MV1 #81 FEBRUARY Year 4

"War and Peace Part One"

What Has Gone Before: While the core Warriors met to decide where to base the team, Proudstar met with his old teammates in X-Force, Melina and Bengal visited his friend Father Janes, and Alex Power and Captain Marvel went their separate ways. Meanwhile, the Undertow and their Soldiers of Misfortune led an assault on Trans-Sabal, moving in and assassinating the King. Now the Warriors want a rematch, both with the Soldiers and the current rulers of Trans-Sabal...

THREE DAYS AGO...

The sound of his face being slapped resounded through the open courtyard.

Araq Mezdbadah rubbed his clean-shaven jaw and stared back defiantly with his good eye. The black patch he normally wore had been torn from the other one by the General's torturer some time ago. Now, Mezdbadah stood, stripped to the waist, bleeding from numerous whiplashes, chained to a pole in the center of an open area. Several of his men knelt on the ground around them, while the General's troops held guns to their heads to force them to watch.

The General himself, a lean man in his early seventies, stroked the graying hair that looked so odd against his deep brown, wrinkled skin. He adjusted the glasses he wore, a curious affectation for a man who didn't need them, and let his sour face once again take on the natural expression of a frown. His voice, a raspy baritone, boomed out across the courtyard.

"Why have you lied to us, Araq?"

"I have lied to no one!"

SLAP! Several of Araq's men flinched, feeling their commander's pain as they would their own.

"Then why have our territorial lands been taken? Why have you not taken them for us, as you promised so long ago? Why, with the increased funding you begged from us, and the weapons you bought with it, have you not stormed into Trans-Sabal and taken what is rightfully ours?"

Araq didn't answer. The General wasn't done, and he knew that.

"I think you are in league with this Undertow, and their Soldiers of Misfortune. Just as you once allied with the New Warriors. You will ally yourself with anyone, if it provides you a means of gaining power, won't you?"

"No!" Araq didn't care if he was struck, he would not stand for such base attacks on his character. "I am a man of the people! The people of Trans-Sabal cry out for a democratic leader, and I shall be that leader!"

The General did not slap Araq. Instead he reached into his holster and pulled out a Soviet-made Makarov pistol, putting the cool barrel against Araq's sweat-covered forehead.

"You will be nothing but food for the buzzards, Araq."

Araq stared at the General. Clearly, the man had the will to do it. He had left Araq with no choice.

"Give me one final chance...I have acquired new weapons. I will destroy both these Soldiers of Misfortune and Dahn's armies, and I will retake Trans-Sabal for the people!"

The General didn't move the gun, but he did seem to waver briefly. "What are these new weapons?"

"Biting Wind power armor, built by the Chinese. Enough suits to match the Mandroid count of Dahn, before he began losing forces to the Undertow."

The General slid the gun back into its holster. He held up his hand, and then clenched it into a fist. Araq closed his eyes tightly as he heard each of the General's troops fire their guns, killing some of his most trusted men...his friends.

He opened his eyes to see the General still staring at him.

"Very well. One more chance. But you will not have men of your own in these Biting Wind suits. I will provide the troops. Do not let me down, Araq Mezdbadah."

NOW...

Firestar sat quietly inside the helicopter, listening to the soft "whup-whup-whup" of the blades as they carried the Warriors again into battle. She and Robbie were the only ones here who had been in Trans-Sabal that first time, who had experienced the confusion of a war where there seemed not to be any good guys. She had tried, quietly, to convince Dwayne that the Warriors and Trans-Sabal were both better served without their interference, but he wouldn't have any of it.

Instead, he had booked them all on a flight into Saudi Arabia, and they had purchased a helicopter from there. Their pilot was the rotund black mercenary everyone called Sprocket, a foul-mouthed woman who nonetheless had some sort of connection to the Warriors in the form of friendship with Dwayne's former mentor, Andrew Chord. She had seen plenty of war in her lifetime, and didn't seem at all disturbed about interfering in another one.

"It's always tough, isn't it? Can't decide whether you're nervous or excited?"

Firestar looked over at James Proudstar, who was sitting next to her. He had finished work on his new costume, a multi-colored set of loose pants and fringed leather shirt that was very much in keeping with his Native American heritage. He still wore a domino mask and headband, although now the headband was a pattern design instead of solid red, and the feather he had always worn was no longer to be seen. He looked less massive in this costume somehow, more like a man of peace than a guerilla warrior. It was a pleasant change.

"I remember, in the early days of X-Force, when we used to travel by combat helicopter. Cable would always be going over tactics last minute, and it reminded me of all the macho 70s and 80s war flicks I'd seen. He was gearing us up, psychologically, for being soldiers."

"The helicopter was the easiest form of transport into Trans-Sabal," Night Thrasher said from his position in the cockpit. "No mind games here, James."

"Wasn't meaning to imply anything, Thrash," James said. "Just talking. But it does bring up a question, long as you're listening...do we have a plan? Tactics?"

Night Thrasher spun in his chair to face the Warriors. He had his helmet off, as he usually did when not in combat, and Robbie Baldwin shuddered again, as he did every time he saw the patch over Thrasher's ruined left eye. He still remembered yanking it out...he could almost feel himself doing it. And God help him, he could still feel the excited thrill that had run through his body as he had done it.

"We don't know enough about the situation to make any good tactics. But I do have a plan. We're going to get as near as we can to one of the border patrols with Mandroids in it, and stay close. The Soldiers will come eventually, and when they do, we take them down hard."

Thrash pushed a button on the console behind him and a small television monitor lit up where the entire team could see it. On the monitor was a freeze-frame, taken from Jalfaha Dahn's announcement that the media had not broadcast. Thrasher had clearly used his connections with the Taylor Foundation to procure a raw tape from one of the networks anyway. Dahn had just collapsed, as a man standing behind him fired a bullet into his head. In the background, however, there were several figures, clad in black and red. Several of the Warriors were shocked as they recognized some of them.

"That's Turbo!" Silhouette said.

"...and Ultra-Girl," Firestar growled, remembering the girl who had tried hitting on Vance in their brief encounter.

"I recognize the girl with the black hair, too," Speedball said. "She's Jolt...used to be one of the Thunderbolts, and I heard she was hanging around with the Avengers too."

"Who are the other two?" Proudstar asked.

"The guy who shot Dahn calls himself Wraith, but that's all we know," Dwayne said. "The other one doesn't have a name, but he seems to have the ability to turn his body into whatever substance he's touching and exhale some kind of knockout gas from his body. He kidnapped Ultra-Girl from a commercial shoot a few days ago.*" (*In New Warriors #79 - Read The Book! Randy)

"Okay. Now here's how we're going to play it..."

Former Senator Robert Kelly looked out at the assembled team before him. They were practically brand new, having been through their baptism of fire in Genosha just a few short weeks before.* (*You haven't read Peace Corps 1-4 in Marvel Fanfare #66-69? - Shame on you!) Now they were going to be called into a situation that was rapidly escalating. But it couldn't be helped. This was exactly the kind of thing the Peace Corps had been founded for.

Namorita, Aquarian, Will O' Wisp, Jocasta, the mutant known as Twilight, and Charlotte Jones all sat on the opposite side of the table from him. Dr. Renee Majcomb, the team's geneticist and science advisor, was in Genosha on a fact-finding mission.

Kelly brought up the screen, letting the team see the satellite photos that had been captured of a Soldiers of Misfortune/Mandroid skirmish. Aquarian seemed horrified, and Nita grabbed the arms of her chair so tightly that the wood began to crack and splinter.

"Hey, sweet-lips, you okay?"

In his way, Jackson "Will O' Wisp" Arvad was trying to be helpful. Unfortunately, his way was to be a sexist pig. Still, Nita knew better than to start a row in the middle of a briefing.

"I have a history with the Undertow," she said.

A history. That was for sure. They had kidnapped her, implanted a mind control device in her, turned her into a ruthless killer. One of their "Soldiers of Misfortune." If it weren't for the Warriors, she would probably still be one of their operatives.

"I'm aware of your history," Kelly said. "It's one of the reasons I think the Peace Corps should go. You are familiar with the operations of the Undertow, you have a good chance of stopping them."

"With all due respect, Mr. Kelly, last time I stepped into Trans-Sabal, I got someone killed. Last time I faced the Undertow, I got brainwashed. I would say I'm the worst person in the world to go there right now."

"And I might agree with you, if not for one more bit of intelligence I've received."

The monitor flashed, a new picture replacing the satellite photos. A picture of four men and four women getting into a helicopter. Nita recognized most of them immediately.

"The New Warriors."

"Correct. Your friends are headed into Trans-Sabal again. And if their actions this time are anything like yours were..."

Charlotte Jones, the former NYPD cop and current commander of the Corps spoke up. "We've got the picture, Mr. Kelly. So what does the UN see us doing? Talking the New Warriors out of their position? Stopping the fighting between the Undertow and the king's forces?"

"Actually, the fighting between those two groups has ceased," Kelly said. "Now the fighting is between a group of rebels and the Undertow, who have taken control of the government, a government that is already petitioning the United States to speak on their behalf to the United Nations."

"If the Undertow weren't involved, we would probably consider this an internal matter, and let the general assembly hash it out. Since an outside force of metahumans is involved, the Security Council decided to ask the Peace Corps to act. Basically, the Security Council wants you to end the war, and they think the quickest way to do that is to stop the New Warriors from entering it. The Undertow and the former king's forces will most likely bring an end to the rebels quickly enough, and then the situation will be stabilized."

"You want me to leave those monsters in charge?" Nita yelled.

Aquarian looked dismayed at the anger in Nita's voice and mannerisms. She had so much to learn, so much anger in her that was preventing her from living up to her true potential. He wanted nothing more than to take her away from everything, to show her how much he cared for her and how good the two of them could be together.

"Temporarily, yes," Kelly said. He was clearly a bit cowed by Nita's display, and was reminded of how sharp her Atlantean fingernails really were. "They are allied with the legitimate government. I don't think I need to remind you what happened last time you interfered with the legitimate government of Trans-Sabal, just because you didn't agree with it?* (*If you need reminding, read New Warriors #29-30 - Referencin' Randy)

"You'll be taken by supersonic jet to Saudi Arabia, and from there by helicopter to a temporary base camp the Saudis have set up on the border of Trans-Sabal."

Kelly left the room, and everyone looked around. Karl Wellhousen, the man known as Twilight, was obviously still adjusting to all this. A few weeks ago, he had been a normal man. Now he had discovered that he was a mutant, and been drawn into a United Nations superhero task force. Jocasta, meanwhile, was a robot from another time, and while her brain engrams were based on that of a human, she hadn't had enough experience to understand the psychological battle that had just taken place between Nita and Kelly.

Charlotte Jones knew all too well, however. She watched as Aquarian placed his hand gently on Nita's, trying to calm her. She knew that this could be a make or break mission for the team.

"Okay," she said. "Here's how we're going to play it..."

Wraith stepped into the king's throne room, which had been converted into the war room for the Undertow. He saluted the two guards at the door, decked out in the black uniforms of the Undertow, and walked past the technicians who were setting up sensors and communications technology as fast as they could. In the center, watching a holographic display that had already been set up, stood a man in a black uniform with sheer darkness for a face. Unlike the other troops, who had green gloves and piping, he had red, denoting his rank...General Obsidian, field commander of the Soldiers of Misfortune.

Wraith again saluted. He was the only Soldier of Misfortune who was not subject to the implants, but was instead a willing servant of the Undertow. He was also the only one not in the field on a regular basis, something he was reminded of when he saw the hologram of the others attacking a Biting Wind rebel contingent. The Chinese-made battle armor was well constructed and matched up well with the US-made Mandroid suits, but it was no match for the mind-controlled superheroes that had been transformed into the Soldiers of Misfortune. Several strategists stood around the table, using the equipment built in to send commands to the Soldiers through their implants. They watched the holograms as they followed out the orders, and saw the events play out in real-time as the computer extrapolated from sensor and communication data what was happening.

Obsidian watched quietly for a moment before turning and returning Wraith's salute.

"Report, commander."

"Sir, our intelligence indicates that the New Warriors are enroute to Trans-Sabal."

Wraith reached into one of the many pockets on his battle-vest and handed a mini-disc to Obsidian.

"That disc contains their current roster and all available information. A couple of them are not very well known, sir."

"Unknown quantities. Dangerous, but potentially useful. That part of the plan is working out fine, at least. What about our contacts at the United Nations?"

"Sir, as you know, we have quite a few sympathizers in the U.S. government, and we've brought them all to bear. Our sources in Washington believe the Security Council will be convinced to acknowledge us as a legitimate government here."

"Excellent work, Wraith. Stand down until I get further orders."

Wraith snapped another salute and walked out. Obsidian spoke, activating the subdermal communications implant that he, like all the other members of Undertow, had installed.

"Admiral Protocol?"

A face appeared on the monitor in front of him, a hideous face of wrinkled, dark brown skin, glowing yellow pupilless eyes, and a row of sharp teeth. It looked more like a monster than a man.

"I heard, Obsidian. Plug that disc in, I want to know who we're facing."

Obsidian did as he was told, and shortly after heard a stream of cursing over his implant. He winced.

"Kymaera is not among them! I want her back, Obsidian! She was a very useful operative, and the only one of the original Soldiers who hasn't suffered near-crippling genetic damage. Without her genetic code, there's no way to restore our original Soldiers back to fighting strength!"

"Sir, why do we need to? The new Soldiers are working fine..."

"They're temporary, you imbecile! You don't simply kidnap a handful of superheroes, some of which have ties to the Avengers. That will just bring down their wrath on us. Our current Soldiers are a desperation measure."

There was a pause, a silence, and then Protocol spoke again.

"Proceed as planned. Launch the Soldiers at the nearest rebel outpost to the Warriors, and capture as many of the Warriors as you can."

Abdul Rarikesh stared at the displays on his Biting Wind powered armor. To the outside world, he wasn't a man, but a bright red armored engine of war, standing nine feet tall with a chain gun mounted on his left shoulder and a missile launcher on his right. The slanted, conical shaped helmet had been repainted, removing the Chinese flag and in its place mounting the insignia of the Trans-Sabalian rebels, a dull yellow sword slashing through a white flag.

Inside the suit, however, he was just another bored soldier. There hadn't been time to reconfigure non-essential displays, so he was relegated to watching pirated broadcasts of television dubbed into Chinese.

His boredom quickly turned to worry, however, when one of his Arabic-translated systems sprung to life, bathing the interior of the suit in flickering red light. The proximity alarm meant hostiles were incoming. He turned and activated his flight jets, hearing the turbines whine as they began to power up. In the distance, the rest of his unit was already taking to the air.

Rarikesh spoke a command in his native tongue and the computer translated, activating the long-range visual scanners. He could see what was incoming now.

All of the rebels had heard of these enemies. Flying in under their own power, dressed in black and red, they were the superhuman Soldiers of Misfortune. Mostly made up of former American heroes, they had been told. Jolt, a young girl with speed and bio-electricity powers; Ultra-Girl, with strength and enhanced durability, not to mention flight; Turbo, wearing a suit like the Biting Wind, powered by wind-based turbines and allowing him to fire bursts of hard air; and a new one, Elementary, able to take on the molecular structure of what he touched, not to mention fire some kind of acid or gas from his internal workings.

The Biting Wind squadron numbered six. They outnumbered the superheroes, but that didn't make them feel any more secure.

Rarikesh heard the orders coming in through his helmet radio. He was to take on Ultra-Girl, combine fire and make her drop Jolt before they got there. He was also told to stay in the air, since Jolt and Elementary couldn't fly.

He triggered the chain gun, and watched as Ultra-Girl spun in mid-air to keep Jolt protected. Bullets from his gun, as well as the guns of two others, bounced off her back and legs. Turbo, meanwhile, had flown straight up, with the black blob that was Elementary nestled securely around his chest. Three Biting Wind troops took off after him, flying up and no doubt locking their missiles.

Not a bad idea, Rarikesh thought. He began targeting Ultra-Girl with his missiles.

In the Undertow command center, strategists and technicians watched the holographic fight. The controller of Ultra-Girl yelled out, "I'm getting a missile lock!"

"Good," General Obsidian replied. "Fly her between those two other suits."

The controller began punching buttons and speaking into his communications implant, and watched as the holographic Ultra-Girl followed his orders. Out in the real world, he knew her thoughts were her own, and she was probably scared and horrified, but her body was obeying their commands, so it didn't matter. The controller let out a whoop of joy as the holographic Ultra-Girl flew between the other two suits, letting the missiles connect with one and destroying it.

In the field, Rarikesh cursed as he watched one of the Biting Wind armored suits erupt into flame. He cursed again, this time in terror, as Ultra-Girl threw Jolt at him as she passed by. Jolt's eyes and hands flared with electricity, and she brought them down onto Rarikesh's visor, shattering it and revealing his frightened eyes.

Jolt reached her hand in and touched his nose, triggering her bio-electricity. Rarikesh cried out, and the world went dark.

The helicopter that held the New Warriors cruised low over the sands, staying beneath any radar. Thrasher looked back at the assembled team, holding a radio receiver against his right ear..

"Anyone here speak Arabic?"

Melina, who had taken the name Sorceress, walked forward, chanting softly as her arms weaved in front of her. "I have cast a translation spell, give it to me."

She held the machinery gingerly to her ear, clearly not comfortable with the new technology yet. After a few seconds, she spoke.

"A rebel armor contingent is being attacked by the Soldiers of Misfortune."

"Sprocket, get a fix on that radio transmission," Dwayne said. "And take us in."

Jolt leaped off the Biting Wind armor at the last second, bouncing and flipping across the ground as machine-gun fire peppered the area. The last of the three troops she and Ultra-Girl had been sent to take out was flying in a zig-zag pattern above her, firing madly. He was so focused on her, he didn't see Ultra-Girl coming up from behind him and raising both hands above her head.

She brought them down, forming a huge dent in the back of the suit and sending it plummeting to the ground. It crashed heavily into the sand, and Jolt was on top of it, hitting it with a bio-electric punch that finished the job and left the suit a smoking wreck.

Above, Turbo was easily outflying the three Biting Wind armors, as they attempted to hit him with machine-gun fire. It was simplicity itself to divert their missiles as well, using well-timed bursts of air from his gauntlets. Inside the suit, the man in the armor was praying, wishing that one of the missiles would get through. As Harold Erasmus, he had been a professor of politics and a peace activist. To be here now, piloting this engine of war under the whims of the right-wing Undertow, was maddening.

His thoughts were interrupted as he watched Ultra-Girl streak past and slam into one of the Biting Wind suits, knocking it out of commission and sending it falling toward the desert. His every impulse was to fly down and save the poor man inside before his armor hit the sand, probably killing him, but his body wouldn't even move an inch, instead keeping up its evasive program.

Harold noticed something then, a helicopter approaching in the distance. It was a standard copter, not one of the Undertow's, and he wondered if it was rebel reinforcements. His controller, back at the base, knew that it was not. Harold felt his body controlling the suit, urging it toward the helicopter. He flew by, quickly, and glanced inside.

"Sir, Kymaera is in that helicopter!" the controller yelled. "She's with several others, but they're not the New Warriors!"

Another controller yelled then. "Another copter approaching from the East, General Obsidian. That looks like the New Warriors."

"Damn them! Activate the teleporter, get the Soldiers out of there. We can't risk a confrontation with two hero groups without troop support."

In the desert, a black globe of energy erupted near Jolt. She leaped inside. Ultra-Girl did a swing back around the Biting Wind armor and flew into it as well, and Professor Harold Erasmus nearly cried as he felt his body ordering the Turbo suit back too. The teleporter would carry them back to the Undertow base, which meant any hope of rescue was gone.

In the helicopters, the two teams were quick to react. Aquarian, Kymaera and the rest of Peace Corps jumped from their copter, suspended in mid-air by Aquarian's zero field. Kymaera streaked down toward the black globe. The New Warriors were engulfed in a blackness of their own, as Silhouette teleported them all from the interior of the helicopter onto the desert sands.

Kymaera landed right next to the Warriors. "Damn!" she cried, her voice trailing off in a frustrated yell.

"Nita!" Speedball rushed over to his former teammate and gave her a hug. "You're back!"

The look she gave him made him slowly back away. He had seen Nita angry, but this kind of anger was almost burning him with its intensity. Clearly seeing the Soldiers disappear had not made her happy.

Night Thrasher strode over, as the rest of the Warriors fell in behind.

"Good to see you, Nita. We're here to take down the Undertow. I'm sure you can get behind that."

The Peace Corps had landed now, settling onto the sands and walking slowly up behind Kymaera. Charlotte Jones called out, in a calm but commanding voice, as they walked.

"New Warriors, we are the Peace Corps. We are here under the authority of the United Nations, and you all are to get back into your helicopter and abandon Trans-Sabal immediately. You'll only make the situation worse."

Thrash tensed. He hated being told what to do, and definitely had a problem with authority.

"We don't want to fight you," he growled.

"No threat was offered," Jocasta said, her synthetic voice sounding a bit confused. "He is merely indicating the wishes of a government you recognize."

"We may recognize them, that doesn’t mean we think they're right," Proudstar shot back, walking up to join Thrash.

"What you think is right or wrong is irrelevant in this case," Charlotte Jones said. "I'm telling you what the United Nations wants."

"Right or wrong is never irrelevant," Thrasher responded. "We're here to take down the Undertow. They're monsters. Now get out of our way or we're going to push you."

"Why you little punk--!" Will O' Wisp started, but Aquarian touched a hand to his chest to stop him.

"Nita, the Undertow held you, brainwashed you and used you to kill people. Are you honestly going to stand here and tell me you're going to stop us?"

Kymaera stared silently for a long time. Thoughts ran through her mind, remembering the screams of the innocent as she ripped through them. She hadn't been a person then, just a soldier, someone they called, "Hard." In her dreams, she still saw the blood, fire and death. She lived in fear of meeting one of the people who had been there, or one of their relatives.

Then she remembered her time recently with the Peace Corps. Sitting and watching "Casablanca" with Aquarian, as he gently rubbed her shoulders. Him teaching her meditation and breathing control, and how when she focused right, she could get the screams out of her head.

Her eyes focused tightly on Night Thrasher. "Thrash, we're here on United Nations authority. Now, for the last time, get back in your helicopter and go back home."

Thrasher inhaled deeply, a frustrated sigh.

"Warriors," he said. "Take them."

Eddy Takayanagi
Another interesting issue of New Warriors.

I've loved your work on The Vault and Web of Spider-Man and since the first dozen or so issues of Fabian's run is among my favorite comics I thought I'd give this title a try.  I've got to admit I dropped the book about issue 20 so I'm not as familiar with a lot of the newer warriors or the storylines you're referencing.   I find it hard to believe that Dwayne is going to uproot the team and base them in Denver solely for the benefit of Firestar.  I can understand that there is an over abundance of heroes in New York but don't the rest of the Warriors have personal lives that uprooting is going to disrupt?

I've always liked the notion that the Warriors were a group of friends so the notion of a 'founders only' meeting struck me at first of a type of elitism.  But then I realized that the secondary Warriors are no longer.  A real pity that. Too bad Genis isn't going to hang around I think it would be nice if he could make some friends and have people he can unwind with.  The conversation he had with Alex was a nice moment for both of them.  I found Alex's characterization of Friday as his possession wrong though.  If he considered Friday a sentient being in her own right and his friend which is supposedly why he is upset with the Warriors cavalier treatment of her then it's rather hypocritical to refer to her as 'his Smartship'.   So the Warriors are going to Trans-Sabal are they?  I look forward to this the Warriors have always been about idealistic and pro-active superheroes.

Of course I can't see any comfortable solutions emerging from a simple show of force but it should be interesting to see the Warriors deal with this problem.

As far as referencing later Warriors stuff...I actually dropped the book at #51, but I've since gone back and picked up a lot of the back issues because people were asking me about the newer stuff when I started writing the book. It's actually pretty good, not as solid as the first 25 issues, but pretty good stuff.

As far as the relocation, it might have been a little too easy for Firestar. But then again, Silhouette's life has always revolved
pretty much around Dwayne, and that's true still (and something I intend to fix when I get them all situated), Dwayne needs the change of scenery because a new outlook will usually help when you've been involved in a trauma (like his torture at the hands of Speedball), Robbie's reason is the same (except he was the torturer), Proudstar pretty much the same way, etc. Basically, all the members of the team were kind of hanging in midair, *looking* for a new direction, and this will give it to them.

But as you guessed, yeah, I mainly moved them because of the overabundance of heroes in New York. And to be closer to the Vault, allowing Firestar to be a frequent member instead of a part-time member. And fear not, there will be lots of travel in this series, to various parts of the world. Travel for personal reasons isn't out of the question either. And Genis will be around, he just won't be around consistently. As for Alex and Friday, it's not much different than if he referred to his wife as "my wife," is it?

Thanks for reading. And really, truly, thank you for the constructive criticism. I need that kind of thing to make my writing and my stories better.

Matthew Wang
I just finished your obligatory "formation of the new team" issue and although I had guessed how some of the membership would fall out, I was still pleasantly surprised that I was not completely correct.

So Firestar is joining?! That is a suprise! Hopefully we will see more interaction with the Vault. (btw one of my favorite comic title.)

Captain Marvel is only going to be a part time member? I was looking forward to learning more about him. This is probably a good opportunity to read his title.

I think my two favorite things about this issue were the return of the "Soldiers of Misfortune" and the interaction with the rest of the MV1 universe. I loved the Undertow and the "Soldiers of Misfortune" when they were in the "regular" MV. I thought they had alot of story potential not only as New Warrior adversaries, but for the Avengers and other superteams. What ever happened to the other members of the "soldiers"?

This is issue was very similar to the recent "regular" Avengers title (the first part of the Grim Reaper storyline) in the way that it integrated other parts of continuity and served as a springboard for readers to look into new titles.

So the next issue is goign to guest the Peace Corps? Hmmm..this could get interesting...

Well see ya in the Funny Books

We won't see too much interaction with the Vault. I learned my lesson from the mostly negative feedback to the Warriors subplot in "Corruption," and truthfully, they were a bit out of place. But we might see Huang drop by, or one of the Warriors stop over at the Vault, a couple of times.

To be honest, I have only two parts of the three part story that introduced the Soldiers, and was unable to figure out who half of them were or what their powers were. I also found their concept interesting, but the characters themselves didn't do much for me. So I basically decided to move them into the background (recovering from their "genetic instability? Maybe) and bring in this new team.

Thanks as always for writing, Matt!

If you're not on the MV1 Talk list for discussion of MV1 fanfic, you can join by going to http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/mv1talk. You have to register with onelist but it's a painless process that generates ZERO spam. Or, if you want to send me letters, you can send them to rwlander@snapjudgments.com.

The Warriors. Peace Corps. The Soldiers of Misfortune. Mezdbadah's armored rebels. Are you ready for total war? Are the Warriors?