Issue(s): Night Thrasher #1
Cover Date: Aug 93
Title: "Family ties / A drop in the puddle"
Credits:
Fabian Nicieza - Writer
Javier Saltares / Mark Bagley - Penciler
Javier Saltares / Larry Mahlstedt - Inker
Rob Tokar - Editor

Review/plot:
I've already said my piece regarding the merits of a Night Thrasher solo series on the entry for his miniseries, so i won't belabor it. In any event, this first issue doesn't give us a sense for how the ongoing solo series will be managed since it's the middle part of a crossover with the New Warriors. So basically it's just an issue of the New Warriors that happens to focus on Night Thrasher (which wasn't that uncommon anyway).

This story has Night Thrasher going after members of the Poison Memories (aka the Mems), who have killed and captured relatives of the New Warriors. The New Warriors themselves have (mostly) turned themselves in, leaving Thrash to act alone. Thrash captures Johnny Lo, third-in-command with the Mems, and makes a deal with him, allowing him to take control of the gang after Night Thrasher takes down their leaders Kimeiko Ashu and his second-in-command, Victor Hasayaba.

Ashu and Hasayaba are currently in the process of unboxing some weapons from AIM.

Night Thrasher dealt with a Vietnamese gang with AIM weapons in New Warriors #2. This is a completely different gang but the similarities had me wondering if i'm supposed to be remembering those events and seeing ties to them. I'll also note that the woman, Hnang seemingly appears out of nowhere after not being seen in part one of this story. She actually did appear previously, in the scene from New Warriors annual #3 that spanned around previewing upcoming events in the series (she was talking to Kimeiko). But the point is that the gang feels pretty vague, with interchangeable characters and indeed the entire gang feels like a repeat.

The main thing from this scene is that the Poison Memories have gotten their own suit of Night Thrasher armor. It's given to Victor.

Victor calls himself Red Mirror and uses the suit to kill Hnang. The post-it that i left for myself here says, "Who are these people?".

This gang did appear before, though, in the previous Night Thrasher series. At the time they were said to be part of Lotus Newmark's network (from the Wonder Mans series), but their east coast division was run by Gai No Don, a North Vietnamese general who was nonetheless pulling the strings on the Mems, even though they were a South Vietnamese gang who hated the North Vietnamese. Gai No Don was also on Night Thrasher's company's board, and Thrash made the decision to leave him in that role, to have a kind of dark side represented. Somehow that probably all relates to why the Poison Memories are going after Night Thrasher now, but i just don't care enough to try to sort out the details.

Silhoutte also knows the Mems. She apparently rejected an offer to become Kimeiko's concubine. I guess maybe the Concrete Dragons were the other gang seen in New Warriors #2? That's where Silhouette and her brother Midnight's Fire came from.

Oh here we go. I guess the idea is that the Mems think that Night Thrasher did them a disservice by removing Gai No Don as the head of their gang, and they were never aware that he was from North Vietnam (even though there's a scene in the Night Thrasher mini of one of the gang members learning exactly that). When Victor learns that, he commits suicide.

My post-it here says, "Random dude kills himself b/c honor".

After defeating (so to speak) Victor, Night Thrasher is able to free the New Warriors (Kimeiko is not around). It's noted that the Warriors could have freed themselves at any time but they've been allowing themselves to remain captive because the Mems have Speedball's father and Nova's brother. It's not clear exactly what's changed, but Thrash says that he knows where they are probably being held. The Warriors debate whether or not they're going to kill Kimeiko when they find him.

I find this to be humorless and convoluted. It's lucky that it's part of a crossover with the New Warriors, because i don't see how the plot on its own is doing anything to keep the potential audience that gave issue #1 a try.

Somewhat better is a back-up story with art by Mark Bagley that feels a lot like an homage to the famous Roger Stern Spider-Man back-up from Amazing Spider-Man #248. Night Thrasher visits a hospital where a boy caught in the crossfire between two gangs is being treated. Thrash was specifically requested by the boy. Night Thrasher tells him his origin (he says that his original goal of recruiting a team of four was because the Fantastic Four was the only superhero family that he knew, and he was trying to replace his family with the Warriors). He also de-masks.

The boy asks Night Thrasher to avenge his death by killing the people responsible, but Thrash can't make that promise.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Continues directly from New Warriors #37 and continues in New Warriors #38. The back-up story took place "three weeks ago"; i'm mentally placing it prior to the start of this crossover but not bothering to split it out (the back-up also surveys the majority of New Warriors' issues while telling Thrash's origin, but i'm similarly not listing them as references).

References:

• Searching for clues at Rage's house, Night Thrasher finds the Eifel Tower model that Rage bought for his grandma for Christmas in Marvel Holiday Special #2. Night Thrasher is aware that Rage had wanted to bring his grandmother to Paris, and he had been planning to finance the trip. No footnote, and therefore quite the Easter egg, but this will lead to a nice character moment at the conclusion of this crossover.
  
• Night Thrasher found out that Gai No Don was a North Vietnamese general that was leading the Poison Memories in the Night Thrasher miniseries.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

"The boy asks Night Thrasher to avenge his death by killing the people responsible, but Thrash can't make that promise."
The weird thing is that Thrash DOES consider killing the people responsible at the end of this issue but next issue he decides against it after finding out that his parents were criminals. I'm not sure what point Nicieza was trying to make- killing the children of criminals is less bad then killing the children of nice people?