New Warriors #7 Review
The Inhuman arc continues in New Warriors #7, and here’s my review!
When we last stopped a trio of Inhumans broke into Haechi’s home, planning to kill his family and friends and take him to join them. You have to understand, from a rational point of view, that’s stupid as hell. But they don’t strike me as smart. Either way Haechi straight up eats the explosion before it could kill anyone, turning into a mini-dragon in the process, allowing Sun Girl and Justice to deal with the fire starter and fume guy.
His family takes his transformation…. poorly. Not as bad as you would expect, but given he turned into a dragon you could understand it a little bit. Maybe if they took a moment to calm down and talk about this things would get better. But there’s no time for that as Sun Girl and Haechi get caught up in the teleportation of the third Inhuman, Night, leaving Justice alone.
Back on Mount Wundagore, the New Warriors have claimed the base as their own and are searching for the High Evolutionary by tracking celestial energy signatures like those found in his allies. Speedball annoys Water Snake by referring to her as though she were the friend he knew. They find three signatures from obviously evil-looking guys, but have to put it on the back-burner so they can go help Justice. The same goes for Scarlet Spider and Aracely, who are with the cat-human searching for the evil that she sensed earlier, but it’s not like she’s experienced in it even though the cat can sense it.
In Jakarta, Sun Girl wakes up to find Haechi out cold and herself surrounded by the Inhumans. Leaving aside the fact that they could have killed her while she was asleep instead of waiting for her to wake up, Hollow, gives a recap on when the Terrigen Mists were unleashed and basically thinks the world belongs to them and not humans. Basically he’s evil Magneto, or any racial extremist, so he’s not really original. Sun Girl jumps into the fire that blocks her from her equipment and takes a few shots to free Haechi, who dragons-up and gets ready to throw down.
At the New Warrior’s base, they try tracking Inhuman signatures down to find Haechi, but there’s so many and the number is only growing. Scarlet Spider tells Aracely not to get attached because they aren’t staying since they’re not heroes, but give it time. Justice, on the other hand, has called in a darkforce teleporter to track them down through the darkforce energy that Night used.
As the comic ends Haechi and Sun Girl run across the leader of the Inhumans, Lash, while someone manipulates the darkforce to drop the rest of the New Warriors into enemy territory and surrounds them.
Okay, review time…
I liked this issue. We’re seeing more of the fallout from Inhumanity, the art is amazing, and there’s the fact that Scarlet Spider never fails to amuse me with his cynicism. This issue gets a 5 out of 5.
New Warriors #3 Review
The third issue of New Warriors is out now, and my review comes with it as a packaged deal, so read on.
It opens with the High Evolutionary spouting out the history of the Celestials and how their meddling led to the birth of just about every single super-powered being on the planet Earth to Nova, the young and inexperienced newcomer, when his men arrive with Scarlet Spider, Water Snake, and Hummingbird. He has samples collected from them and then orders them imprisoned. Why he didn’t have them killed instead is unknown to me, but it will bite him in the ass.
Back in New York City, our new inhuman gets the same treatment as mutants have for the last few decades. The cops blame him for the train incident and shoot at his ass. Luckily they have Justice to get them out of their and he, being a mutant, understands what he’s going through while Sun Girl says he should embrace what he’s become. Justice tells her politely that she has no idea what he’s going through because she can take off her gear and be human while they can’t. Her counter point is to shoot at Mark.
Scarlet Spider wakes to find himself imprisoned and being called Spider-Man by Nova, which is sort of a berserk button to him. Hummingbird presses Nova’s button by calling his name over and over in the same way that she annoyed the X-Men when Scarlet Spider teamed up with Wolverine. And here’s the thing, while the Scarlet Spider doesn’t have his Spider-Sense anymore, he’s stronger than his original, has spikes, organic webs, a monster form, and he can talk to spiders, which is exactly how he gets out of his prison like a badass.
We cut back to Justice, Speedball, Mark, and Sun Girl, who is inside a telekinetic bubble. I want to agree that Speedball is right that she’s unhinged for shooting at Mark to demonstrate his powers. There were a dozen ways that could have gone wrong, but she’s so bent on being a hero that she thinks it’s a sign they need to handle this threat. She goads Justice into trying, but instead he insists they find Nova.
Speaking of Nova, he and the other three are now freed and armored up, but they run across a bunch of evolutionaries and they get zerg-rushed. They put up a good fight so that Nova can get away, but he goes back to help them and the issue ends with him being mobbed too.
Okay, Review Time!
This issue fleshed out our characters further as the plot moves on.
Mark didn’t ask to be an Inhuman. Like the new Ms. Marvel, he got hit with the Terrigen Mist and changed, but he can’t hide what he is. In a mutant sense, he’s like a Morlock and she’s an X-Men.
Speaking of Mutant, Justice can understand how he’s feeling and tries to relate so he can cope, while Sun Girl feels he should embrace it. We can see he’s worldly and more calculated in his actions while Sun Girl is still new at the hero thing and optimistic. That’ll change if she sticks around, but in the meantime Speedball is playing peace-keeper.
As for the other three, Scarlet Spider repeatedly states he’s not Spider-Man, but it’s obvious he still has an inferiority complex about it. Aracely maintains her chatty nature, but contrasts Nova by being supportive of her guardian, while the other kid wants Spider-Man. Water Snake makes it clear that she’s a warrior and was intent on going down fighting. Nova, being an amateur, does have a good heart but he did make a mistake in staying since the high evolutionary needs his helmet and him sticking around to try and save three people doomed so many other.
Overall, the issue gets a 5 out of 5.
New Warriors #2 Review
The second entry into the newest incarnation of the New Warriors series is out and I’m here with my review of the comic issue. So let’s start shall we?
The issue picks up with an Inhuman riding a train in New York that comes to a crashing halt. Naturally he had nothing to do with it, but this is the Marvel Universe so he’s automatically to blame. He flees before they can gather a lynch mob to get him, only to run across Sungirl facing off against the evolutionaries to defend the mutants that were under attack last issue.
At the same time in New Salem, Vertigo and Justice are under attack by the same force. They explain that they once defended mutants but were betrayed by them, just as Speedball and Brutacus show up. Brutacus gets taken down fairly easily and they get ready to take him in for gene-sampling when Justice takes off the kid gloves and levels the mouthy evolutionary, asking for answers to what was going on as they retreat.
In Mexico, Scarlet Spider starts a fight with Faira on the assumption that she was responsible for the slaughter. She kicks his ass quickly and is about to drown him when Humming Bird does her fear thing and calms the situation down long enough for her to explain the situation. Atlantis was in the middle of a fight with Deviant forces when the evolutionaries showed up and started slaughtering them all, so she came to the surface for heroes and he started attacking her. Scarlet Spider wants nothing to do with things, but naturally the bad guys show up at that moment deciding to get the Clone (Kaine), Demigod (Aracely), and Atlantian (Faira).
Going back to Speedball and Justice, they arrive at the Avengers Tower in New York to search their database to learn about the enemy. A general overview of the past encounter with the X-Men is given and Cyclops warns that they should be considered an extinction-level threat. An alert then goes out requesting help due to an incident in the subway and they decide to jump in.
In the subway, the evolutionaries stop their slaughter for a moment to try and reason with Sungirl by stating they only want to protect her kind (humanity) by eliminating….well, everything else. She’s a hero so she can’t let that happen, so they are left with no choice but to attack her when the Inhuman from before, Mark, shows up and eats their energy blast. Then Justice and Speedball show up, so the evolutionaries decide to retreat.
As the comic ends, we find Nova in a containment field with the High Evolutionary, who states he intends to have him help cleanse the earth of all impure beings before the Celestials return.
Okay, review time.
No complaints overall, it’s a solid issue that picks off where the previous one left off. The art is nice and crisp, while the plot is progressing nicely with no wasted panels. We have a general idea of what’s going on and we can see the future team coming together nicely, with more of their personalities fleshed out.
You can see how Sungirl is still new at the hero thing, while Justice is clearly the most experienced. Mark was basically just thrown into things, but he didn’t hesitate to help stop a kid from falling when the train stopped or helping Sungirl. Kaine is still a hot-head with a potty mouth while Faira makes it clear she’s a rather skilled combatant and Aracely is playing peace-keeper.
It gets a solid 5 out of 5 and I recommend it for purchase.
New Warriors #1 Review
I came for the Scarlet Spider and I stayed for what seemed to be the great beginnings of a new series to read. So, armed with some rudimentary knowledge of all but Kaine and his side-kick, join me as I review the first issue of the New Warriors.
The opening panel reveals a bloody trail, being left behind as a clearly sentient half-bull humanoid creature is trying to crawl its way to safety and past the fallen corpses of its brethren, all while asking why this happened. A voice tells it to try not to speak, but it asks why their kind were being killed and what was it that they did that was so wrong it warranted their deaths. The figure that was responsible for the slaughter states they did nothing wrong, but they were never meant to exist and judgment befalls even the innocent. And then it kills the innocent being while claiming for the sake of humanity’s survival…
So basically it’s following the creed of virtually every Purifier in existence.
The scene then skips to New Salem, where Speedball and Justice are continuing their road trip from leaving Avengers Academy and are engaging in combat with a group called the Salem Seven. It turns out, much like most brawls between heroes, that it all began with a misunderstanding when Speedball attacked one of their more frightening members because of how he looked. That’s profiling, something that you would think a hero would know better than to do.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, Kaine and Aracely continue their vaunt through the land south of the border after the events of the Scarlet Spider series when they come across a couple of tourist being mugged. Kaine, after being coerced into it by Aracely, dawns his outfit and doles out brutal justice by stabbing his stinger through one of the muggers’ wrist, giving the other the Mark of Kaine (use sticky power with hand on face and then pull away for maximum pain and scar), and Aracely finishes it up by inducing the other into running with her powers over emotions by giving him a fear of spiders. He then yells at the tourists he saved, telling them to get out of Mexico, keeping with his nature during his time in Houston.
Back in New York, aka Hero Central, Sun Girl takes down some punk robbing an armored truck. She then goes in search for more crime, although when she hears the name Spider-Man she feels disgusted because she was there in the Team-Up series when his mind-control over the Sinister Six failed and…well, Otto left a bad impression. She then heads over to Grand Central station when an explosion goes off since she was close by.
Back in New Salem, Speedball somehow managed to dig himself out of trouble and ends up playing games with the guy trying to kill him while Vertigo gives Justice a tour of New Salem. It turns out it’s a town of magicians and a safe haven for people born of magic. The Salem Seven were known as the Children of the Devil and have changed in an attempt to make it safe, which for some reason makes me think of Nico Minoru and the Runaways.
Justice, on the other hand, as part of the New Warriors has to deal with the stigma associated with their group being the cause of the Civil War Crossover Event and the Hero Registration that made Iron Man and Mister Fantastic Fans afraid to admit it when they kept kicking the dog. Speedball pushed a guy with explosive powers into a bus full of school children and, since the guy was juiced up on some super MGH, he killed everything nearby including elementary kids. That royal fuck-up has not been forgotten, but before either one can talk any further some flaming guys come in and say to burn them all for having tainted blood with one being a half-breed (Vertigo), and the other being a Mutant (Justice).
Back in Mexico Kaine and Aracely are catching some rays on a beach with money he stole from drug traffickers before he left Houston. Aracely wants to be doing something heroic with their powers, saying it’s their responsibility, but Kaine states he tried that in Houston and it nearly got all the people he cared for killed in what was the result of sleeping with a girl whose father he put into a coma, Kraven gutting a doctor and pissing off his cop husband, and turning into a big-ass spider monster to settle things with the climatic villain that came out of nowhere. Unfortunately his vacation comes to an end when a bunch of dead Atlantians dye the water red with their blood as one survivor, Faira Sar Namora, pops out and says she is seeking heroes…he can’t win.
Sungirl goes to check out the situation and sees that the flaming guys from New Salem are also in the subway, killing what appears to be either mutants, aliens, or inhumans. Not too clear on which one. They also appear to kill an Alien who was harassing Nova, only for the guy from the beginning who killed the bull people to shoot him in the back and claim they have plans for the Alien-Hybrid (Nova), ending the issue on a cliff-hanger.
Okay, review time.
Now my knowledge is limited to what I can gleam off wikia on the villains of the piece, but the Evolutionaries were the species that came before humans until an advance race took pity on them and gave them upgrades before assigning them to protect the species furthest along the evolutionary chain, which were mutants before. That included a plan to wipe out humanity, something that would make them the Anti-Bastions, but Cyclops killed all but one of them supposedly. I’m thinking they got reprogrammed in the wake of the Inhumanity event, but I can’t be certain until the plot unfolds.
Like I said before I came for the Scarlet Spider, but the majority of the cast seems interesting, the art is lovely, and I liked the interaction between Vertigo and Justice. The plot is akin to virtually every anti-mutant one I’ve read, but it’s too early to label it as such and the destination isn’t as important as the journey when it comes to plots. So I’m willing to give it a chance and an 5 out of 5 rating for an opening issue.
Twilit Dreams Circle 