Bagley departed Thunderbolts after issue 50, off to an exciting life of drawing multiple issues of exceedingly pointless conversations in Ultimate Spider-Man. Patrick Zircher, who had drawn some fill-in issues previously, took over as regular artist. He and Al Vey combine for a heavier line, making everyone look bulkier and rougher than they did under Bagley. But this is a rougher stretch, if that can be believed, so it fits.
At this point, Atlas was presumed exploded, Hawkeye was in jail, and Moonstone, Mach-Whatever and Songbird were pardoned, as long as they didn't use their powers. Jolt, Charcoal, and a not-dead Techno were roped into a government Thunderbolts/Redeemers squad, initially led by Captain America, but later by Citizen V (although Zemo hijacked his body in some mini-series I didn't read.)
Graviton pops up for the third time in the series, drafting Moonstone as a life coach to help him realize his full potential. Which seems to be, "rule the world", though I'm unclear on how his gravity powers neutralized all the telepaths and magicians. Great, Dr. Strange's body is suspended upside-down in the air, held in place by gravity. That's not much of a problem for a Sorcerer Supreme or Jean Grey.
Whatever, end game, the team (part of it at least, and Atlas is a being of ionic energy that inhabits Dallas Riordian's paraplegic body) reunite, stop Graviton, but get sucked through a wormhole and end up on, sigh, Counter-Earth. Nicieza already referenced that mess earlier in this stretch, where the girl Bucky, Rikki Barnes, shows up trying to force Doom to relinquish control and criticizing Captain America for not making tough choices. I don't know, my eyes glazed over. A world that inflicted Adam Warlock on us deserves oblivion.
I much preferred he and Busiek both using Cyclone as this persistent pest throughout their runs. Really smug and irritating, but usually fast enough to get away to be a pain in the ass another day.
Nicieza alternates issues between the team on Counter-Earth, and Hawkeye and a group of escaped super-criminals. Clint's a mole for SHIELD, searching for a weapon Justin Hammer tucked away that is much in demand. But Dum Dum Dugan also enlists Songbird (who didn't get sucked into the gravity vortex) to track Clint and the villains (Mentallo piloting Dreadlox, Plantman, Copperhead, eventually some others). Meanwhile, the rest of the T'Bolts are on a planet that's falling apart and trying to decide between helping the people, or helping themselves by getting the fuck off the planet.
Manuel Garcia takes over as artist for the Hawkeye parts in the latter stages, while Chris Batista handles the Counter-Earth issues. Garcia's work has a grittier texture than Zircher, while the colors are more muted, Hanna's inks heavier. But that part of the story is more small-scale, at least at first. Seemingly just a bunch of crooks scrabbling for money or power. It's only near the end it gets bigger. Batista's stiffer than the others, but he's pretty good at rendering weird-looking machines and characters arguing about acceptable sacrifices.
Ultimately the two threads converge and at least some characters make it back to Regular-Earth. Zemo gets on a kick about actually trying to save the world from itself, but he had to wait to follow it up, because John Arcudi took over the book. I've usually heard that described as "Fight Club", and not fitting at all as a Thunderbolts book, but that's hearsay. Then Nicieza came back, then Warren Ellis did his Suicide Squad riff with Norman Osborn running the team, and then there was some other stuff.
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