If you had Rock Python gets an action figure before Jack Monroe, congrats.

I don't know what you win, but congrats. Also this issue: Henry Gyrich gets told off! Secret history of the T-Bolts! And Jack cross-dresses, sort of! From 2011, Thunderbolts: From the Marvel Vault #1, "The Penance" Written by Fabian Nicieza, art by Derec Aucoin.

This was published in 2011, but was a fill-in issue from 2001 that laid in the drawer so long that Nomad/Scourge/Jack Monroe had been dead for six years, since Captain America #7 in 2005. Nicieza diplomatically notes the death was well-handled, "but ultimately, I didn't like seeing a character I had such a strong emotional investment in get killed off at all, much less in the way he did." Monroe's death may have stepped on this issue, and I'm not sure his stint as a brainwashed Scourge was even brought up there; but here he had just recently been freed, and was wondering what to do next. Although he left the Scourge gear behind, Jack kept one thing: an image inducer, which he uses here to pass himself off as a hot babe, in order to facilitate hitchhiking. Actually, the hot babe turns out to be Songbird, as Jack visits her hometown trailer park, looking for answers as to how she grew into a hero coming from there. The answers aren't really forthcoming, although he does have time to beat up her mom's abusive new man.

In Chicago, Jack disguises himself as Moonstone to visit an old colleague of hers, who knows she could never trust her manipulations. In Colorado, at the site of a murder he committed as Scourge, Jack talks to a cop about Abe Jenkins, who had become a good guy. In Wisconsin he visits the graves of Erik 'Atlas' Josten's family, and gets a surprising insight to him from a high school coach: was he a good guy or a bad guy?

Next, in Washington D.C. Jack visits Henry Gyrich, in the guise of his assistant, to rub his nose in it: Gyrich had also been mind-controlled into the Scourge thing, but some of the ideas had been his. Still, reading his own file, Jack doesn't think he can put all the blame on Gyrich, either. Finally, in St. Louis, Jack starts a fight with an old foe, Rock Python--they had thrown down way back in Captain America #342 or so--who is working as a bank guard to case an adamantium vault next door. Or is he really working as a guard, going legit? Jack says he can't get Python arrested for thinking about crime, but can ask him not to; and Python seemingly obliges. Jack may have found a new calling, redeeming villains, by punching them really hard.

As I write this, I haven't bought Rock Python, because c'mon, I was pretty sure I could get him at a markdown later. Still, he seems to be selling okay! I wasn't planning on completing the Build-a-Figure Hulk, but maybe some are.