The New Warriors Line-up

Image Courtesy news.marvel.com

As I mentioned this morning in the Weekly MCU Review, Marvel and Freeform just announced the full roster for the New Warriors, and it looks pretty interesting.  If you remember from my previous articles about the potential of a group of teen heroes in the MCU, I had only really called 1 or 2 of the heroes they selected, but I’m certainly not upset about that—I’ve gotten pretty good at making wrong predictions on this blog!

With that being said, let’s take some time to familiarize with the heroes Marvel and Freeform selected for the (first iteration of the) New Warriors.

Squirrel Girl

Freeform description:

Doreen Green (Squirrel Girl) Superpower: “The powers of a squirrel, the powers of a girl” (is acrobatic, strong, can fight, can talk to squirrels) – Doreen is a totally empowered fangirl. She is a natural leader—confident and tough, but not innocent. Doreen is bouncy and energetic and her greatest quality is her optimism… She has faith in others and inspires people to believe in themselves. She also takes her pet squirrel, Tippy Toe, everywhere.

Doreen Green, a.k.a. Squirrel Girl is a human born with the innate ability to communicate with squirrels, as well as the agility, speed, etc., of a squirrel (or something like that).  Oh, and she has a bushy tail.  But she’s totally not a mutant because semantics…

In the comics, Squirrel Girl is known as “The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl,” with victories over such notable opponents as Doctor Doom and Thanos.  She was also the babysitter for Luke Cage and Jessica Jones’ daughter while the two of them were off fighting crime together.  She joined the Great Lakes Avengers (a group of rather pathetic mutants) for a short while, but left when it became apparent that she was holding the team back:  they always called on her to do the hard work, and by leaving she forced the other members to step up.

Mister Immortal

Freeform description:

Craig Hollis (Mister Immortal) Superpower: Cannot die.  Ever.  Maybe.  So he says. – The team troublemaker and lothario… Craig is kind of like “The Most Interesting Man Alive,” except he’s more cocky than confident and at times, charmingly grumpy. Although Craig’s superpower seems amazing, he hasn’t made use of it at all—he’s lazy and figures if he has all the time in the world to learn how to fight, what’s the rush?

Mister Immortal is a mutant (but not the normal kind of homo superior; he’s the first ever homo supreme, apparently).  Whenever Mister Immortal gets killed, he comes right back to life.  However, if he is merely injured, he heals at a normal rate.  In the comics, he founds the Great Lakes Avengers after a botched attempt at heroics when he realized that the ability to come back to life isn’t particularly useful (at least not when you don’t have any other abilities to pair with it)—and his solution is to recruit a bunch of other heroes without particularly useful abilities, in the hope that their collective pathetic-ness will cancel itself out.  It kinda does, but not that much.

Night Thrasher

Freeform description:

Dwayne Taylor (Night Thrasher) Superpower: None – Dwayne is a local celebrity “hero” with his very own YouTube channel.  Brilliant, strong, noble, and maybe a bit full of himself, Dwayne is a shameless self-promoter and entrepreneur.  But he also deeply believes in justice — at least his version of it. Dwayne hides the fact that he comes from a really rich family because he’s afraid he’ll lose his street cred.

Night Slasher is one of the various Marvel versions of Batman (in case the name didn’t give it away), and started fighting crime at a very young age.  Though he does not possess any superpowers, he has trained from an early age in various forms of martial arts.  In addition, he designs and wears his own battle armor for protection as well as carrying a veritable armory of weapons.  He formed the original New Warriors in the comics to bring together a group of young heroes after the model of the Avengers or Fantastic Four in order to avenge his parents.  However, Night Thrasher does not work well with others and ended up leaving every team he formed sooner or later.  He was seemingly killed in the Stamford Disaster (Cocky super-kids + Nitro + school full of kids = Civil War).

Image Courtesy marvel.wikia.com

Speedball

Freeform description:

Robbie Baldwin (Speedball) Superpower: Can launch kinetic balls of energy – Robbie grew up watching Quinjets take off from Avengers Tower and loves the idea of being a hero. He’s an impulsive and immature people-pleaser with a misplaced sense of confidence. Although you would think throwing kinetic balls of energy would be awesome and effective – his are completely out of control.

Speedball in the comics is (sort-of) a speedster whose body absorbs and redirects kinetic energy.  This takes the form of bouncing off of object and enemies or launching powerful kinetic blows.  His abilities come from a lab accident in which he is exposed to a “kinetic energy dimension.”

Speedball was a founding member of the New Warriors and was present at the Stamford Disaster, of which he was the only survivor.  After Stamford his powers evolved into a much more explosive release of kinetic energy, and he changed codename to “Penance” and became a member of the Thunderbolts.

Microbe

Freeform description:

Zack Smith (Microbe) Superpower: Can talk to germs – Zack is a shy hypochondriac whose ability nearly makes him a telepath — the germs tell him where you’ve been, what you ate and who you hung out with.  It’s impossible to keep secrets around him.  He’s a big sweet guy the team takes under their wing, and they help him find and grow his own confidence.

In the comics, Microbe is a mutant who can communicate with and influence bacteria.  His isn’t the most exciting power out there, but we’ve already seen what Ant-Man can do by communicating with ants.  He was a member of the New Warriors at the time of the Stamford Disaster and was killed in the explosion.

Debrii

Freeform description:

Deborah Fields (Debrii) Superpower: Low level telekinetic; trickster – Deborah is proud, funny and quick witted.  Confidently out as a lesbian, Deborah has experienced deep loss in her personal life as a direct result of super “heroics.” She can take care of herself, or at least says she can.  She’s the one who calls people on their BS and has no fear of putting her opinions out there.

Debrii was the only member of the New Warriors that Night Thrasher did not pick himself, having been added by their TV producer (when they had a reality TV show) to create friction in the group.  Her origin is unknown, but she has the ability to manipulate small objects telekinetically (and a lot of them at once).  After leaving the New Warriors (in time to not be killed), she joined Captain America’s Secret Avengers before eventually finding herself as part of the Avengers Initiative program, which she left with other former New Warriors to fight against H.A.M.M.E.R.

Thoughts for the Series

Looking at the origins for the characters selected, Mister Immortal and Microbe are both mutants, Squirrel Girl and Speedball are both mutated through experimentation, Night Thrasher is a trained human, and Debrii’s origin is unknown.  Consequently (unless Marvel and FOX have a deal we don’t know about), both Mister Immortal and Microbe will need their origins reworked since the word “mutant” is verboten.  The obvious solution is to make one or both an Inhuman who underwent Terrigenesis after S.H.I.E.L.D. accidently released Terrigen into the environment.  If it were up to me, I would leave Squirrel Girl’s origin about as clear as in the comics—maybe something of a “she was sort-of born this way, but she’s totally not a mutant!”  Speedball and Night Thrasher’s origins are fine the way they are.  I don’t know if Debrii’s origin needs to be clear (at some point they will have to explain it, but not right away), but when they clarify it I would give her powers a magical origin.  It seems like every team needs a magic user, and Doctor Strange finally introduced magic into the MCU.

Based on the description of Night Thrasher as a YouTuber and “celebrity hero,” I expect the series to take some cues from New Warriors Vol. 3, in which the team stars in its own reality TV show.  This would certainly contribute to the comedic elements of the series and give some definite options for changing things up.  While I do expect the team’s desires to create excitement for their series to cause problems, I don’t expect anything on the level of the Stamford Disaster.  That would most definitely not be comedic!

I do expect additional heroes to appear on the series eventually, but I don’t want to see too many new heroes before we’ve really gotten to know the current team.

Conclusion

New Warriors certainly looks like an interesting premise for a TV series, and I’m definitely looking forward to learning more about it.  I don’t know if this and Cloak and Dagger are enough for me to run out and subscribe to Freeform, but you never know.  Hopefully they will make these shows available on other platforms after release so people without Freeform can check them out!

Are you excited for this series?  Which hero are you most excited to see?  What new heroes would you like to add to the series?  Let me know in the comments!