Issue(s): New Warriors annual #1
Cover Date: 1991
Title: "Errant knights"
Credits:
Fabian Nicieza - Writer
Mark Bagley - Penciler
Jeffrey Albrecht - Inker
Danny Fingeroth - Editor

Review/plot:
Part two of Kings of Pain is improved somewhat by the art of Mark Bagley.

We left off with X-Force facing the New Warriors at Genetech's facility thanks to some bad information fed to X-Force from the Alliance of Evil, so we start with a misunderstanding fight.

This despite the fact that Cannonball and Firestar should know better.

You can add the New Warriors' mentor Chord to the list of people that have a history with Cable.

Warpath continues to be the heavy hitter on X-Force, trading punches with Namorita.

Not sure about that neck-piece she's wearing.

No clear winner in the fight.

My first thought was that X-Force should win, since they've been trained as fighters, unlike the New Warriors who have just recently come together as a team. But that's not really correct since the majority of X-Force are brand new to their group. And characters like Nova and Namorita have been around much longer than, say, Cannonball, who is the oldest (by publication date, not sure about by age) of X-Force, even if everyone here is supposed to be a teen.

With the fight looking like it's going to be a draw, Cable has Cannonball execute the move they talked about in New Mutants #98, where he extends his blast field to acts as a forcefield for the group.

Marvel Boy similarly extends a telekinesis shield around the New Warriors. Note Chord using the word "teke" to refer to telekinesis. That's a new one to me, and i suppose is more like a pronunciation of the abbreviation TK than a shortening of "telekinesis". I figured it was a little bit of slang that developed among the Warriors, but this word is used throughout this storyline by other characters as well (e.g. Moira MacTaggert, Cyclops). It's amazing how quickly a new bit of slang gets around. At least no one says that their forcefield is on fleek.

Anyway, with the cease fire, there is an opportunity to sort out what everyone is fighting about, and the Genetech execs swear that they never hired the Alliance of Evil. So the New Warriors join up with X-Force to continue the investigation. They go back to Frenzy and, by threatening to drop her out of a plane, get her to admit that the Alliance was really hired by AIM. Some of the Mutants and Warriors then raid an AIM warhouse where they don't get a fight from the workers there, but learn that AIM is mass producing "humanoid shell casings" that it is speculated will hold the energy that Piecemeal is absorbing.

Meanwhile, Harness continues to lead Piecemeal around to absorb Proteus' energy.

I don't know why Piecemeal's mom would give him a Toxic Parents sweatshirt, but that may be a reference to a 1989 self-help book for people coming to grip with having had abusive parents.

Another group of Mutants and Warriors return to the X-Mansion subbasement (and have to deal with the fact that the security codes have been changed, activating the defense systems) and use the computers there to learn that all of the sites where Harness has been to radiate out from Scotland. We also learn that Boom Boom is apparently a computer and/or science wiz.

By the way, there is a lot of flirting going on in this issue, and indeed throughout this story. Which makes sense when you realize that you're dealing with two groups of horny teenagers.

We also learn that Cable was using the alias "Winters" back when Chord knew him.

Based on the focal point of the energy, it's determined for the first time that it is Proteus that Harness and company are trying to resurrect. And so next stop will be Muir Island.

It's kind of a shame that Mark Bagley only draws this part. Because after the Misunderstanding Fight, there isn't much for him to do except draw the mundane but (i guess) necessary scenes of the New Warriors walking around in warehouses and computer rooms. It's not that Bagley is a pin-up artist (and neither are the other artists on this event), and it's good to have someone with Bagely's dedication doing the less flashy stuff too, but if i could only have Bagley on one part of this story, i wouldn't have picked this part. He's here because it's the New Warriors portion, of course.

Storywise, when reading through the first time, this is where things seem to get interesting once we learn (at the very end) that the end goal for the villains is to resurrect Proteus. A quest to bring back a mega-powerful bad guy is always interesting. But as i said in part one, it kind of falls apart in retrospect. And really you have to be a nihilist or just seriously misguided to want to bring back someone like Proteus. I guess Gideon thinks AIM will be able to contain his power, but it just seems extremely risky. And really, in the meantime, it's not much of a quest. If you compare this to, say, the Bloodstone Hunt where Captain America competed with villains through a bunch of tricks and traps and against each other, this is nothing like that. In part one here the Alliance had the incredibly difficult task of fighting a couple of police officers, and since then Harness has been moving around impeded only by some faulty AIM technology. It's not much of a quest, and by the time the heroes get a clue and get past all the obligatory Misunderstanding Fights, it's all over.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part two of Kings of Pain. Part three is in Uncanny X-Men annual #15.

The Speedball story from this issue is covered in a separate entry. There are also a number of short features showing the origins and histories of the characters and the team.

References:

• When the heroes learn from Frenzy that they were hired by AIM, Night Thrasher says the New Warriors once went up against AIM, but then quickly clarifies that it was just AIM weapons. That is a reference to New Warriors #2.
  
• The New Warriors compare the containment suit that AIM was mass producing to hold Proteus energy with the suit that Star-Thief war in New Warriors #5-6.
  
• X-Force left the X-Mansion subbasement after New Mutants #100.
  
• Proteus was introduced and defeated in Uncanny X-Men #125-128.

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

First super team fight I ever read as a kid so it's got a special place in my heart for that reason alone. Wonderfully drawn by Mark Bagley and another case of a great artist elevating a story since it starts losing steam immediately with the X-men annual. I disagree about wishing Bagley drew one of the other parts instead of this one as X-Force vs. New Warriors was by far the highlight of the whole story.

In hindsight I think the problem is that this was a three part story stretched to four parts. They really should have either put a different story in the X-men annual or skipped it entirely since the actual team was in space and couldn't participate.

A couple of notes:

As a 7-8 year old kid it made total sense to me that Chord and Cable had a history together since cord and cable are synonyms.

You didn't scan it, but there's a scene where Cable and the kids break Frenzy out of jail at one point for information. I thought Cable's "I lied" line was some more awesome Cable dialogue when I was a kid and didn't realize until years later that it was basically lifted wholesale from Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando (a film written by later Marvel writer and TV executive Jeph Loeb).

I also liked the fight between the two teams.
Note that Cable was using the alias "Winters". But we later find out Cable didn't know Scott was his father at the time of this story. So Cable just happened to choose an alias that was a play on his real name?
Note that the teams deactivate the mansion's defenses. This is alluded to in X-Men 279 when Xavier notes the defenses have been deactivated.

Good - acknowledging that Cannonball and Firestar know each other.

Bad - not acknowledging that Firestar and Warpath used to be teammates. (Unless they hated each other when working together, in which case "Tear into her kitty-cat!" would work.)

Erik Robbins is right - Nicieza totally misses the boat here on mentioning Firestar and Warpath. Given the ending of Uncanny #193, they definitely should have acknowledged each other.

Also, does this storyline ever explain why any of these villains would have ever even heard of Proteus?

It's a little bit of a no-prize explanation, but since Gideon was one of the guys behind everything I assume he somehow got access to the X-men's files via his alliance with Sunspot and that's how he found out about Proteus.

Also keep in mind that it's a matter of public record that the X-Men fought *someone who could reshape reality* in Scotland. With that information, Gideon could have easily manuevered Roberto into telling him the details without Roberto becoming suspicious.

Red Comet's explanation works better. I can't imagine there's a lot of public knowledge about what happened in Edinburgh, let alone good details. Also, I can't imagine Roberto knowing anything about it - he never seemed much for studying the files and Proteus was dead before Roberto came along, so it's not like he would have been told specifically about him. A lot of information doesn't seem to get shared until it's necessary - after all, have the New Mutants (including Roberto) didn't know about Legion until they had to go fight him in #44.