GLA#2-FB and NTB#8-9

[robfj]

I've noticed several dubious things about the chronologies around these issues.

I'll start with an easy 1. Batroc's Brigade disagree about the placement of the whole of the GLA mini-series relative to NTB#8. Batroc has NTB#8 earlier (and in fact with BP4#3-6 in between), while his minions Machete II and Zaran outvote him and say that NTB#8 immediately follows the GLA series. However I believe that it is Batroc who is correct because so many other chars agree with him.

Monica Rambeau as Photon and then Pulsar has NTB#8 before GLA#2-FB.
Sub-Mariner has NTB#8 before NA:ILLUM2#2 which Black Bolt has before GLA#2-FB.
Meanwhile Iron Man has NA:ILLUM2#2 before Nick Fury's Secret War (the non-FB part) and Shocker has NTB#8 before Secret War. Then Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Spider-Man and Wolverine all have that before GLA#2-FB.

So my 1st proposed changes are:-

MACHETE III/MARIANO LOPEZ
{NTB 8} moved to here
GLA 2-FB
GLA 3-FB
GLA 4-FB
GLA 3
GLA 4
{NTB 8} moved from here
UJ2 1
NA 35-FB

That's his whole career, and his {1st app} *is* now his 1st app.

ZARAN/MAXIMILLIAN ZARAN
----
W2 158
W2 167
NTB 8 moved to here
GLA 2-FB
GLA 4-FB
GLA 4 (15)
GLA 3
GLA 4 (18:5 - 21:2)
NTB 8 moved from here
UJ2 1
TB 103
----


This brings me to the thing that dragged me into this in the 1st place. There is 1 other char who thinks that NTB#8 is later than GLA#2-FB, Swordsman (Andreas Von Strucker), but I've now just removed his supporters.

What I noticed about Swordsman is that he has GLA#2-FB between NTB#3 and #4, but this clashes with Firestar and Justice who have it between NTB#6 and #12. Obviously if Swordsman too had GLA#2-FB after NTB#8 then it could line up with Firestar & Justice.

But while most of the chars that are asked to join the GLA in GLA#2-FB just have 1 cameo panel to say "no" in, Swordsman has a whole scene with Flatman in which his current situation is discussed. So I thought I'd better check that it's safe to move him.

I found a 2009 Forum thread GLA which is basically a high-powered (Jeph York, Col Fury, Paul Bourcier, Somebody) discussion over the problem that on face value Swordsman's app here- doesn't fit anywhere in NTB.

In GLA#2-FB Flatman believes from Internet chatter Swordsman is really Hawkeye (ex-leader of both the GLA and TBolts) and has been seen with the TBolts. So he goes to Thunderbolts HQ to invite him back to lead the GLA. Swordsman denies being Hawkeye and claims to be a villain under mind-control. At the time of GLA#2's publication (~NTB#8) Swordsman was Andreas Von Strucker being controlled by Purple Man. And up that point he hadn't actually shared a scene with any of the TBolts. He doesn't join the Thunderbolts until TB#100, after the end of NTB, and importantly after Purple Man gets defeated in NTB#12.

The GLA thread reaches an agreed conclusion that Flatman's Internet info was *all* just speculation, and it was a pure coincidence that Swordsman was at Thunderbolts HQ when Flatman went there. They suggest he was just sneaking around for Purple Man while the TBolts were seemingly absent. Which doesn't narrow things down more than putting it between NTB#2 and #12.

Looking at the NTB issues it's clear that between #3 and #4 is a really bad place because Swordsman is in the middle of a fight with Baron Strucker. He's not actually in #8 so he has a gap between a cameo in #7 and an app at the end of #9 where he does at last meet a TBolt, Songbird, and then the rest of the team in #10. #11 is set in the House Of M reality. And SW misses the end of the Purple Man story in #12, and isn't seen again, control-free, until #16.

So I suggest that for Swordsman GLA#2-FB happens between his apps in NTB#7 and #9, where we happen to have already placed some Purple Man apps in NA#1-2, #3-FB and #42. And it can just happen to be after NTB#8.

SWORDSMAN III/ANDREAS STRUCKER
NTB 2
NTB 3
GLA 2-FB moved from here
NTB 4
NTB 6
NTB 7
GLA 2-FB moved to here
NTB 9
NTB 10
NTB 11
NTB 16
----


The other 2 things I spotted may not actually be mistakes.


Purple Man seems to have NTB#9-FB in a different place to some others. (Some chars can fit alongside either.) He has it later than NA#1-2. But Monica Rambeau (as Pulsar) and Sub-Mariner (indirectly as mentioned above) have it with NTB#8 before GLA#2-FB which Spider-Man and Wolverine have before NA#1.

The answer may lie with the confusing nature of NTB#9. The issue is mainly flashback, but both the flashback and the non-FB can also be split into separate strands. The non-FB part only contains 5 chars:- Mach-IV, Purple Man, Radioactive Man, Songbird and Swordsman.

1 part of the non-FB is Mach-IV and Radioactive Man discussing the events of 'last night' which leads to a long FB detailing the conflict between Radioactive Man + Thunderbolts and Sub-Mariner + Atlanteans which only began on the last page of #8. So for all those chars NTB#9-FB belongs with #8. And for Mach-IV and Radioactive Man so does the non-FB part of #9.

But there are other things going on in the issue involving chars not in that fight. (Actually Genis-Vell *is* in the main FB but he leaves it to take part in the 2nd strand.)

In #8 Monica Rambeau heard on the news that Genis-Vell had changed id from Captain Marvel to Photon. In #9-FB she confronts him in her costume to complain. Back in the day she willingly surrendered use of the Captain Marvel id to Genis, son of the original CM, and changed hers to Photon. But now he's taken her id again! Then they meet in civvies in a bar to talk about it. She's not really doing super-stuff these days and lets him keep the new name. They jokingly discuss possible new ids for her and she lights on Pulsar. Both parts of this strand of #9 appear within the main FB and are reasonably classed as FBs also immediately following #8. This strand has no non-FB component.

The other strand only involves Purple Man, Songbird and Swordsman. Songbird has quit the TBolts after learning that they were financed by Hydra. She also has other suspicions about other members of the team. In #8 she went to Dallas Riordan at Homeland Security to get permission to look at CCTV footage of Thunderbolts activity. Within the FB section of #9 we see her watching the battle in #5-6 where Genis-Vell suddenly showed up. There's a mystery man watching the action who leaves when the cops show up. Now the police use CCTV recordings to show him taking a cab to an address in Gramercy Park. Another FB bit shows her going to the address and ringing the bell with no answer, but we see the inhabitant is Purple Man.
Then at the very end of #9 Purple Man invades Songbird's dorm room at ESU in the non-FB scene, but Swordsman follows him and appears to kill him (but PM only makes Songbird think he did that to make accept see SM as an ally).

Purple Man hasn't been in NTB since #7. Now this final bit of #9 runs straight into #10 which continues through to the end where a white light ushers everyone into House Of M for #11.

Somewhere along the line Purple Man's plan was interrupted by him being arrested for something and sent to the Raft, from which he escaped in NA#1-2, #3-FB, #42, which has to fit somewhere. His non-FB app in NTB#9 is connected to HOM so it must be after NA#1. I've established earlier that NTB#8 is before GLA#2-FB, but Spider-Man and Wolverine have GLA#2-FB before NA#1. So for Purple Man NA#1, etc must lie between NTB#7 and the non-FB bit of NTB#9, which is where we have it.

Note that for most chars in NTB#9 the FB and non-FB parts are all attached to #8 and so are all set before NA#1 (but their chronologies don't indicate where they lie in this respect).

But Purple Man has his FB scene in #9 placed with his non-FB scene after NA#1, etc. Songbird shares that FB scene with him which makes her app there after NA#1 too, and I would contend it also drags her police CCTV scene with it. My point is that her FB scenes in #9 are clearly meant to follow directly from her scene in #8 asking for permission to see the CCTV. But we have now put lots of stuff including Nick Fury's Secret War and the NA Breakout event between them. I suggest that we consider Songbird's #9-FB as happening with the other FBs, taking Purple Man's FB with it. Then his spell in the Raft stops him from immediately taking action against her in the non-FB scene.

PURPLE MAN/ZEBEDIAH KILLGRAVE
----
NTB 6
NTB 7
NTB 9-FB move to here
NA 1
NA 2
NA 3-FB
NA 42
NTB 9-FB move from here
NTB 9
NTB 10
----

Songbird's chronology isn't affected because she has no intervening apps.


My last, and most flimsy, 'problem' is Monica Rambeau's change from Photon to Pulsar. Given that NTB#9-FB happens straight after NTB#8 the it is correct that she has GLA#2-FB after NTB#9-FB. In NTB#9-FB she *talks* about becoming Pulsar but is in her civilian id at the time. I believe it is true that in the following Pulsar section of her current chronology she often appears just as Monica Rambeau, and even when in a costume she no longer wears a mask. But in her GLA#2-FB cameo headshot she's shown wearing her Captain Marvel/Photon mask (and she's supposedly (still) in New York). So I could lobby for moving the change to Pulsar after that.

PHOTON II/MONICA RAMBEAU
----
A 503
NTB 8
NTB 9-FB move to here
GLA 2-FB move to here
See Pulsar III

PULSAR III/MONICA RAMBEAU
From Photon II
NTB 9-FB move from here
GLA 2-FB move from here
BP4 12
BP4 13
----

Strictly speaking I'm not sure she *ever* becomes Pulsar.
In BP4#13 she denies currently using any of the codenames Captain Marvel/Photon/Pulsar.
In Nextwave the name Photon is mentioned but she doesn't use it.
In Marvel Divas the name Captain Marvel is mentioned but she also doesn't use it.
I haven't checked every app but I've looked at her last 4 apps in her Pulsar chronology.
In CM6#7-8 she and the latest Captain Marvel Carol Danvers banter about their multiple super-ids including Pulsar but she appears there in maskless costume just as Monica Rambeau.
In her short scene in JIM#649 she's in a spacesuit and only called Monica.
Her dialogueless cameo in CA7#25 has her in her Spectrum costume, so that's probably out-of-position. But I'm not going to get into that!