Marvel Comics
New Warriors #4
By Zak Edwards
September 20, 2007 - 00:39

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Kevin Grevioux
Penciller(s): Paco Medina
Cover Artist(s): Nic Klein



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The New Warriors is one of a few new titles to come out as a result of the Civil War event earlier this year.  Since the old New Warriors were responsible for the initial incident in that major cross-over event, there has been much anticipation surrounding this group, both in the Marvel Universe and in the real world.  The title had a great start, even better than a great start, but then became subject to a slow plot, with very little screen time given to the title team.  Grevioux has seemed to enjoy keeping his audience almost as much in the dark as the Marvel Universe itself.  While this worked for the first and maybe second issue, barely seeing the team began to get frustrating.  This month, the new New Warriors make their first public appearance, and Grevioux lets his audience see how it went.

Finally, Grevioux writes an issue of New Warriors with the New Warriors actually showing up.  As much as I enjoyed seeing how the mutant community is handling M-Day now and looking at the police state that the Marvel United States has become, it’s nice to see the actual team show up.  Grevioux shows us the group of kids trying to train to be super-heroes, and they are having little success; Grevioux, on the other hand, is having plenty more success.  His characterization is great, giving each of these heroes a distinct voice, however brief a time they get.  While it is welcome to finally meet the team, by four issues in, I should care about these characters, but it’s hard to care about people I’ve just only met.  This makes the cliffhanger very anticlimactic, as I simply don’t have an interest in their welfare.  This issue does hint that now the team is in the forefront, things will pick up.  Now these characters will have time to flesh out and Grevioux will allow for some decent character development.  Grevioux has convinced me to stay.  So after a little patience, things are beginning to pay off.  There is still work to be done, though.

Paco Medina continues to be a perfect fit for this series.  The animated characters work great for showing these teens as just that, teenagers  While Grevioux creates the characters with dialogue, Medina defines them with his great pencils.  Nothing seems awkward and barely anything is disproportionate, except maybe the tiny cops, but that’s on purpose.  Basically, Medina is doing an amazing job.

8/10    With the pace picking up, it’s easy to get excited about this title.

On a side note, I would like to apologize for the tardiness of this review.  Sorry to anyone who was wanting to read this over two weeks ago.  I’m sure if you’ve been to university, you can attest to how busy September can be.

And, as always, feel free to e-mail me at zak@comicbookbin.com and tell me what you think.


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