The Left Hand/Mandelovia thing. yeah. basically it was Vanguard would go into Mandelovia to free them from the Left Hand. (I didn't have any specifics for this, it was supposed to be a group story)
Baron Zero was actually a metahuman who's power was centered in his left hand (which is why he wore a glove over it). He could basically "cancel out" the abilities of other metas. So for the most part, Vanguard would be powerless against an entire nation. He'd encountered Ludlow in his past (and Ludlow joined the group) and they used recordings of Ludlow's voice to recruit new followers (and later help in their takeover of Mandelovia).
The MBL got most of their advanced tech from the Left Hand smuggling it out of Mandelovia and set it up before cutting off Manhattan from the rest of the US.
The old man who's son joins the Left Hand in the solo tale was intended to be one of Link Fox's many children and Link and his butler are the strangers at the funeral at the end of the story. S'true. The legend that Link sites near the end of Murder Mystery is directly from this story and was meant to be a precursor to Vanguard's return to the country.
that's about all I can think of.
oh, and of course it was the Left Hand/Baron Zero that hired Maxwell Wolfe to kill the descendants of the Rogues.
