New Warriors (Vol. 5) #10

Background

After defeating Lash and his crew, Haechi was left with some doubts, but ultimately decided to join the heroes. However, even with this small victory, the path ahead for the New Warriors isn’t looking easy. The High Evolutionary is still on the loose and those mysterious figures are still watching them...

Story Details

In the Arctic Circle, the High Evolutionary and er…the Evolutionary….discuss the impending arrival of the Celestials. They are attempting to extract genetic material from a Deviant, so that they can protect them and the human race from all its off-shoots. The two begin another petty squabble over their situation, but are cut short when the New Warriors arrive, having used the High Evolutionary’s own technology to track him down.

The High Evolutionary is still after Sun Girl, being the only human and the one responsible for destroying his earlier work. When Hummingbird attempts to scare him with her powers, she sees what he is most afraid of: the Celestials declaring the “human experiment” a failure. However, The High Evolutionary is able to free himself and then captures Kaine, stating that the team will power his gene bomb, destroying the “off-shoots” they represent. It’s at this time that Justice calls in Silhouette, Jake Waffles, and Mister Whiskers.

The High Evolutionary is surprised to see his creations are still alive and Whiskers attacks him outright, enraged by what he has done to the rest of the New Men. The guns he and Jake carry are “de-evolution” rays, making short work of the Evolutionary’s men. Hummingbird jumps back in, manipulating the Evolutionary to attack the High Evolutionary (thanks for the naming scheme on that one, Marvel). The High Evolutionary realizes this and attempts to distract the team by killing Caninus/Jake, but Mr. Whiskers sacrifices himself.

With everyone distracted, the Evolutionary fights back, but a recently freed Scarlet Spider uses one of the High Evoltuionary’s guns to kill him. The High Evolutionary, now captive, warns them of the coming judgment…again. As Speedball checks on Hummingbird, she comes to and warns of the arrival of the gods…just as the Eternals, the “children” of the Celestials and figures we’ve seen before…arrive.

General Comments

Honestly, this to me was another boring issue. I had a lot of hope for this series because I found the premise interesting and the scope of the threat to be something unusual outside of an Avengers book. However, this to me falls flat because there’s no real sense of danger. It’s just the High Evolutionary and his similarly named companion bickering and then getting beat up.

I think the arc between this and the first numbed a lot of tension. I also think that, much like Yost’s run on Scarlet Spider, there’s just not enough character development to really care what happens. In general, we know everything will be fine, but for the most part, we’re not going to see any lasting changes made to these characters and after December, we probably won’t even see them again. This issue was just a run of the mill super hero clash with some amusing lines thrown in, but overall, nothing worth pursuing. It was such a bore that writing a review took me this long…

Overall Rating

Eternals arrived and two villains with almost the same name got punched. Nothing too much else going on here, unless you were a huge fan of Mr. Whiskers….