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During my time writing I think I've made it fairly clear that one of my all time favorite titles was the original run of The New Warriors. Since then we've had the half-hearted second run, the "reality TV" third run and now we have come to the fourth run. While a large part of me is excited to see this new incarnation of the team, there is also a part of me that is unhappy. Let me explain why.
You see, nearing the end of the original run Marvel had this great idea (actually it sucked and I'm being sarcastic) of breaking up the Marvel Universe into different "corners," for lack of a better word. They had the Avengers corner, the X-corner and the Spider-Man corner. There may have been more corners, but who really cares? Now, while there were people involved with the New Warriors who had been, or tried to be Avengers (to some degree) some genius had the idea to put them in the Spider-Man corner. Of course, there was no Spider-Man on the team so that wouldn't make sense. So, another brilliant idea was apparently had was to shove the Scarlet Spider on to the team. If you've forgotten that character was involved with all the clone crap going on in the Spider-Man titles of the time and as that concept poisoned those titles so did it poison The New Warriors in my mind. The series ended shortly after.
In my mind the original New Warriors team was a true "Young Avengers." These were many heroes who wanted to be, tried to be, and were even related to, actual Avengers. The problem was that the Avengers continually turned their backs on the Warriors, and in my mind that played a significant role in the Warriors' actions depicted in Civil War. Of course nobody addresses that since it's actually got some substance to it. Well, that and it make the Avengers pretty much look like a bunch of jerks considering how they dissed the Warriors and tried to practically control the Young Avengers when they came around.
Anyway, back to the crap writing of Grant Morrison. Wait. Did I skip that? Alright, here is how that plays into my concerns of the current New Warriors. You see, back when Grant Morrison was writing New X-Men he had all these great ideas (and by great I mean they best be cleaned up with toilet paper). One of these great ideas was to have more mutants you could shake a stick at running around the world. This went over well, until Marvel realized that the uniqueness of mutants had been demolished single-handedly by Morrison. What to do? 'House of M'! Yes, that's right clean up the mess created by the man that was supposed to breathe new life into the X-corner of the Marvel universe using a non-retcon tactic (as that would make them too much like DC). The result? A few characters readers actually cared about being left out in the cold due to the loss of their powers. Oops.
Then comes the Civil War, the assassination of Captain America, and the name 'New Warriors' being dragged through the mud by the media of the Marvel Universe and an Initiative trainer known as 'Gauntlet' who is either someone who wants to be a He-Man toy way too bad or is Marvel's equivalent of DC's Steel who actually wears all his metal on one hand (does that qualify as 'Bling'?). So, after all that is said and done someone from Marvel actually has the idea of trying to bring back the New Warriors once again, but this time with a little old and a little discarded.
Unlike the original New Warriors this new team shows up fully formed. It's not a bunch of super powered adolescents coming together to fight a major super powered villain. Instead it's more like a bunch of former mutants with too much time on their hands who came together thanks to a personal on Craigslist ('Miss your powers? Want to fight evil? Call 555-TONY-SUX') and then played Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who got the best powers. Seriously though, it's actually not like that . . . much.
The New Warriors will always have a place in my mind as one of the best titles ever (maybe because of identification with them at the time), so seeing them taking on aspects of being shoved in an X-corner again makes me very concerned about the future of this incarnation of the title. I do enjoy the title so far, and I'm liking Kevin Grevioux's writing overall. Still I'm really concerned that this latest incarnation is going to become a bittersweet concoction. I'm worried that I'll like the characters and the story, but I won't like what Marvel has planned for them. I think we've all seen recently that what makes 'sense' and what Marvel does doesn't necessarily have a connection. Still, I'll continue to read New Warriors. In the worst case I'll have a complete run of the title in all its incarnations.
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