Broken Frontier

Well, this book is definitely improving, if still unable to break into its own, individual terrain. The cast grows and the surprises keep on coming.

The "Defiant" storyarc picks up speed as Sophia (a.k.a. Wind Dancer, or so she was before she lost her powers on M-Day) continues her inner struggle to reconcile her longing to become a hero once more, and her mistrust of the new New Warriors, of their workings and specious philosophies. More evidence of the original Night Thrasher’s survival comes to the fore (but come on, this is such a red herring), and Wolverine steps in to offer some words of wisdom to his ersatz sidekick, Jubilee.

I wasn’t thrilled with Kevin Grevioux’s first issue of this book, I admit, and while I’m still disappointed that the concept’s potential is continually waylaid in favor of cheesy super-hero tropes, he’s upped the ante in some surprising ways, and offers up hope that this series may yet find its stride. The idea that all New Warriors are ex-mutants, or ex-heroes of some sort, handed technology that gives them all-new, all-different powers, is an enormously intriguing one. It’s a little bit of a have-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario, for all intents and purposes offering up brand new super-heroes (new costumes, new abilities, new purposes, new origins), and yet, as has been the trend of the last half-decade or so, utilizing company history to pick up known and underused characters in order to drum up built-in fan support. The revelations of just who comprises this new team are doled out gradually -- which is genius -- as every issue should bring folks back to discover just who will be the next known face to stand revealed.

On the down side, Grevioux is still proving inexpert at wrangling with any and all thematic elements, writing a book about rebellion within a newly established government paradigm and yet dumbing it down until it’s mostly about comic book clichés. He comes close at times, for example when Wolverine confronts Jubilee and suggests that she make certain she knows who she is, and that she’s doing what she’s doing for the reasons she thinks she is. But then the book slips unceremoniously into silly comic contrivances such as when Sophia questions how the New Warriors can be about freedom, when all she sees is anger and purposeless revolt, and then follows through with "how can you be sure you aren’t being played?" Uh…what? But just like that, the Warriors’ leader is now questioned, the entire logicality of the Warriors’ philosophy completely swiped aside, because, I guess, the great quandary of political intent equaling emotional motivation was too much to bear without some cliché dramatic paranoia being jammed in to advance the "mystery" of who the new Night Thrasher is.

The book is still littered with moments like this, skirting the edge of truly thought-provoking lines before leaping haphazardly back into the morass of genre formula sludge. But nevertheless, the story is definitely building, and growing in at least small ways, crafting a complex weave of plot and event, if not character or subject matter. So there’s more to love than existed two issues ago. Who knows where another two might lead?

The art by Medina, Vlasco, and Gracia has also settled into its own, more so than the first issue allowed. The characters are beginning to suit the trio’s signature, stylized approach (and indeed, as many were once New X-Men, it’s a grand return, a fit like a long-worn glove), and the atmosphere of high-tech underground insurgency is filling out nicely. I initially expected a grittier feel to the book, what with its premise, but now realize that this is largely an X-Force riff, a militant version of the New Mutants, sans the biological criteria to be considered an X-book.

So a series shaping up sweetly, if still paper-thin in areas it has no reason to be. The Initiative and all its bits and pieces comprises a chance for comics to tackle very heady material and prove how entertaining and accessible such issues can be, and yet a desire to explore said issues is required, as well as a willingness to break away, at least minutely, from the standard super-hero slugfest/banter/forced dramatics wherein continuity play is the only progressive and/or interesting aspect of the work as a whole. New Warriors doesn’t have this yet, but I hope it will. "Defiant," indeed.