How will Thunder Woman get her groceries when she runs into Lash Lady at the store? Just what is in Mental Lady’s coffee? Who is Elliot Travers and what is his link to the mysterious force known only as Quietus? Absolutely none of these questions will be answered in this issue, but the ending will shock you! Honest! In a world where being a super hero is just another job, what happens when there’s nobody left alive to pay the bill? Quietus– some men just want to watch the world die.

“THUNDERSTRUCK” opens with an introduction to Elliot Travers, the man The Loner and The Nightress (who are, strangely, nowhere to be seen in this issue) were planning to investigate last issue. He’s some kind of successful businessman who has the power to kill people just be looking at them. We see him pick up and then kill two different women in this issue, for no apparent reason, and without showing any emotion other than boredom. Think Patrick Bateman from American Psycho with superpowers, and there you have Elliot Travers. We also later see him killing a man who yelled at him for cutting him off in traffic. At Heroes 4 Zeros HQ, Steve gives The Rocket a note that The Loner left for Thunder Woman. But since she’s off today, Steve wants The Rocket to handle whatever it is. When Mental Lady see The Rocket, she gets a vision of him as a skeleton, and tries to warn him to just go back home today and don’t go out, but he thinks she’s just being a bit crazy and doesn’t take her seriously. The note says to go investigate Elliot Travers, so the Rocket takes his teen sidekick Sparkler (introduced back in issue #2) with him.

Meanwhile, Thunder Woman and Thunder Girl, who are cousins, go out grocery shopping, and soon find themselves ambushed by a group of female supervillains (accompanied by a bunch of small winged demons). Succu-Bi, Cyber Cyn, Profitess, She Nun, and the leader Lash Lady, who has a personal score to settle with Thunder Girl. After a several page fight, which demolishes most of the store, the heroes defeat the villains, except for Succu-Bi, who just decided to disappear. Then we cut back to The Rocket and Sparkler, who arrive at Travers’ office building. The Rocket tells his sidekick to stay outside while he goes up to investigate. The Rocket goes up to the top floor and meets with Travers, who promptly kills him and tosses his body out the window, to crash down on the street.

A decent cliffhanger, and solid issue overall. I have no complaints about the art from David Gray or colors by Yel Zamor, and Ian Sharman’s writing is good. I like his dialog, especially the interplay between Thunder Woman and Thunder Girl, whether it’s talking to Thunder Woman’s mother by phone in Thunder Woman’s apartment, or while fighting the supervillains together. But this is the first time that a few of the story points didn’t quite add up to me. After the focus on The Loner and The Nightress in the last issue, with the hints about The Loner’s background, and the possibility of something happening between him and Nightress, their absence in this issue was rather glaring. It makes no sense why Loner would try to pass off the investigation of Travers to another hero, instead of checking it out himself. I also didn’t understand why Mental Lady didn’t just flat-out tell The Rocket that she predicted he would die that day. She’s on the team because she has mental powers right? So why wouldn’t anyone believe her if she told them?

I still like the issue (&, y’know, it’s only .99 cents) so this gets a Chacebook rating of 4 STARS

Available digitally via COMIXOLOGY