Issue(s): New Warriors #10
Cover Date: Apr 91
Title: "Rumble"
Credits:
Fabian Nicieza - Writer
Mark Bagley - Penciler
Sam DeLaRosa - Inker
Eric Fein - Assistant Editor
Danny Fingeroth - Editor

Review/plot:
Night Thrasher and Silhoutte return to their headquarters, limping after their fights with Punisher and Bengal, and are attacked by the Hellions. Night Thrasher and Silhoutte do pretty well against the full team of Hellions, and i thought that the White Queen was going to have to step in for them a second time...

...but this time the Hellions do manage to win their fight (against two injured opponents, mind you).

I can't get over the fact that one of these new characters is called "Beef". Like, put a little effort into it.

In addition to being able to stand up to, and impress, the Punisher last arc, and in addition to all his gadgets and fighting ability, it turns out that Night Thrasher also has impressive mental blocks. This guy really has become Fabian Nicieza's pet character.

The rest of the New Warriors are returning from Brazil, and Chord gets a truncated alarm on the plane. So they work on a plan to bust into their headquarters to fight whoever has invaded. The funny bit is that this is all in front of Speedball's mom.

She lets him go through with it. And now time for the New Warriors/Hellions fight. Considering the showing the Hellions have had so far, you wouldn't expect this to last long. But the Hellions manage to up their game enough to hold their own, basically doing better against the entire New Warriors team than they were against just Night Thrasher and Silhouette at first.

It's nice to see Firestar trying to reach out to Catseye, probably the least evil of the Hellions and someone that Firestar might have been friends with during her time with the team.

Firestar later accidentally knocks the other new guy, Bevatron, off a wall, and she risks herself to try to save him, but he's badly injured.

Meanwhile, Tai recovers and confronts the White Queen. And they work out what happened with the computer hacking. Night Thrasher did hack their system the first time, but only to get info on Firestar, who he was recruiting. And the second time was actually the Mad Thinker. So Emma agrees to drop that complaint. And she and Tai agree to let their students fight. If the Hellions win, Firestar will go back to the Hellions. If not, Emma will stop pursuing her. Again, the contest is closer than you'd think considering the Hellion's earlier performance, but Firestar's rescue of Bevatron tips the scale in favor of the New Warriors winning. Firestar makes it clear that she wasn't going to honor the contest no matter who won (it's not like she agreed to it, after all), but Emma agrees to accept that Firestar has quit.

Also in this issue, oh my god, the build-up to the new Sphinx continues to continue. It will finally pay off beginning next issue.

In this issue's lettercol, the question of Silhouette's membership in the New Warriors comes up. The answer is that she will be a "semi-regular" member of the team. As a character that is on crutches, Silhouette is kind of a hard sell to begin with. Having her be semi-regular just seems to confirm that she doesn't have to be taken seriously. I feel like Nicieza should have committed one way or the other. My view of this team is that it's a group of established teen characters, with Night Thrasher as the new member. But i could accept new characters if they were developed well. Having Silhouette just pop in and out has the potential of making her feel less like a member of the team and more like a guest that never leaves.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This should begin soon after the end of the last arc.

References:

• Speedball got his powers in Speedball #1.
  
• The Hellfire Club's computer network was hacked in New Warriors #1 (by Night Thrasher, looking up info on Firestar) and New Warriors #3 (by the Mad Thinker, also looking up Firestar).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The lettercol calls Sil "semi-regular", but that status does not last long. By the time we get to issue #15 or so she is clearly a full-fledged member of the group. I think they just called her "semi-regular" at that point because they knew she wasn't going to be appearing in the Sphinx three-parter.

Absolutely loved this story. My very first introduction to the White Queen and the Hellions. And the bit where the Speedball's mom suggests that the New Warriors should call the cops instead of fighting the threat themselves is priceless. Two of those guys can smash a truck, one can melt it, one can lift it with his mind and her own son could crash into it unscathed. But yeah, call the cops, I can just picture them slapping Beef and Catseye around.

Is there any reason why Wolverine #35-37 takes place between New Warriors #9 and #10? This issue seems to follow the previous one quite closely.

Nothing specific about the Wolverine story, but i wanted to represent that this issue takes place soon after #9 without necessarily following directly.