New Warriors (Vol. 1) #65

Background

The Scarlet Spider is now on the team. Firestar's power might be doing something to her body. A strange woman has come to the Warriors to warn them of the death of Speedball in the near future. Not to mention some big bad has Namorita held captive while subjecting her to his own brand of reconditioning. And speaking of 'Nita...

Story 'Slave Machine'

Kymaera is now a member of the Soldiers of Misfortune; a group of slave machines composed of captured do-gooders reprogrammed, in a sense, to do the bidding of their new master, Protocol, part of the criminal organization known as The Undertow. They can feel, they can think, but they can no longer act for themselves. And they now attack an airfield full of armed men that stand no chance of defeating their combined power.

Back at the Crash-Pad, Hindsight and Richard Rider (formerly Nova) try to adjust to their new resident Rina's weird comments while trying to work on finding Nita. What they do find is a notice about The Undertow. Richard and Hindsight decide they should investigate when they realize they have no form of transportation. Rina suggests using their spaceship, to which both Warriors have no clue what she's talking about. As usual.

Meanwhile, Vance Astro (Justice, but you knew that) and Angelica Jones (Firestar, but you knew that too) are having a romantic dinner where Angelica tells him of her health problems caused by her powers. She decides that the best way to have the family they always wanted was to speed up their plans. Before Vance can respond, the Warriors beacon goes off calling them to duty.

Uptown, Alex Power (Powerhouse, okay that one's new) is dealing with the realization that even without their powers, his siblings can make his life a living hell on a more social level. Just when his homework is about to be late and his date just dumped him, the Warriors Beacon goes off and Powerhouse needs to go into action.

Speedball hears Rina's words. He sees his teammates and friends over him, performing some kind of ritual. Then there's the strange man whose body suddenly becomes mechanical as he laughs like a maniac. The dream ends and Robbie Baldwin wakes up as his com badge goes off, requesting his presence. As he heads off, he ponders about his strange dreams, Rina, and his fluctuating powers.

The complete team assembles at the Crash-Pad, joined by Turbo and the Scarlet Spider. They discuss the situation at hand and realize they still haven't found a way to transport them all. Rina brings up the spaceship again which sparks something in Powerhouse's mind. He flies out with the team behind him and begins to call "Friday" into the bay. The Warriors think he's gone nuts until Friday, a white spaceship used by Power Pack, rises up out of the water.

The ship, which is alive, reconfigures itself to accommodate them all as it wonders what happened to Power Pack. All except Hindsight board and take off to deal with The Undertow. Speedball has confusion of his own when he realizes that Rina may just be able to see the future after all, which means his number may really be up soon.

Elsewhere, the Soldiers of Misfortune continue their assault while Protocol watches, pleased with the results. That is until the New Warriors and Friday crash the party. While the team tackles the Soldiers, Richard and Rina take Friday down into the base to where he thinks he spots Nita. Sure enough, Nita is there operating under orders to set some kind of explosive device. Unfortunately, in Richard's haste to reach her he causes some damage to Friday and they crash just before her.

The bomb is set and about to go off, but instead of teleporting away as ordered, Nita fights her programming when she sees Richard inside Friday. She hefts up Friday and carries them all out as the bomb goes off. With Friday, Rina and Richard saved, Nita can fight no longer and is teleported back to her base, leaving Richard distraught over being to close to saving her and yet still so far.

General Comments

Since this is a Spidey site, I'll kick it off talking about him. Scarlet didn't do a heck of a lot this issue but he did nail off a couple good one-liners during the fight.

The story was actually kind of rushed I thought. The Warriors spend most of the issue talking about how to get to the fight instead of actually fighting. Also, if Alex had a spaceship all nice and handy for so long, why did it take so long for him to remember it and conveniently in time for this mission? Overall the art was as excellent as ever and we got a glimpse into more of the mystery surrounding Speedball, which is the real suspense builder for the series right now.

Overall Rating

Three Webs. A decent issue, but the story felt rushed and focused on too many of the wrong things.