[emphasis in original][8]The character is featured in Paul Jenkins's Civil War: Front Line, after it was revealed that he was the only member of the New Warriors to survive the Stamford disaster.

Robbie Baldwin was born in Springdale, Connecticut to mother Madeline, who co-starred in a soap opera with Mary Jane Watson[12] and subsequently became a teacher, and father Justin, a successful district attorney.

This situation leads to domestic stress that escalates over time, driven partly by the conflict between Robbie and his father, who as district attorney is expected to uphold Springdale's ordinance against costumed superheroes and has an extreme prejudice against these "vigilantes".

[14] Speedball makes a number of attempts to catch the cat, hoping that study of Niels would give him better control of his powers.

He would later learn that a villainous scientist, Clyde, was also after the cat, hoping to gain Speedball-like powers, and had allegedly created most of the supervillains in Springdale to this end.

[17] The commute from Connecticut to the team's headquarters in New York City is difficult and Baldwin is frequently late for Night Thrasher's formal meetings.

[24] At the beginning of the "Civil War" storyline, the New Warriors attempt to apprehend a group of supervillains in Stamford, Connecticut, for their television reality show.

Nitro, one of the criminals, creates an explosive blast that kills 612 civilians, including 60 children, as well as the New Warriors with the exception of Robbie Baldwin.

[32] Overcome by guilt and driven insane by his treatment, Baldwin orders a new suit of armor that features 612 internal spikes, in honor of the victims of explosion in Stanford, to trigger his powers.

Furthermore, he reveals that he has created a similar costume for his pet cat Niels (who he has renamed "P-Cat, the Penitent Puss") while banging his head against the wall.

[34] After the events of "Civil War", Robbie Baldwin joins Norman Osborn's new government-sponsored Thunderbolts team,[35] which mostly comprises supervillains who are being forced to reform.

[36] During the team's mission to capture the Steel Spider, Penance suffers a mental breakdown and slams his head into a brick wall while remarking that he is "not good enough".

Found by teammate Radioactive Man, Penance is eventually brought back to the Thunderbolts Mountain, where he brutally assaults a prisoner who taunted him for his role in the Stamford tragedy.

Doom eventually concedes the fight and relinquishes Nitro after realizing that defeating Baldwin would force him to tap into Latveria's secret nuclear power plants, potentially revealing their existence to the outside world.

[50] During the "Fear Itself" storyline, Speedball takes the Avengers Academy students on a field trip to the memorial for the people who died during the Stamford incident.

A chaotic fight ensues, with the prisoners, Sun Girl, Haechi and the New Warriors forming an impromptu team that manages to defeat the small army of Evolutionaries through their diverse and very different powers and abilities.

When the topic of everyone's abilities is discussed and Speedball clarifies his capacity to "bounce", Hummingbird suddenly starts to inquire about his other powers, if he still cuts himself and the reasons why.

Somehow, her strange psychic powers shows her Speedball's mental image of himself as clad in the Penance suit instead of his normal appearance - indicating he still struggles internally with his guilt while keeping a carefree facade to everyone else.

However, they do so by using the base's advanced technology to teleport the entire Mount Wundagore, provoking a mass panic in the city, but not causing any casualties, as the mountain is "half-phased", so most of it doesn't physically interact with the water or anything passing through it.

The former takes Speedball and Justice to Avenger's tower, where they and Captain America get into a discussion about the problems that reforming the New Warriors will bring and the incident with the mountain.

[58][59] The next day, when Haechi and Sun Girl are forcefully taken to Singapore by Inhuman supremacists led by Lash, Speedball and the rest of the New Warriors go to save them, battling through all the floors of a skyscraper filled with innocent, mind-controlled people.

When Scarlet Spider reprimands him for his timing and asks if Robbie can take anything seriously, Speedball discharges his Penance powers on the remaining mind-controlled adversaries and somberly proclaims "Yes.

This was seemingly in vain, as the New Warriors are defeated and used to power up the machine while Zuras manages to silence them or deflect any suspicion of his persona from his peers.

[64] However, Justice, who had been dealt with separately from the rest of the team, returns to the fight and frees his teammates, damaging the High Evolutionary's machine in the process.

The leader of the Eternals is forced to admit the Celestials weren't coming, albeit blaming the attempted genocide entirely on the High Evolutionary with the excuse "he had been tricked by him too".

When Speedball uses his superhuman powers, solid force bubbles of residual kinetic field energy appear on his body and, when he bounces, in his wake.

While with the Warriors, Baldwin gained far greater control over his powers via a combination of experience in battle and Night Thrasher's mentorship off the battlefield.

Whereas previously Baldwin could barely bounce in the direction he wanted, he eventually became more proficient at controlling his leaps and using his powers in various ways, such as to deliver impressive blows, and even to project a stream of kinetic energy from his bubble field at a distance.

He was able to somewhat deflect Siena Blaze's electromagnetic attack that "no one short of the Hulk could have withstood", as well as resist the omnipath Gamesmaster's telepathy, one of the few people in the world to do so.

The team defeats Chronok, but at the end of the story, Richards reveals they cannot go back to their present, due to time-travel and alternate timelines.