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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The New Warriors Canceled


The New Warriors have been a cult favorite for many a comic book reader who grew up in the early 1990s. The reboot has recently been canceled, according to the latest solicitations:

NEW WARRIORS #20
Written by KEVIN GREVIOUX
Penciled by REILLY BROWN
Cover by NIC KLEIN
FINAL ISSUE!
This is it. This is what it's all led up to. In a future that's
everything he's ever fought against, Night Thrasher has achieved his
mission and been reunited with his brother, Dwayne. But at a cost. One
that's growing. And when that cost becomes too high, Donyell realizes
he needs to take it upon himself to set things right. In this final
issue of NEW WARRIORS, all bets are off. And no one leaves unscathed...

To be honest, I did not follow this new series; though, as I do with a lot of relatively short runs, I might sit down and read the whole set now. But I'm sorry to see the series go, as I know the revival of The New Warriors meant a lot to their devoted fans.

On the other hand, this brings up the issue of revamps versus sticking to the original team. Would a New Warriors starring the old cast of Firestar, Justice, Night Thrasher, Namorita, and Nova would have worked better? Or is the time for that past -- was it better to just move things forward anyhow and update the book?


Plus: The New New Warriors had Jubilee (even though her name is now Wondra).

Anyway, I hope Marvel does something with this team again in the nearish future.

I'd like to write it one day, but mostly to drive my boyfriend, who is the biggest NW fan in the entire universe, crazy. ;-)

15 comments:

  1. Wait, wasn't it them what blew up that school? Anyhow, whatever. Sorry, dude from Underworld!

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  2. Anonymous11:36 AM

    To be totally honest...this newest try at it wasn't THAT good. I had some high hopes for the story even though the art started to go downhill but I dropped it in favor of other things.

    Also I started to get tired of the constant ragging on Iron Man, which started to seem almost unnecessary. Beating a dead horse, etc.

    In terms of bringing the "old-school" NW back, I'd think it'd be a disservice to the characters. For example, I really think it'd be a massive backward step for Justice/Vance Astrovick, who is really good in "Avengers: the Initiative".

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  3. Wondra? What kind of name is that? Are they serious?
    I loved the original series for the first few years, then dropped it around the time Darkhawk joined. The Jay Färber series was rather horrible.
    Wondra? Wondra???

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  4. To be fair, it should have been an X-men book in some ways. It was Night Thrasher and former ex-M-Day X-Men. Thus, it was more X-Men then New Warriors.

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  5. I started the book with high hopes and virtually no knowledge of the characters or the history of the New Warriors. And for an issue or two, it was great. I'm Anti-Reg, so it was great to see superheroes actively opposing it and I like learning about new characters.

    But the artwork really was a problem from the start. And not necessarily the artwork itself, but the coloring was AWFUL. I couldn't tell one character from another because most of them were wearing black and red. Not to mention we got no introduction to most of them. I know who Jubilee, Beak, and the former Chamber are because I have some previous experience with X-Men both from the TV series and with the Uncanny X-Men issue I reviewed on AT4W, but the other characters I had never seen before and I don't remember what their names are supposed to be. And when in issue 4 a character died at the end, I gave it up. It wasn't enjoyable and I just didn't care.

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  6. I'm one of the ones who held on hoping it would get better, but it never did. Bad coloring, characters that were impossible to tell apart and a storyline that didn't interest me at all. This is one title I won't be sorry to see end its run.

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  7. Anonymous1:35 PM

    I dropped it after issue one for many of the same complaints as other commenters. Bad art, indistinct characters and the most generic dialogue available.

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  8. I read the first trade a couple of weeks ago and I agree with John M: this would probably have worked better as an X-book; it just seemed to flounder in the realm of the Initiativerse.

    And bringing back the old team runs the risk of turning them into DC's Titans, but in a bad way -- no real direction or mobility, too "young" to be Avengers, too old to be the rookies.

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  9. Lewis echoes my thoughts: here we had a groups of folks allegedly significant because they used to have X-Men ties, but they weren't well introduced or differentiated month to month. I think I gave it 6 issues -- 3 too many -- and decided to drop what was nothing but a book of ciphers.

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  10. I read it from the beginning, and while the first couple of issues struggled it quickly found its stride and became very good. I enjoyed it a lot more than that reality-TV bullcrap that led to all this Civil War nonsense. This was one Marvel book not in danger of being dropped by me soon.

    Side note: I'll be getting my Warriors fix for some time to come after this series ends since I took away most of volume 1 from the 50 cent bins at St. Mark's Comics two weeks ago.

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  11. Didn't see this one coming. Cough.

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  12. New Warriors was a decent Teen Titans knock-off with a surprisingly good creative team that ran a good number of years.

    The first New Warriors revamp changed the line-up massively, with no-name creators attached (sorry Jamal-- quality regardless.) It lasted what, a year in hard times?

    The second New Warriors was a name-only revamp, and lasted less than two years in better times with a star****er name attached and ties to hit series.

    Next time, go back to the original line-up with a few new faces and creators fans will respond to. Fabian Nicieza shouldn't be out of anybody's price range, for instance.

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  13. Anonymous6:08 PM

    Agree with FLD.

    I was a big fan of the first NW group. Have the whole run up the change in creative team...want to say it's up into the 30's.

    The original cast of characters have been a bit too knocked around to be affective IMHO. Robbie Baldwin needs to lose the gimp suit before he can be a Warrior again.

    One of the real draws was the fact that all of these disparate characters that were floating around were used to great affect. It was X-Men for non-mutants (with some exceptions).

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  14. As a devotee of the first series who never followed any of the rest of the incarnations, the only thing that seemed New Warriors'y about this was Thrash's (loveable) obnoxiousness. New Warriors was great as long as Fabian Nicieza had the helm and never really seemed to have much purpose when he didn't. I had high hopes for this version, based on pitches J. Michael Stracinsky (sp?) made about it as it was solicited, but it just never lived up to it.

    Fun'ish, but I'm okay with it going.

    I'd like to see the old team (ish) come back. No Turbo. No Rage. No Darkhawk. No Aegis. But maybe Peter from Power Pack? Anyway, if they came back, it would need to be in consultation with Fabe.

    And the Mad Thinker needs to make cameos again.

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  15. I'm sad that it is cancelled only because of the name New Warriors. But that's about it, I'm more excited about Marvel Boy, I mean Justice, reclaiming the name in the Initiative!

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