New Warriors #2 Review

“Not as an Avenger, as a Warrior.”

Writer: Christopher Yost

Artist: Marcus To

Colors: David Curiel

Lettering: Joe Caramagna

Editor: Sana Amanat

Assistant Editor: Devin Lewis

Plot: Our issue begins with our yet to be assembled team struggling with the High Evolutionary’s forces. Justice and Speedball, after getting their collective butts handed to them in Hogwarts-ville USA,  run into Sun Girl and Haechi, who is a “horny” (Har har har), Inhuman, after attempting to contact the Avengers but to no avail. The foursome fights with the Evolutionaries in the Morlock tunnels as the baddies spout off about being protectors of the human race, obviously confusing our heroes. On the other side of the world, Kaine and Aracely encounter “Water Snake”, an Atlantean who’s looking for heroes to help fight the Evolutionaries who are attacking her people, and go through your typical “misunderstanding but eventually unite to combat a common foe”. Our issue ends with the High Evolutionary gloating to an imprisoned Nova that they are going to save the world.

Thoughts: You know a book is having some problems when the best part about it is Speedball! In all seriousness though, this issue continued the first issue’s trend of telling us a story that we’ve seen a million times before. Now, in the past, there have been several incarnations of the Warriors. There’s been the reality television fame seeking group, the team of de-powered teenagers combating the Registration Act following Civil War, the group directly a part of Tony Stark’s Avengers Initiative, and the tried and true original team. While each of these teams, especially the later incarnations, had their flaws and foibles,  they at least had some original takes on why the team formed. Maybe we’ll be thrown a curve ball by the end of this arc, but I just get a vibe that we’re not going to see much subtlety coming from Yost and crew on this one.

Let’s diagnose the team as it stands right now to get a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the book. I think on one side we have Justice and Speedball who can be considered the veterans. They’re deeply entrenched within the Marvel Universe and have ties that, I must admit, were greatly put on display in the book. Having the duo go to Avengers mansion for help immediately after they had realized they were in over their heads is a great move, and discovering that the Avengers were absent, decided to crack into the X-Men’s database for more information. That whole sequence was refreshing and did a good job of playing on past continuity without necessarily throwing it in the face of the readers.

Minor quibble, more pertaining to the Marvel U as a whole, but writers shouldn’t be allowed to use the “Oh, darn, the Avengers are out of town at the moment.” Last I checked, the Avengers roster had to be at least 64 people, so someone would have HAD to have been there. I digress, as I just want to reinforce the fact that Speedball is the best part of the book at the moment, delivering not only some hilarious lines, but some powerful ones as he brags about jumping into battle as a New Warrior, rather than an Avenger.

Onto the case of Scarlet Spider and Aracely, who get to show off some badass moments, while interchanging dialogue with one another effortlessly as they take down “Water Snake”. Again though, we’ve been down this road so many times before with heroes accidentally fighting one another only to realize they’re in the wrong that it’s just going through the motions. In theory, the lineup for this group is original in the fact that each member almost represents a different community within the Marvel Universe (Clone. Inhuman. Mutant. Atlantean. Space Cop.), but I feel like you could have used much more interesting examples to use. In the case of Water Snake, Sun Girl, and Haechi, it just feels like heroes who are below Z-grade and their personalities aren’t doing anything to say otherwise.

The conclusion of the story didn’t really hold much of a punch either, as it ultimately boiled down to, “Yup, the High Evolutionary sure has kidnapped Nova all right.”

Marcos To’s art was a bright spot of the issue, as it was in the first installment, though I noticed on a couple of panels that the linework seemed a little off, specifically during the Kaine and Atlantean brawl. Don’t know if this is necessarily because of To or the inker, but it was definitely something I noticed. I did really dig the use of “After Images”, which are essentially when a character is moving so fast, as Kaine did, that you can see outlines of their past movement, as I’m a big sucker for those.

Overall, it’s an issue that didn’t elicit hatred or vast praise from me. It was another by the book story that desperately needs to differentiate itself to retain readers, and hopefully lure in some new ones.

Grade: C+