New Warriors (Vol. 1) #71

Background

Speedball is dead, but it turns out he wasn't even the real Speedball! Rather, it was a cloned body used to transport the consciousness of future scientist Darrion Gorbe into the past through Speedball's kinetic dimension in an attempt to stop his father, who had become Advent on his own trip to the past, from altering history to where he rules the world. Somehow, Darrion imparted all this information on Rina (aka Timeslip) in order for her to stop it where he failed, but she was too late and now, thanks to Advent's distraction of Spider- Man, terrorists have set off a nuclear bomb in the middle of Manhattan!

Story 'The Fire in which we Burn'

Advent had hit the Warriors with a time blast, but instead of rapidly aging them he had inadvertently sent him to their future, his present, where he tries to pierce the laboratory where his son Darrion is holed up and protected from the shifting time stream. A hologram of Darrion explains to them the brief synopsis of what's going on, but the Warriors are in way over their heads. Just as Darrion's hologram explains to them that when time shifts all things present will cease to exist, including them, Advent finally pierces the lab and storms in.

Back in the present, Rina tries to outrun the edge of the nuclear blast, but her recent sickness slows her down just enough that she gets engulfed by it in excruciating slow motion. She wished she was anywhere else at that time, and somehow it works. She finds herself back on the street before the blast where a cop asks her if she's alright. Then Spider-Man is thrown out the nearby window by Advent, giving Rina a second chance to stop things. Since the gun she borrowed from the cop didn't work last time, she gambled his night stick would be protected by whatever protects her from Advent's time bursts.

Rina times-warps and smacks Advent with the stick before he can even get a chance to respond. Spider-Man recognizes her from his days as a Warrior as she's just about drained, never before pushing herself so hard for so long. She tells him to go take care of the bomb, that she'll handle Advent. Reluctantly, Spidey heads off, trusting her precognitive abilities. Advent switches to conventional weapons to try and take her out, but Rina musters one last feat with her powers to jam the night stick into a weak point on his armor. Angered, Advent fires a temporal blast powerful enough to break through Rina's defenses. However, he failed to notice that a cable to his power system came loose in her barrage allowing for temporal feedback to hit him and cause him to explode.

Just when Rina thinks it's over, there's a flash and the Sphinx appears before her. Ready for another fight, Sphinx assures her he is only there to remove any trace of Advent's technology in order to complete the repair of the time stream. When asked why didn't he stop Advent before, he explains that things that happened needed to in order for him to be reborn in his current form. He had to eventually kill the fake Speedball because he would have failed his mission, and manipulated things to allow Rina to be the one who defeated Advent with her resistances to his powers. Meanwhile, Spidey had stopped the bomb and all is as it should be. Rina asks what of the Warriors, Sphinx tells her of their predicament and that there's nothing she can do, except to surround herself with people who can help her abilities grow and to continue to improve herself.

In the future, the Warriors do their best to fight off Advent's troops as Advent heads for the time machine. Darrion warns him about the molecular inversion, but it's too late. Advent jumps in and is torn asunder by the process, causing his troops to drop down dead. However, that also means the Warriors don't have a working time machine to get back home. Darrion offers them a less ideal solution; a trip through the kinetic dimension. They chance it behind Justice's TK shield and head in. Time changes and all is right with Darrion's world.

In the present, the remaining members of the Warriors and their friends wait at the Crash Pad worrying as Rina sits in a trance. They decide it's time to take action just as another portal opens up. Preparing for the Sphinx, they're surprised as their teammates come flying through. Richard Ryder tries to find out where they were, and Justice manages to get out they found their way through Rina and that someone helped them survive. That someone turns out to be Speedball, who comes bouncing out after them and crashing into everyone.

Once everyone recovers, Speedball takes a moment to hit on Rina, who introduces herself as his new teammate. Speedball asks what else did he miss, and the Warriors can do nothing but laugh in relief.

General Comments

A very good, very interesting story that tied into many, many issues of continuity. About the most confusing part was the whole thing with the Sphinx, surprisingly. The rest was pretty easy to follow...assuming you didn't miss an issue along the way. The art is great and very well done every issue. I have to give props for continuity between the damage to various costumes between issues, something that often gets neglected. Overall, this story for the New Warriors made for an excellent read.

Overall Rating

After a series of trials and tribulations stemming from the return of Spider- Man's clone, Ben Reilly, Peter Parker learned that the last 5 years of his life have been a lie. Ben was the real deal all along and he was in fact the clone. Further events made him decide to give up the spider-life and hand over the webs to Ben, leaving town with MJ to start a decent and normal life for them. But now, as Peter sifts through the past, he begins to reflect on the sham that was his life...