

With the Winter Soldier captured by S.H.I.E.L.D., this two-parter saw Captain America trying to break him and learn Kobik’s whereabouts. Thankfully, Bucky refused to give anything away, and was rescued by the Thunderbolts; but along the way, the two issues included two key plot developments.

Firstly, we learned that Fixer had planted a self-replicating virus deep inside S.H.I.E.L.D.’s systems, one that could feed him even the most top-secret information. I strongly suspect that this will play out in the long-run. At the same time, Jim Zub’s plot dropped intriguing hints that Kobik is beginning to doubt her allegiance to Hydra; she’s gotten used to the idea of having a ‘family’ in the Thunderbolts, and this is beginning to counter the Red Skull’s manipulation. Kobik is becoming something of a wild card.