Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The New Warriors Beginnings by Fabian Nicieza The New Warriors: Beginnings by Fabian Nicieza. AUDIENCE: Adults, teens, kids; superhero violence. NOTE: This book reprints New Warriors #1-#4 and The Mighty Thor #411-#412. SYNOPSIS: A young, black, grim superhero named Night Thrasher recruits five superpowered teenagers to join his team. Although some of them are unwilling, they ultimately agree to join. They fight the reborn Terrax, Juggernaut, Night Thrasher's enemy Midnight's Fire, the Mad Thinker and his android, and a group called Psionex created by a corporation that wants to create a new generation of superbeings. EVALUATION: The New Warriors were created to give a bunch of minor-league teen heroes a book of their own. The trouble is that second bananas remain second bananas when they're put into starring roles unless they started out with a lot of promise or were considerably revamped, and none of these heroes was ever much of anything or has been improved for this book. Night Thrasher, Nova, Marvel Boy, Speedball, Namorita, and Firestar--not exactly household names, and so poorly done in this book that all they are is names. They have the usual one- dimensional personalities of Marvel heroes, and occasionally not even the ones they started out with in other books; for example, Firestar was a shy girl in her miniseries and is now a self-confident teenager (and I thought initially an orphan, but here she has a father), and Speedball (he of the awful name) was a reasonably polite boy in his series and in Damage Control but is now a motormouthed slacker. Frankly, the brief appearance of Speedball and the others in Damage Control was considerably more interesting and displayed more personality than can be found in this entire book. The stories aren't even worth talking about; as with The Power of Shazam , this stuff has been done countless times. There are numerous feeble attempts at humor, many coming from the revamped Speedball, but again, the Damage Control appearance was considerably funnier (partially because it poked fun at the stupidity of some of these heroes; for example, Night Thrasher zips around on a skateboard. A skateboard ? And I thought the Silver Surfer's board was stupid. at least it can fly and is under his mental control). Maybe the humor was squished out by the weight of the committee that created this book, or maybe the writers were simply not capable of being genuinely funny. Choose whichever interpretation you prefer. The end result is the same. Fabian Nicieza. When Nicieza was three years old his family moved to the United States. Growing up in New Jersey, Nicieza learned to read and write from comic books. Later he studied at Rutgers University, interning at ABC Television before graduating in 1983 with a degree in Advertising and Public Relations. Then from 1983 - 1985 he worked for the Berkley Publishing Group, first in their production department, then as a managing editor. Early Marvel Days. In 1985 Nicieza joined the staff at Marvel Comics, initially as a manufacturing assistant, later moving over to the advertising department into a manager position. During this period he began to take his first freelance work for Marvel, writing short articles for Marvel's promotional magazine Marvel Age . Nicieza's first published comic story came in 1987 with Psi-Force #9, a title in Marvel's short-lived New Universe line. This led to his becoming that title's regular writer at issue #16, which continued until its cancellation at #32 in early 1989. This work led to some small fill in work for the writer on titles such as Classic X-Men and in the Marvel Annuals' 1989 summer crossover Atlantis Attacks . Then in 1990 in the pages of Thor #412, Marvel's then-Editor-in-Chief Tom DeFalco created the super-hero team New Warriors (using pre-existing characters) and decided to give his new creations their own comic book. Nicieza was selected as writer of the project with artist Mark Bagley on pencils. He went on to write the book for most of its first 50 issues (initially with Bagley as artist, then with Darick Robertson and occasional fill-ins) to general critical and fan acclaim. Also in 1990 Nicieza began short runs on comics such as Alpha Flight (vol.1 #'s 87-90), Avengers (Vol.1 #317 -325) and Avengers Spotlight , as well as the miniseries Nomad , which in turn led him to write the ongoing Nomad (vol.2) series in 1992. That same year, Nicieza became editor for Marvel's comics line for young children - Star Comics. His time as editor was short, however, as he soon quit to concentrate on his burgeoning freelance writing career at the company. Projects which Nicieza took on in this period included the National Football League-approved super-hero NFL Superpro (1991), and the ambitious miniseries The Adventures of Captain America, Sentinel of Liberty (1991), in which Nicieza (with artist Kevin Maguire) retold and reimagined Captain America's 1940s origin. The X-Men Era. In 1991 Nicieza joined with artist Rob Liefeld in co-plotting and writing the final issues of the New Mutants title (vol.1 #'s 98-100). In those issues Liefeld and Nicieza created some key characters and concepts including Deadpool, Shatterstar and X-Force. Liefeld and Nicieza then produced an ongoing X-Force title, the first issue of which set sales records in the summer of 1991 (though it was quickly surpassed by X-Men vol.2 #1 later that year). Nicieza initially worked on the title as scripter;after the departure of Liefeld in #12 he became its full writer which he remained until 1995. Nicieza had been offered writing duties on Uncanny X-Men in early 1992 but refused citing his heavy schedule, the work eventually going to Scott Lobdell at Nicieza's suggestion. However by the end of that year Nicieza has been convinced to come aboard the adjectiveless X-Men title beginning with #12, working with artist Andy Kubert throughout his run. For the next three years Nicieza, Lobdell (still on Uncanny X-Men ) and editor Bob Harras steered the fortunes of Marvel's most successful characters through stories such as the X-Cutioner's Song , Phalanx Covenant and Age of Apocalypse crossovers. During this period Nicieza wrote the first (1992) Cable mini-series as well as the first few issues of the character's ongoing (1993) Cable Series. He also wrote the first solo Deadpool series, Deadpool: the Circle Chase in 1993. These series expanded the characters' personalities and established key background information for both characters, all things which were later used by other writers on those characters' subsequent ongoing books. However in 1995, in a dispute with Harras over the future direction of his plotlines on X-Force , Nicieza quit the X-titles completely leaving X- Force with #43 and X-Men with #45. Acclaim: VH2. After 1995, Nicieza's workload at Marvel began to fall dramatically. He wrote short runs of Captain Marvel (vol.2, 1995), Spider-Man: The Final Adventure (1995) and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers before leaving the company entirely in 1996. That year Nicieza did his first work for rival publisher DC Comics, co-writing Justice League: Midsummer Nightmare with Mark Waid which relaunched the Justice League as the JLA. He also worked for Twist and Shout Comics writing and penciling back-up stories in X-Flies Special #1 and Dirtbag #7. Later in 1996 Nicieza joined Acclaim Comics as senior vice-president and editor-in-chief. He was charged with revamping the companies intellectual properties which had previously formed Valiant Comics Valiant Universe . Nicieza as editor oversaw the new version, dubbed " VH2 ", which re-imagined characters such as Solar, X-O Manowar and Ninjak using popular comic book writers of the period including Warren Ellis, Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek. Nicieza himself wrote the re-imagined Turok title as well as a new concept, Troublemakers . Turok met with success as a video game adaptation, and Nicieza was promoted to President and Publisher of Acclaim Comics, Inc. in 1997. Nicieza even wrote a Turok novella during this period. However his success was short lived and after staff cuts and most of the lines' cancellation, Nicieza left Acclaim in 1999. 1999 - Present. Returning to freelance work, Marvel and the X-Men, Nicieza co-wrote the Magneto Wars crossover through Uncanny X-Men (#366-367) and X-Men (Vol. 2 #86-87) with artist Alan Davis in 1999. This then led into two successive Magneto limited series - Magneto Rex (1999) and Magneto: Dark Seduction (2000) as well as an ongoing Gambit (1999) series which he wrote for the first 24 issues of its 25 issue run. Also in 1999 Nicieza took over the writing chores on Marvel's Thunderbolts with #34, following the departure of Kurt Busiek. He continued to write the book (initially with old partner Mark Bagley on art, later with Patrick Zircher and Chris Batista) up until #75 when the title was revamped. The revamp was unsuccessful however and in 2004 the original version of the team was resurrected, initially in an Avengers/Thunderbolts miniseries, then later in the New Thunderbolts ongoing series with Nicieza again as writer and with Tom Grummett as penciller. Since 1999 Nicieza has taken on many writing projects, mostly for Marvel. These include limited series such as Citizen V (2001), Citizen V and the V Battalion: Everlasting (2002) , X-Men Forever (2001), and X-Force (Vol.2) as well as shortlived ongoing series such as Hawkeye (2003). At DC he has written the six issue mini-series Supermen of America (1999) and JLA: Created Equal (2000) as well as some issues of Justice League Adventures . In 2003 Nicieza branched out by co-creating with artist Steffano Raffaele a horror tinged, creator-owned mini-series The Blackburne Covenant which was published by Dark Horse Comics. That same year he also returned to two characters he had first written over ten years before, in the new ongoing Cable & Deadpool series for Marvel. 2006 saw the Nicieza-orchestrated mini-series "I Heart Marvel Vol 1" hit stands around Valentine's Day. He penned one issue of the mini, which featured 3 characters from his old New Warriors series. As a screenwriter, Fabian was a co-writer of the Hot Wheels World Race animated feature (with Mark Edens and Jeff Gomez), and The Black Belt Club (with Jeff Gomez and Dawn Barnes), a computer-animated feature based on the bestselling book series from Scholastic in development with Starlight Runner Entertainment. In 2006 Nicieza's returned to DC with a three issue arc in Superman #841-843 (September - November, 2006), co-written with Kurt Busiek. This arc spotlights Nightwing, Firestorm, and The Teen Titans. Fabian Nicieza is married with two daughters. Awards. He has received a good deal of recognition for his work, including a nomination for the Comics' Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 2000. Fabian Nicieza Opens Up About New Warriors TV Series. New Warriors comics scribe Fabian Nicieza has opened up regarding his conversations with those involved in the TV series, offering his own advice. While news has been sparse on Marvel's New Warriors television series, comic book writer Fabian Nicieza has opened up to SyFy Wire about his conversations with those involved with the series and what they'll need to ensure it succeeds like the original comic. The series, which was originally ordered straight to series as Freeform, is currently in search of a home despite the pilot reportedly testing "through the roof." Unfortunately, with the series still on the hunt for a home, details surrounding the project remain unknown outside of it being a half-hour comedy. According to scribe Fabian Nicieza, though, the series, which is a far cry from his 75-issue run, the series can be best described as a "half-hour dramedy, comedy docu-comedy show" that focuses on a group of 20-somethings living together in a house pretending to be superheroes. Nicieza also explained what it'll take for the series to endure, explaining that the core of the original series was that "strident, passionate, and relatively immature" perspective of the young heroes. As he explains, there needs to be a sense of anger and passion driving them to seek change in the world. What I think is the core underlying ethos of New Warriors that made my run so successful and that others struggled with was the strident, passionate, and relatively immature perspective the young bring to seek change in the world. There has to be an element of anger and passion to that, which infused the original series. There also has to be an element of positive aspiration to it, too, because they're supposed to be good people who just don't know enough about the world yet. I hope they use those elements in the TV show, because then, to me, it's the brand of New Warriors. If they don't, it will be other iterations that Marvel published, and there's a reason those didn't succeed: because it lacked the core DNA. Of course, one of the biggest changes between the comics and the television series is the line-up, which will see fan-favorite Squirrel Girl take the lead. While both Speedball and Night Thrasher were included in the new line-up, the series opted to leave out a character like Firestar. The reasoning behind this is reasonable, of course, as Nicieza even notes the series has to be conscious of its visual effects budget and Firestar would have easily ate up a good portion of said budget. I think that frankly, the special effects budget has to be incredibly limited for a half-hour show on Freeform, so they're using a lot of characters who don't need to have a heavy VFX budget behind them. I think Firestar would be 90% special effects if she's using her powers. Marvel's New Warriors television series may not have a home currently, but that doesn't mean showrunner Kevin Biegel hasn't been hard at work on the series behind in the scenes. In fact, Biegel has repeatedly shared photos of him alongside the New Warriors cast, including the above photo from just last week. Like with the recently cancelled animated Deadpool series, it's entirely possible New Warriors will end up on Disney's streaming service which is set to launch sometime in 2019. New Warriors centers on six young heroes learning to cope with their abilities in a world where bad guys can be as terrifying as bad dates. The 10-episode series stars Milana Vayntrub as Squirrel Girl, Derek Theler as Mister Immortal, Jeremy Tardy as Night Thrasher, Calum Worthy as Speedball, Matthew Moy as Microbe and Kate Comer as Debrii. The New Warriors: Beginnings by Fabian Nicieza. Silhouette, young, female, mixed, disabled, learning the world and a badass. Silhouette could have come from Kids or Do the Right Thing , more than she was likely to have debuted big in Fantastic Four or X-Men . The arc that first got my attention involved the Sphinx altering the history of the world, creating an afrofuturist present where familiar elements were echoed, but in a new style, with new politics, as North Africa and nearby regions were given a prominence and preferenced the way Anglo culture and pillaging was in traditional superhero books and our Anglo-colonial culture. “A tremendous amount of work and research went into the Forever Yesterday storyline,” said Fabian Nicieza, who wrote the arc, and for over four years, what became the bulk of the original New Warriors comic. “It was pretty obvious that if the world had been expanded based on Egyptian influence, that absolutely everything about it would have to be different than our more Euro-centric existence. So that meant everything from architecture to fashion. We tried to maintain naming conventions that would be more recognizable to readers so that we didn’t make the transition too much of a struggle (so Captain Assyria automatically connoted Captain America for simplicity’s sake). “That storyline exhausted Mark, but unlike today’s artists who need six months off after a challenging three-part story, Mark was right back at it without missing a beat!” Looking at it, now, crystalized in that initial fifty-plus issue run, written by Nicieza and drawn primarily by Mark Bagley and Darrick Robertson, encapsulated the best of its decade. It was Goldeneye , Spike Lee and Gregg Araki; John Grisham and Michael Crichton in their most exciting time. It was Public Enemy and Alice in Chains. When, I asked Nicieza if any of that was an influence, or intentional, he said, “I had none of those particular genres influencing me when I wrote it. I really just wanted it to be what it was meant to be: Marvel’s version of Teen Titans . I wanted to tell fun, exciting stories grounded in the Marvel Universe using these great untapped characters that had a world of potential.” Can I write off my interpretation to zeitgeist? A spirit of a time, moving my interpretation, my perception, even if not Nicieza's scripts? “I had no say in the original line-up,” said Nicieza, “Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz had put the team together and a basic working bible for who they were and what the dynamics would be. Once I was offered the book, I inquired about changing Night Thrasher and Kid Nova’s names, but that wasn’t going to fly. “We knew that the Kid Nova name was solely a trademark and duplication issue. Frankie Raye in the Fantastic Four had assumed the name at that time, though we assumed that wouldn’t last forever. We weren’t going to need to call him that in the book, just any cover copy so you could trademark the name.” "It was far less of an issue for me than it was for readers, since outside of a joke within the book, he was never called anything but Nova. I also knew that gave me a good opportunity for the logical story arc, which was Rich Rider reclaiming and ‘earning' the name he thought he didn’t deserve anymore. The fact the original blue and gold costume went along with those story plans was icing on the cake.” And, of Silhouette, “I also wanted to add depth to Night Thrasher so you see the creation and introduction of Silhouette very early on. I wanted to see how comfortable Mark would feel drawing a character who needed braces to function but was also very acrobatic, and once I did I knew I’d make her a regular part of the team.” I am fascinated with how stories come together, narrative art. There are always changes, always fait accompli elements and negotiations. The Nova/Kid Nova deal bugged me back then. There is a light hand wave in the comic, and that explains it fine, but that they kept putting in on the cover or in the indicia… I took indicia so serious as a kid. I took comics seriously. When Marvel Boy went to trial for killing his father, I was shocked that the trial did not get interrupted after a page or two. It kept going. I had never seen a trial in a superhero comic keep going. Dude! Someone could get convicted! He was convicted. Of manslaughter. “I knew all along I wanted him to go to jail for what happened,” Nicieza said, “because I knew that would differentiate it from other court trials in comics. I had a lot of research help from lawyer/comic industry writer Bob Ingersoll at that time. I sent him a list of things I was hoping to do, details on the crime, etc. and he advised me every step of the way to try and make it as realistic as feasible in a comic. “What helped that entire storyline as much as the ‘realism’ of it, I think, was the fact that we were running two lead stories at the same time. This allowed us to cut away from the trial to more action-packed stuff going on with Thrash in Cambodia, which only helped maintain the sense of suspense and scene cliffhangers that propel a legal story in more interesting ways than if you are ONLY focusing on a trial.” Those dual plots made things seem so huge as it was going on, and it does not dampen in rereads. Nothing But the Truth and other arcs blew up what could have been a very provincial New York superteam comic into something international, generational, something that genuinely ran the gamut of class. When I asked him, at what point Cambodia entered the picture as a setting, as something integral to a major plot line, Nicieza told me, “I knew that the Nothing But The Truth storyline would deal with Thrash’s past, along with Chord and Tai, and for all of them, it was the Vietnam War that brought them together. I forget why I decided to set it in Cambodia other then it was a fun, ‘exotic’ location and a logical extension of our military operations in the region. I might have seen a National Geographic article on Angkor Wat or something that appealed to me visually and that’s why I went there.” Of the poetic, unusual and alluring super-names new characters, developed for this comic, could have: “I never thought of them as ‘poetic names,’ I just thought they were kind of cool. I was looking to come up with interesting names. Naming comic book characters is one of the toughest things about the job, so you are always looking for differentiators. I thought names like The Left Hand, the Spearmint Dragon (for Tai) and the Smiling Tiger had an exotic, Asian, ‘cult-like’ fantasy feel to them. I still like those names to this day!” They are the best thing. Smiling Tiger — that there is a character, who looks completely different from anyone else, called Smiling Tiger is cool as cool gets. The comic wrapped up, in part tying-in with solo titles it helped launch for two of its core characters, throwing the cast through time and space, pitting Marvel Boy against the father he killed, when his father was closer to his own age, and dealing with issues like homophobia and systemic self-recrimination that were not to be expected in a Marvel (or DC) superhero book at that time, without some form of “this is for adults” labeling. New Warriors never stopped developing its characters, its world, the entire time Nicieza wrote the book. And, he wrote the book on the New Warriors . Every take since has echoed his, drawn from his, even if the cast wasn’t his, or the basic conceit slightly different. What may have started as a preassigned cast and an attempt to ape the better parts of New Teen Titans , Nicieza’s New Warriors quickly became its own animal, and has since spawned or encouraged an entire species of comics. Descendants of the run come in the same name, they come without any commercial connection. It was a smart book, cool and strong, worldly and timely in ways that make us want to label, “before its time.” Others, who never really read an issue or an arc, might write it off based on the presence of a skateboarding hero or an infusion of real world maturity with superheroics as par for the course or too much of its time. Both are true, and neither is accurate. New Warriors was the best of its time. Tag: Fabian Nicieza. ‘X-Men Legends’ will tell new stories from the team’s past. First story arc will feature Fabian Nicieza and Brett Booth returning to the “lost Summers brother” storyline. Marvel has announced another X-Men series, X-Men Legends , that should be a treat for old school fans. It will feature revolving storylines by classic writers like Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, Larry Hama, Peter David and others, who will “dive into the rich history of the X-Men to tie up loose ends, resolve long-standing plot danglers, and reveal shocking truths that will change the past and future of the X-Men.” ’90s X-Men writer Fabian Nicieza will write the first arc, which revisits the “third Summers brother” storyline that featured Adam-X. Adam-X, who debuted in X-Force Annual #2 way back in 1993, was rumored to be the third Summers brother, but as fans know, that turned out to be Vulcan. Nicieza will be joined by artist Brett Booth on this arc. Share this: 30 years of changing the world: Celebrating the anniversary of the New Warriors. Hear from writers, artists, editors and fans about the impact ‘New Warriors’ has had on them. Special thanks to Doug Smith, who contributed additional reporting to this post . Thirty years ago, comic shops were selling the first issue of a brand new comic book series starring a brand new Marvel Comics superhero team. The New Warriors starred a lineup of mostly forgotten and obscure characters by a creative team who had never launched an ongoing series before. Conventional wisdom at the time said the new series would fail. And yet, improbably, New Warriors not only survived, it thrived. At its peak, it was among the top 25 best-selling comics in North America and the United Kingdom.What was it about this underdog series that defied the odds? Was it the characters? The book starred supporting characters like Namorita from Sub-Mariner and Marvel Boy from The Thing , and stars of previously cancelled comics like Nova and Speedball . Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief at the time, Tom DeFalco, assembled the team. He also included the abandoned co-star of the animated Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends TV show, Firestar, and a new character co-created with Thor artist Ron Frenz, Night Thrasher. Was it the creators? Writer Fabian Nicieza inherited these characters and immediately embraced them as his own. The first two years of the book was tightly plotted out and featured sharp dialogue, humor, betrayal, adventure and surprise revelations. Artist Mark Bagley, initially inked by Al Williamson and later by Larry Mahlstedt, injected character-driven storytelling with fun action in every issue. After two years, Bagley was moved to Amazing Spider-Man and replaced with Darick Robertson, who brought his own dynamic and expressive storytelling visuals. Even 30 years later, the series is fondly remembered by fans and comic book professionals, even inspiring some of them to become professionals. We reached out to a number of comic book writers, artists, retailers and others to hear in their own words what made the New Warriors so special to them. We also reached out to Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley, as well as the first editor on the series, Danny Fingeroth, and writer Evan Skolnick, who succeeded Nicieza as writer, to get their own thoughts on their time working on this secret classic.