This issue introduces the new recruits to their drill instructor.
Most of them, like Gorilla Girl, Prodigy and Sunstreak, were released from prison and/or sentenced to the A:I team. Annex thinks he’s too good to be a trainee. Boulder is thrilled to be a part of the team. Batwing is there in exchange for getting treatment for his condition (and no, his problem is NOT that he has chronic batwings).
It’s interesting to have “recruits” get “training” in this book while Norman Osborn is releasing much more dangerous villains and just letting them go nuts in the pages of Thunderbolts. Speaking of the T-Bolts, a contract is put out on Taskmaster for working with the enemy, but Taskmaster is not concerned because the only professional assassin he’s afraid of is Bullseye, who is on the Thunderbolts team.
The focus here is on Butterball, who is fat and invulnerable but too out of shape to be effective at anything. He gets a bunch of facetime and development before a team of villains attack–trying to collect on the Taskmaster bounty.
Big fun fight and Butterball is washed out and sent home.