NEW WARRIORS #15

Review by: throughthebrush


Size: pages
Price: 2.99

There are approximately three pages of content in this issue.  One of those pages reveals a secret the readers have known for half a year, another rules out a Civil War retcon that no one ever actually seriously considered, and the third is a brief concluding moment that might be moving if a single person in this book had a distinct personality.

The other 19 pages, meanwhile, are nothing but an extended fight scene, and not a fight scene like Brubaker and Epting’s brilliantly-planned combat sequences in Captain America.  This is random kicks and punches and explosions without meaning, an artist drawing characters attacking each other with no discernible pattern or purpose or story logic.

The fact is, a book that’s made it to issue 15 and is composed entirely of pre-existing characters should not be this flat, boring, and devoid of anything resembling characterization.  With every character possessing a new code name, a new power set, and an apparent personality wipe, I can’t even keep straight which team member is which, even when I’ve read significant chunks of their previous publication history.  In The Order, a book launched at the same time as New Warriors in the post-Civil War frenzy, Matt Fraction managed to create an entire team of complex, fascinating original characters whose adventures were compelling and well-crafted.  Yet that book was canceled after 10 issues, and New Warriors is still chugging along at 15 despite the fact that Kevin Grevioux can’t even write a personality for Jubilee.

I’ve been hanging on to this comic in the hope that Sofia Mantega, one of my favorite characters from Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir’s New Mutants vol. 2, would once again act like the character I loved.  But those chances are looking slimmer and slimmer.  It’s time to face facts: this is a terrible book, and there’s no reason I should be wasting $3 a month on it.

Story: 1 - Poor
Art: 3 - Good

Comments

  1. I didn’t get past the first few issues of NW; it was such an interesting premise, and so incompetently done, from the start.  Like you said, they don’t even managed to characterize Jubilee, who is one of the best-known X-characters (and languishing here when she should be in main X-book.  Sighs.

    Also, every review of any book should manage to find a way to lament the cancellation of "The Order."  That may be my goal for all future reviews.  But in this case it’s particularly appropriate.

    DROP IT!!!!

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