New Warriors

Context

• The New Warriors appeared in the early 1990s.

• It’s a patchwork of minor characters from different origins (mutants, aliens, hi-tech…). They are either main characters from cancelled series (Speedball, Nova), support characters from ongoing series (Namorita), minor characters from past story arcs (Firestar, Marvel Boy) or original characters (Night Thrasher, Silhouette…).
• Their opponents are either villains from past episodes of major series (Terrax, Mad Thinker, The Sphinx…) or original ones (Psionex, Star Thief, Sea Urchin…).

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• It’s the kind of team a role-playing group may come up with if the GM starts a street-to-mid level campaign (around 450 character creation points in the DC Heroes RPG) and let the players build their PC without specific constraint. The opposition and the allies they meet, too, looks like what a GM would throw at his PCs.
  The subplots are numerous and well-crafted, first involving one player, then quickly evolving to include part or all of the team (like what would happen if some of the players are not attending a gaming session). This team could be used as reference for a GM beginning at a super-hero RPG.

Sequencing

The team profile is broken into multiple parts. The sequence goes :

1. New Warriors part #1 – Year One.
2. New Warriors part #2 – Growing up years.
3. New Warriors part #3 – The fading years.

Organization

Full Name:
The New Warriors.

Purpose:
Night Thrasher first created The New warriors to help him in his personal crusade against street crime. He gave them a purpose: “to fight the kind of crime heroes like The Avengers never touch”. He trained them in the use of their powers and to work as a team.

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Modus Operandi:
All the members, except Night Thrasher, had a life outside The New Warriors. And all except Namorita and Night Thrasher were leaving at their parents’, keeping their involvement secret, if not their whole powers. When something required action from The New Warriors, Night Thrasher made the call, usually by a not too obvious e-mail.
At first, only Marvel Boy and Speedball kept their identity secret from the others, and only Night Thrasher knew how to contact everybody. Initially, Taylor wanted to keep the control over the selection of targets. But some of the members had strong personalities (like Namorita, Nova and Marvel Boy) and they quickly made certain that Night Thrasher wouldn’t be calling every shot.
As each team member’s personal life evolved, some left their parents, while the others confessed their involvement. Calling upon the team was all the easier.
When trouble found one or more members, they would all respond to the crisis. Some times they would argue over how to respond. Usually, they found a middle ground: like splitting the team to deal with all threats simultaneously.
From time to time, one member would go solo, to deal with a specific problem or because he thought the rest of the team wouldn’t agree to follow. However, when the solo player ends up in more trouble, the team closed rank and pulled him out.

Extent of operations:
Mainly around New York City. With Night Thrasher’s support of the team, they could go worldwide, taking advantage of the transportation provided by the Taylor Foundation. They dealt with petty street crime, organized crime, super-powered terrorism… Occasionally, they were projected in alternate realities or alternate time-lines to save the local universe.

Bases of Operations:
Ambrose Building in Manhattan.

Major Funding:
The Taylor Foundation.

Known Enemies:
Terrax, Psionex, The Bengal, The Punisher, Project: Earth and Force of Nature, The Sea Urchin, The Sphinx, Gideon.

Known Allies:
The Inhumans (Triton is particularly close to Namorita), The Fantastic Four (The Thing is particularly close to Marvel Boy), The New Mutants, The Avengers (Marvel Boy is an unconditional fan of Captain America).

Membership

Number of active members:
Varies around six active members.

Number of reserve members:
Five.

Organizational structure:
Night Thrasher was the team leader. He picked the missions, and the rest of the team followed. He also provided resources and, with the help of his buddy Andrew Chord, also provided training and intelligence.

Original Roster:
Night Thrasher (Dwayne Taylor), Nova (Richard Rider), Marvel Boy (Vance Astrovik), Firestar (Angelica Jones), Namorita (Namorita Prentiss) and Speedball (Robbie Baldwin).

Membership requirements:
Being co-opted and introduced by another member (Silhouette), being caught in the action and impressing the team (Darkhawk). There is not much structure except being approved by the rest of the team. Members didn’t keep their identity secret among themselves.

Support personnel:

• Andrew Chord: coach, tactical advisor, intelligence gatherer and assistant among The Taylor Foundation’s board.
• Tai (at first): keeper for the facilities, cook, physician.

Equipment:
Fully equipped and stocked headquarters with computers, sick bay, training ground, vehicles’ bay and workshop. Taylor Foundation’s private jet, helicopter or cars. Unstable Molecules™ costumes.

History

Birth of a new team

Dwayne Taylor’s parents were murdered when he was a child. He swore vengeance upon all criminals. He had access to vast resources to do so: the Taylor Foundation, inherited from his father. But he came to realize that he lacked manpower. He alone, as Night Thrasher, was not enough.

With his buddy Andrew Chord they looked for recruits to join a vigilante team. He was looking for young people with powers, unattached to any other team of super-heroes.

Nova

Richard Rider, formerly the cosmic super-hero Nova, had been unable to access his powers for some times. He didn’t know whether he still had them in him.

Night Thrasher hacked the SHIELD database to find Reed Richards‘ report on Nova’s power loss. He discovered that putting Rider in a situation of extreme stress might reactivate his powers. Without further warning, he snatched him and dropped him from the roof of a multiple floors building. It worked.

Nova was grateful to have his powers back. Though he was also upset at the method Night Thrasher used to restore them, he agreed to join his nascent super-heroes team.

Marvel Boy

Vance Astro, the self-proclaimed Marvel Boy was a mutant with powerful telekinetic powers. His history was complicated, with roots in the far future. As an adult, he will be Major Victory, leader of the 31^st century’s Guardians of the Galaxy. As such, he will fight along the present day Captain America.

Present day’s Vance Astrovik knew about this future. Fascinated by the Avengers, and particularly Captain America, he decided to make an entrance at the Avengers mansion and claim a rightful membership. The mansion’s automated defenses easily stopped him. Then Captain America gently explained that he was too young to join.

An informant for Dwayne Taylor reported it. Night Thrasher and Nova contacted young Vance. A nascent super-hero team being better than no team at all, Vance agreed to join them.

Firestar

Tipped by an inside man, Taylor hacked The Hellfire Club’s computer system. He retrieved information related to Angelica Jone, the young mutant known as Firestar.

He called her at home. He blackmailed her to meet them on top of the Ambrose building. She went, but with the intention of kicking his butt.

Inspecting the effects of Firestar’s blasts.

The Terrax crisis arose (see below) and it required super-human intervention. Night Thrasher decided to make it his new team’s maiden flight.

Namorita

Namorita’s Empire State University’s class was at the site of the test trial of a radioactivity cleansing machine made by the private company Genetech. The machine unearthed Terrax, who started a rampage. Namorita stood against him.

From the Ambrose building, Night Thrasher overheard the police emergency call. With much authority he convinced his merry fellowship they were the super-human team needed to respond to this super-human crisis. They joined Namorita.

Speedball

Speedball was going along with his mother on some errands when he saw the report of Terrax’ attack on TV. He activated his bouncing powers and joined the fight.

The New Warriors are born

Under the leadership of Night Thrasher, the six of them defeated Terrax, without much collateral damage. Despite Dwayne’s initial idea of a team of four super-heroes, he made a convincing rallying speech.

With a bit of doubt from Firestar and Nova, and a lot of enthusiasm from Speedball and Marvel Boy, they joined Night Thrasher’s cause. Speedball provided the name of the team: The New Warriors.

The first call to arms Night Thrasher sent was to help Thor defeat the Juggernaut.

Training

The top floors of the Ambrose building, acting as their headquarters, was stocked with well equipped facilities. With three, potentially four fliers on the team, having an aerie as headquarters was no real hindrance.

Andrew Chord supervised training sessions for this newly formed team. He first had them work on mastering their powers.

• The huge potential for Marvel Boy’s telekinesis was clear. They pushed him as far as he could get and beyond. The efforts made his nose bleed and gave him strong headaches. But he made quick progress, rapidly being able to TK himself up and fly, then fly others.
• Firestar worked to increase her flight maneuverability. Night Thrasher knew or suspected she was able to tap into impressive raw power. He pushed her to use her microwaves manipulations in new, creative and more elegant ways. These included communication interception and electronic jamming.
• Namorita was mainly pumping iron.
• Nova already had a fighting experience and a good mastery of his powers. He was mostly sparing so the others can catch up with him: challenging Firestar on flying, and though it was never demonstrated, we can assume he also sparred with Namorita.
• Speedball was a bit out of control. Taylor kept him on the team mainly to avoid pissing the others off. Laying off Robbie so soon would surely convince the others to leave (except maybe Marvel Boy, who was desperate to be in a super-heroes team).
• Night Thrasher honed his fighting skills.

We didn’t see them train much for teamwork. However, during live combat, they managed to combine their actions and their powers. We can assume the team training took place off-panel .

Night Thrasher’s shady past

Night Thrasher had prior experience as a vigilante. He had fought alongside twins brother and sister: Midnight’s Fire and Silhouette. Back then, Dwayne and Silhouette had become lovers. During a firefight involving a gang member and a cop, Silhouette was shot in the back by automatic fire. They thought her dead.

Midnight’s Fire slashed Night Thrasher’s face with his knife, and swore revenge on him.

As the New Warriors were ramping up, Midnight’s Fire came back. He attracted Taylor’s attention by killing cops. At first Night Thrasher was scared to fight him, but he finally joined The New Warriors to stop him. Midnight’s Fire and Night Thrasher fought a duel. Midnight Fire was better. Namorita prevented the New Warriors from interfering in this matter of honor.

In the end, Night Thrasher’s armor gave him the edge required to beat Midnight’s Fire. Silhouette then dramatically returned. She was crippled but alive.

Silhouette’s choice

The rest of Midnight’s Fire’s gang showed up, carrying AIM weaponry. With the help of the local population The New Warriors got the upper hand. Silhouette rejected Midnight’s Fire as a brother.

Night Thrasher was ready to kill his enemy. The New Warriors stopped him: this was not the way these young super-heroes were willing to behave. Night Thrasher just scarred Midnight’s Fire on the cheek, to even the score of their last encounter. They left the cops handle the gang and its leader.

Genetech

Genetech is a private company specialized in genetic research. His founder, Harmon Furmintz, is a scientific genius. He was drafted in the Super-soldier program, during World War II. His hemophilia ruled him out of the project, and as we all know Steve Rogers took advantage of this.

Terrax

It was a Genetech machine that exhumed Terrax during its test run. That was the founding battle for the New Warriors.

The Mad Thinker

Furmintz was having his own personal super-soldiers program. Seeing The New Warriors in action, he got the idea of collecting the heroes’ genetic data to advance his experiments. They called upon the Mad Thinker’s expertise at gathering data.

With the help of his metamorphic android Primus, The Mad Thinker thoroughly studied The New Warriors. He captured them one by one, uncovering their secret identities on the way. He gathered them and explained the whole situation with Genetech. But he also gave them a weird speech about their motivation as a group of super-powered beings: would they be using their powers or abusing them.

The Mad Thinker was now in possession of important data about The New Warriors, starting with their secret IDs. He left them upset, puzzled, but most of all pissed at Genetech.

Psionex

Genetech completed its super-soldiers project. Volunteers were genetically modified to get powers. They were a mismatch band of misfits that Genetech named Psionex (Mathemanic, Impulse, Pretty Persuasions, Coronary, Asylum).

The New Warriors went straight to Genetech’s facility for answers. They confronted Psionex, and, with Speeball saving the day, defeated them. In a fit of rage, Night Thrasher was ready to kill Furmintz. Nova and Marvel Boy prevented it.

It enlightened Furmintz and his deputy director Walter Rosen. They admitted their wrong doings, even if their initial intentions had been right. They promised to do better and safer in the future.

All the ruckus attracted the cops and the press. Though The New Warriors hoped to get out quietly, their exit was broadcast. This was their first public appearance, but it involved trespassing on private property without any obvious purpose.

Star Thief

Namorita was the only New Warrior whose identity was general knowledge. One of her teachers at Empire State University asked the help of The New Warriors.

At the same time, Marvel Boy learned that several space rockets had been destroyed at launch time all around the world. He showed the news broadcasts to Taylor and insisted for The New Warriors to stop one “Star Thief”, who was destroying the rockets.

With the information Namorita provided, they anticipated the Star Thief’s next action, and confronted him in the Philippines. Marvel Boy doubted Namorita’s motivation to stop Star Thief, put she proved him wrong. It ended on the Moon, with the help of the Inhumans.

During this episode, Firestar and Marvel Boy thought they were going to die. They became very close and he revealed his secret identity to her.

Firestar and Marvel Boy bonding.

Project: Earth

Speedball’s father was a District Attorney and his mother was a soap opera actress. Both were unaware of his powers.

Mom in distress

Things were getting tense between his parents. His mother was joining the action against deforestation, in Brazil, of a group of environmentalist activists called Project: Earth. His father was angry as they were considered terrorists by the US law.

Though she was supposed to stay for three weeks, she hadn’t returned two months later. Mad at his father’s apparent lack of concern, Robbie went to his fellow New Warriors for help. That’s when Silhouette showed up out of nowhere, collapsing upon arrival (see the Bengal incident below).

There was a brief argument between Nova and Night Thrasher, about deciding the team’s priorities – Silhouette or Speedball’s mother. They arranged by letting Night Thrasher deal with Silhouette, while Chord flew the rest of the team to Brazil.

Hot in the jungle

To reach Brazil by plane, they had to switch to civilian clothes to pass customs. Speedball and Marvel Boy, still having a secret identity, had to reveal themselves to their teammates. They were shocked at Speedball’s apparent youth.

The Warriors without their masks, thus realising that Speedball is but a kid.

In Brazil, they tracked Project: Earth whereabouts and fought its bodyguards – Force of Nature (Aqueduct, Skybreaker, Firewall, Terraformer). Barreños was the radical P:E’s leader. He orchestrated the escalation of tensions between all the parties involved in the deforestation. He wanted to sacrifice Maddie Baldwin to provoke public outrage.

Speedball saved his mom, revealing his secret identity to her. She realized the true nature of her fellow political activists: deception, violence, cold-blooded murder.

The New Warriors defeated Force of Nature and turned them to the local cops. They didn’t bother to run after Project: Earth’s leaders as they escaped. Chord stated that no court would sue, given the circumstances.

Bengal and The Punisher

While The New Warriors were facing Project: Earth in Brazil, Night Thrasher was taking care of Silhouette and her pursuer.

He faced Bengal, preventing him to get revenge on a priest (a former USMC NCO  sentenced to 25 years for war crimes in Việt Nam). He also faced the Punisher, who was after Silhouette, expecting her to give him information on Midnight’s Fire’s AIM weapons traffic.

But Bengal was better than Silhouette. Night Thrasher barely had the upper hand, thanks to his armor. Night Thrasher was also a match for the Punisher, thanks to his armor again.

Hellfire’s payback

The White Queen (Emma Frost) of The Hellfire Club discovered who hacked their computer system to retrieve data about Firestar. While the New Warriors were away, she and her Hellions sneaked in The Ambrose Building at night. Tai, the housekeeper, was effectively repelling the intruders, until a telepathic attack knocked her out.

When Silhouette and Night Thrasher came back, they got captured too. However, Frost failed to read Taylor’s mind.

Flown back from Brazil by Chord, the New Warriors came to the rescue. Firestar, former trainee of the Massachusetts Academy, was reluctant to fight the Hellions.

Frost also failed to read Tai’s mind. The two women started to talk. Tai confirmed that Taylor hacked The Hellfire Club to get Firestar’s data. After Firestar won the deciding battle against Bevatron, Frost rescinded her claim over Angelica. She also renounced any retribution for hacking her computers.

Firestar was upset: she was her own woman now, The White Queen treated her like dirt and in no way would she get back to The Hellfire Club.

The Sphinx(es)

Before he first lost his power, Nova fought The Sphinx, an all-powerful opponent. Galactus had defeated The Sphinx, sent him back in time, and destroyed the Ka stone, his source of power.

Meryet Karim

5,000 years ago, when Anath-Na Mut was banished and became The Sphinx, a lonely outcast woman found him and nursed him back to health. She fell deeply in love with him. As he could not return her love, he walked away from her. She died alone.

She reincarnated in the body of a boy from the wealthy caste. The influence of The Ka stone allowed her to access the full memories of her previous life. She schemed a succession of reincarnations to reunite with her love.

In the modern days, her last incarnation was Meryet Karim, CEO of Hathor  International. With her vast resources, she went back to Egypt where she used the Scepter of Ka to recollect all the scattered bits of energy dispersed in the destruction of the Ka stone.

Alternate reality

This all-mighty power allowed her to create an Egypt-centred alternate reality, where everything took an Egyptian flavor. Though she didn’t intended it that way, she ended with the power of the Ka-stone. A huge battled between the local Egyptian-themed super-heroes occured.

In the end, she acknowledged that changing the past would not bring her the happiness of being reunited with her love. She disappeared, keeping the power of The Ka stone and swearing revenge.

Kings of pain

Ophrah Industries is a screen company for Gideon, the “External” mutant. Gideon played a power game with Toad (Mortimer Toynbee) to resurrect Proteus, the mighty mutant son of Moira Mc Taggert.

Early concept art by Ron Frenz. At this point the team still was the “Young Warriors”.

Gideon made Ophrah hire Genetech, and gave them a copy of Moira’s research on her son. Genetech, unaware of the purpose of their employer, could fulfill this resurrection by reproducing the genetic matrix of Proteus.

Gideon also hired AIM to fulfill the resurrection through another option: collecting all the energy traces left by Proteus when the X-Men defeated him, years ago, and scattered him all around the world. In turn, AIM hired Harness and her son Piecemeal, helped with the Alliance of Evil (Tower, Frenzy…).

Harness chased every traces of Proteus, painfully forcing her son to absorb it, making Piecemeal grow and grow again.

The New Warriors first battled, then allied with the New Mutants to track Harness. When they made the connexion with Proteus, and went to Muir Island. There they obtained the support of Moira and her troops (Siryn, Madrox, Polaris, Legion).

Harness and Piecemeal appeared in Edinburgh, to absorb the last bits of Proteus’ energy. The New Mutants, The New Warriors and Moira failed to prevent Proteus to be born again, his mind merged with Piecemeal’s.

X-Factor (the original X-Men) then got involved. Proteus trapped all the heroes in what looked like his place of rest after his death at the X-Men’s hand. There, Cyclops concluded Proteus had to commit suicide for the world to be saved. Moira convinced Proteus that the only way for Proetus/Piecemeal to find peace was to go back to his place… to die.

AIM cut their losses, and Gideon and Toad admitted defeat. The game had cost a lot, but it was fun to play.

Sea Urchin

Tipped by an anonymous call, Namorita and Speedball investigated smuggling activities by the docks on Staten Island. The smuggled goods were Atlantean ancient artifacts. As they were about to arrest the smugglers, Darkhawk interfered. He was after the smugglers, too, but confused Namorita with a villain.

Namorita followed the escaping smuggling boat to its mother ship, stationed outside of the US territorial waters. She charged. She was stopped by a man wearing a powered armor: Jeremy Swimming Bear, the Sea Urchin. On the deck of the boat, outside water, dehydrated by the first hit of his surprise attack, Namorita was no match for the ruthless smuggler.

He beat her to a pulp and humiliated her by hacking her hair off.

Namorita after her first fight with Sea Urchin.

Speedball and Darkhawk brought Namorita back to his cousin. There, Namor failed to calm her down. She donned the ritual Atlantean shell-armor, meaning she’s out for revenge… to the death. She found Sea Urchin digging for more Atlantean artifacts underwater. This time, in her element, spirited by the ritual armor, she put him down.

But she couldn’t resolve on killing him, as the Atlantean tradition called for when wearing that armor. She brought him back to the authorities, instead. She got unexpected help from an undercover agent of Project: Earth. He was the one who tipped her in the first place, and he pretended to have accumulated enough evidence to shut Sea Urchin down.

Psionex and Terrax again

Genetech continued its experiments with Psionex for some times. Their individual powers were significantly growing but they all were becoming more and more unstable. About a year after their first encounter with The New Warriors, Psionex decided they had enough with the experimentation and broke loose. Walter Rosen called The New Warriors to the rescue.

The New Warriors battled Psionex in the Genetech facility again. The recent addition of Silhouette gave them an edge, especially against Pretty Persuasion, but it wasn’t enough against the grown powers of Psionex.

Genetech was keeping the irradiated soil from where Terrax emerged. Harmon Furmintz thought he could use the Terrax signature to gain superpowers and put an end to the battle. He released the energy upon himself. But he underestimated the power of Terrax. Furmintz just gave Terrax what he needed: a new host to incarnate. He started rampaging.

Psionex ran away, except Mathemanic and Impulse. They teamed with The New Warriors to fight Terrax. To win, Nova had to get the help of The Fantastic Four, then of the Silver Surfer.

The battle was doing much collateral damage. The New Warriors took care of the bystanders. Marvel Boy saved a soon-to-be-mom, carrying her to the nearest hospital to deliver safely.

Nova’s ego was a bit brushed by the fact that they did the most part of the battle and The Silver Surfer just wrapped it up. Night Thrasher was disappointed they needed this kind of help at all. Marvel Boy got hurt with a broken arm.

After that, Genetech, somehow thinking they owed The New Warriors, had willingly helped them by providing special equipment or just information.

Rage and The Avengers

The Avengers had just accepted Rage as a probationary reserve member, when the Hate-Monger escalated the racial tensions in New York City. Cops nearly clubbed to death a Hispanic friend of Elvin. It stirred the media and attracted various hate groups, among which were The Sons of the Serpents. Rage interfered in front of the camera, embarrassing the Avengers. He was angry at their lack of involvement.

When the Hate-Monger escalated the tensions to an outward riot, The New Warriors and The Avengers fell under his influence and fought each other. Afterward, they kind of competed to defeat him. They finally allied. By swallowing his anger, Rage made the Hate-Monger run away.

Captain America explained The Avengers learned the truth about Rage being underage. They had to remove him from service but offered to train him. He recognized having made a mistake when he sent Marvel Boy away, and didn’t want to make it again. The New Warriors also discovered Rage’s identity.

Firestar and Marvel Boy

Since the Star Thief episode, Firestar and Marvel Boy were getting closer. They started to date, and got serious. By the end of the first year of the team, the were a lovely teenagers couple.

This summary is continued on – New Warriors part #2 – Growing up years.

By Nicolas Lemaçon.

Source of Character: New Warriors vol 1 #1-17, Thor #411-412, New Warriors Annual #1 (1991) + New Mutants Annual #7 + X-Men Annual #15 + X-Factor Annual #6, Avengers #341-342.

Helper(s): Pufnstuff, Darci, Sébastien Andrivet.

Writeup completed on the 18^th of February, 2017.