The new villains, the "Bastards Of Evil" are entertaining; in fact I wish the Young Masters from the last Young Avengers title had been half this entertaining (and they got triple the page count). They're the unwanted offspring of Electro, Grey Gargoyle, Graviton, Radioactive Man and Pyro (apparently), and they want to do nothing more than spread panic and brag about it online. The irony is these spawn aren't even the only unwanted children of villains. Nightmare has TWO children, Daydream and Trauma. Piledriver has his kid who was thrashed by the RUNAWAYS once. And so on. It is a little awkward how they make sure to spout their names and parents in the middle of the action, but that's needed exposition, and it has to go somewhere.
Another "original" creation is Toro. In essence he is the 616 version of the horned metahuman Toro from the "Heroes Reborn" universe where Rikki came from. He's a young boy who was kidnapped from his home and trained to fight in some Columbian despot's army. He grows up quickly and has a rivalry with another boy, "the Dragon", who will so obviously be showing up within an arc or two. Unfortunately for the evil mad scientist, the act of being empowered re-awakens Toro's memories of his loving mother, and he apparently flees to America. There is a lot of nasty stuff going on in Columbia, but so far I couldn't help but feel that Toro is a bit of a stereotype, about as racially sensitive as Gorilla Girl. I suppose he will probably improve with development, but I was probably liking Veil or Mettle in AVENGERS ACADEMY more this week.
One major problem is this series expects a lot of knowledge of the reader about what these characters have been up to, and even the handy recap pages in the back gloss over quite a lot. I didn't really know until this issue that Arana is supposed to be powerless, just relying on her SHIELD training and a grappling line. The story mentions it, but the recap page doesn't; apparently she lost her powers in an arc of ASM lately. Furthermore, she is in a new black costume that is exactly the same as that as Julia Carpenter. Even characters in the comic itself mistake her for "Spider-Girl" or "Venomette". The problem is if even the citizens of Marvel are confusing her for someone else, how do they think fans, who have ZERO tolerance for any new character, will react? Black wasn't even ever part of her color scheme. It's something I see too often at DC, dressing a teen hero in some legacy outfit that instead makes them more mundane and easy to ignore, like when Impulse became Kid Flash. It is especially ironic as Arana is the only one of these characters who has held her own title for any length of time this decade - about 19 issues worth (including a full year headlining her own book). Her problem was never her powers, it was her ridiculous origin, and she just needed solid stories told without it. Instead she's had her powers torn away and is wearing someone else's costume, demanding to be noticed as unique. She's got a tough road ahead of her. Imagine if we removed X-23's claws, and her powers, and dressed her in Nightcrawler's costume. Would it really be a stellar move? And Marvel wonders why their new characters never catch on.
Firestar and Gravity both happen to be going to ESU, just a few years apart. Angelica is trying to manage being a student without being distracted by her "Marvel Diva" friends, while all of Greg's continuity hassles have been hand-waved away. While his death and rebirth is recapped in the back, there is no mention of how Lauren knew his identity even before his death as Gravity, how he was buried with his codename on his gravestone, and so on. Watcher offered to basically return him to status quo if he helped Dr. Strange and the Fan Four heal Eternity, which I guess meant a continental mind-wipe. Which actually is a little absurd, unless Greg's memory was wiped clean as well. Otherwise he'd remember that he was merrily dating Lauren in between suiting up, he'd know that she was at his funeral and mourned his loss. Now he's acting like it is GRAVITY #7, circa 2006. I'm not saying that it is altogether bad that Gravity is back to his mini's status quo, but it does seem a bit neat and tidy for something that really shouldn't be. It is not far removed from Morph being possessed by Proteus, then Proteus being made to think he was always Morph, and the rest of the Exiles yucking it up like nothing ever happened. Dude, Lauren and you used to joke about "post-superhero sex"! You had an alien brainwash her into forgetting you died! And you're talking to her on a lawn like nothing happened? That's messed up! But, at any rate, Greg does seem to have retained the "harder edge" he had since joining the Initiative, and fighting the Skrull Invasion (where he wasted a few of them left and right). He's not the "aw shucks" rookie anymore; he's mulling around capital punishment for dangerous metahumans who can't be held in prison. Talk about shell shock.
The Bastards of Evil stage an attack, and in true "new warriors" fashion, the young allies assemble. The heroines are the first on the scene, but Gravity shows up, and cripes, he's pretty damn bad-ass about punching villains out. I sort of feel sorry for Firestar here; while I understand her desire for a normal college life for a while, she really should be over at AVENGERS ACADEMY, not taking on no-name villains with going-nowhere young heroes that no book apparently wants but this one. But, we'll see how the second issue takes things. They may not even be an official team, just a bunch of heroes who happen to know each other and patrol the same area, such as her and Gravity at ESU, and Arana & Rikki attending the same school. And Toro just being a "mysterious immigrant". It seems Arana has started to bond a bit with Toro, and she may bring out the best in him. The cliffhanger is quite explosive and effective. I liked the villains and the action, and most of the characters.
) was very good as well. I have no idea what happened with Arana's powers, which bugged me at first but stopped mattering as the issue went along. She's Nomad's friend and probably the main way Toro will communicate with the rest of the team. That's enough for me. I like Gravity as the disillusioned hero. He had a string of pretty terrible things happen to him, so it makes sense. The art was good too. I hate how Baldeon gives everyone the same hair, but he told the story well. His design of Toro, now that I know there was an earlier version from Counter-Earth 2, kind of sucks, though.
