Every installment of this feature is about odd comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced.

Today, we look at the mysterious villain who helped orchestrate the events that led to Marvel's Civil War.

The other day, I showed how precarious the state of the Superhuman Registration Act was in the months leading up to Marvel's Civil War.

In Amazing Spider-Man #531 (by J. Michael Straczynski, Tyler Kirkham and Sal Regla), we see that Tony Stark actually paid Titanium Man to trick Congress into not pursuing the Superhuman Registration Act, as Titanium Man clearly states that the bad guys would love for the government to register their superheroes...

That's how close things were. Some bad publicity would tip things over into the side of registering superheroes and some not so bad publicity would likely leaves things where they are.

As you all know, the tipping point came in Civil War #1 (by Mark Millar, Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines)...

So that seems straightforward, right?

Here's the thing, though. Nitro has always been a powerful villain, but he hasn't been THAT powerful. Heck, in the previous storyline featuring Nitro, look what he does, in Daredevil #26 (by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev)...

In Wolverine #43 (by Marc Guggenheim, Humberto Ramos and Cesar Cuervas), Wolverine hunts down Nitro...

Earlier in that same issue, we see Nitro speaking to someone mysterious...

And in the following issue, Nitro explains to Wolverine how he was able to do what he did...

So who gave it to him?

Go to the next page to find out!

Back in the late 1980s, Dwayne McDuffie introduced the idea of Damage Control, a company that cleaned up the messes by superheroes. The first mini-series featuring the group, drawn by Ernie Colon and Bob Wiacek, was a fun, humorous comic book series...

In Wolverine #44, we see Nitro was working FOR Damage Control!

And in Wolverine #46, we see why...

Damage Control removed him as their CEO and Wolverine got rid of him in other ways in the following issue (he survived, though, and showed up working for Doctor Doom later on)...

Luckily, this was it for Damage Control as the evil corporation manipulating supervillains into causing massive amounts of damage to spur the government into passing a Superhuman Registration Act and giving Damage Control government contracts.

Okay, that's it for this week! If you have a suggestion for a future installment, feel free to drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com