Credits: written by Evan Skolnik, pencilled by Patrick Zircher, inked by Andrew Pepoy and edited by Tom Brevoort.
Plot: After their arrival at the end of the last issue, Psionex (now led by Night Thrasher & Rage) law into Eugenix. Very soon after, the New Warriors arrive in answer to Firestar’s emergency call. They see Psionex (a group they’ve battled before) and assume they are the problem and start on them, leaving Eugenix unchallenged for the most part.
This only changes as Speedball bumps into Rage, a former team-mate and realise who they should be opposing. Elsewhere Genecide has Dr Chen hostage and is in a stand-off between her Firestar and Night Thrasher. She espouses her ideology about jumpstarting human evolution by making sure genetic defects are purged from the genepool. It’s a very ‘master race’ point of view and when challenged with the Hitler comparison she gets angry and fires back about Firestar’s worry about her own genetic failings, that her radiation abilities are interfering with her health, telling her that those fears are justified. This stuns Firestar, who hesitates and allows Genecide to escape.
The battle over, the two (hero?) teams compare notes, but Thrasher doesn’t mention Firestar’s medical concerns with her angry and over protective boyfriend/fiancee. Justice asks what Night Thrasher is doing with Psionex, but Thrash assures him that it’s what he was always trying to do with a hero team, change the world, one kicked in head at a time and you do whatever it takes to get it done..
Sub-plot time and in San Francisco a reporter argues with his editor about dropping his series on the new Nova, Garthan Saal. He’s a Xandarian assigned to replace Rich Rider and the reporter is interested in that and not the New Warriors. The editor then spits out a tendril from their mouth which seems to consume the reporter and then change the editor into the reporter and they decide to go to New York themselves.
In New York, the New Warriors are discussing what to do with Helix when Rina uses her temporal powers to take the badges/communicators off each of the New Warriors without anyone seeing/feeling it. Impressed enough to listen, the others hear about her visions on how they don’t make any sense, but they always end with Speedballs death, she even then closes the time-loop where she saw the future with her on the team several issues ago, confirming that this is no alternate future, but the future and she doesn’t think that there’s something anyone can do to save Speedball’s life.
Notes: Another Scarlet Spider-lite issue, but an interesting one. Psionex was a corporate owned super team with advanced telepath Mathemaniac, telekinetic Pretty Persuasions, mentally augmented Impulse and the cardio manipulating Coronary as members. They were unstable and more villainous than the Warriors, but willing to go further, which is what they are doing with the more militant Night Thrasher. Night Thrasher was a sort of Batman allegory only with a different ethnicity and the skateboarding theme that was just a little too prevalent in this era and having this group in this issue was an curious look in how the Warriors have changed and how different people can want to do the same job. Eugenix is an interesting idea for a villain group, targeting those who they feel are a drain on society or a threat to the genepool. It comes from Genecide’s thing that allows her to see people’s genes as clearly as their faces, so it’s really about her sense of disgust and outrage. Her digs at Firstar add an interesting emotional depth to their animosity and I genuinely don’t remember whether this was more of a thing, considering we’re in the last year of this title. The subplot thing with Rina isn’t particularly interesting beyond having a touch more diversity in the team, but the creature in San Francisco killing the reporter and replacing him is very familiar to those who’ve read Rom and is starting to set up the series finale.
Verdict: Writing 4 out of 5 – Inter-team conflicts, secrets and misunderstandings are handled well and flesh out the gaps between the fighting in the best way. The villain is used to add something new to the fascist ‘superiority’ villain type and I did like seeing how the villain justified herself to others and how that bumped up against Night Thrasher’s just as rigid hard-line right/wrong ideology. Everyone sounds as you remember them and the scenes with Speedball and Rage are touching as they are the ones who end the fight.
Art: 3 out of 5: It’s still a solid issue by a stable art team that knows it’s job and does it well. The best an artist can get is doing such a wonderful job that the comic transcends itself, but really if you’re not that kind of superstar artist, the best way to do this is to be solid enough for the art to serve the story so much that you almost don’t see it happen. Zircher does that, you’re so caught up in the story-telling that it mixes with the writing to make an engaging comic that will bring you back for the next issue, every time.
Overall: 7 out of 10 – A solid conclusion to the Firestar at the clinic story that is setting up 2 or 3 more stories in the future, I’m looking forward to the next one.
Next Time: Stryfe vs Apocalypse, who wins, who loses, who cares?
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