The 2007 New Warriors reboot borrowed pretty heavily from Thunderbolts at a time when Warren Ellis was writing the Hell out of Thunderbolts. As a result, this series feels pretty thin.
Big picture: A mysterious benefactor (who of course is Night Thrasher) assembles a new team of Warriors who act independent of Tony Stark’s registered hero initiative. To help avoid the registration police, each of them takes on a new identity, and those identities are revealed over the course of this first big arc. Perhaps most interesting here is that the team is largely comprised of de-powered mutants using super-villain technology to duplicate their powers. (So it’s kind of a reverse T-Bolts, where heroes are dressed as villains.)
Not a huge innovation, but it does allow some fan favorites to return–mostly from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run. The only true “name brand” of the lot is Jubilee, who becomes Wondra, who uses The Wizard’s tech to control gravity, increase her strength, and gain a force field.
And of course, where there’s Jubilee, Logan isn’t far behind.
The two of them have a heart to heart and make up for things in the past that, honestly, I completely forgot about.
As for the rest: Bohusk is Blackwing, using Vulture’s wings. Stacy X is Ripcord, who uses a combination of Slyde, Leap Frog, and Spider-Man’s weapons. Angel Salvadore is now Tempest (flight, fire and ice) and Chamber becomes Decibel (Klaw-based sonics). The extremely minor mutant “Redneck” is reimagine as Skybolt (using Turbo’s armor). Finally, Cristine Chord (aka Tattoo) becomes Longstrike, who dies in the first arc, while her brother Chris (formerly Radian) becomes Phaser. Night Thrasher fails to recruit Wind Dancer (aka Sofia Mantega)…At first.
The tech is built by two kids named Grace and Kaz. Because of course they’re kids. Adults can’t do anything with tech, right?
They run afoul of Ms. Marvel’s Initiative team. They fight supervillains like Anaconda, Rhino and Grey Gargoyle.
Oh, and they’ve got some Pym particles.
To announce their opposition to superhuman registration, they beat up criminals and leave them for the cops, then spray paint their name all over the neighborhood (and specifically deface Iron Man’s “Initiative” posters). This causes the NYPD to dig up the bodies of the actual and dead New Warriors, with mixed results. Night Thrasher’s body is never recovered, which turns out to be a misdirect because this time it’s his brother wearing the suit. Others are definitely dead, and still others are also left ambiguous.
After forming, the team saves an Initiative training team’s bacon by stepping into a battle against a new Zodiac gang, only to have Longstrike die in the battle.
After that, though, they kick some ass.
This causes Night Thrasher to (guess what?) want to disband the team.
Of course. He always seems to want to quit when things get hard. But you’re leading a bunch of people wearing spandex into life-or-death fights. Of COURSE you’re gonna lose sometimes. On the other hand, as the saying goes, it’s only fun until someone loses an eye and Sofia ends the fight with half her head all bandaged up.
So she’s predictably able to talk him into keeping going.
Overall, this book is solid but never quite goes from good to great.
English (US) · 