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earth-93 · 10 months

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Mystic’s Musings: New Warriors, the Animated Series

Hey, y'all.

Now that I got the ball rolling on this site, I want to start sharing all my other thoughts and ideas not related to Earth-93 (Though, in the case of this one, it very well might be incorporated into Earth-93 sometime down the line. We'll see). And I figured what better place to start than with the project that not only predated Earth-93, but might have been my earliest, most committed attempt at a fanwork ever: A treatment for an animated series based on the underrated Marvel super-team, the New Warriors.

HISTORY

First, come context, as there is a chance a lot of you might not know the full story.

The New Warriors first made their debut in 1989 in a two-issue arc of The Mighty Thor, where the young heroes sprang into action to assist Eric Masterson in a brawl with the Juggernaut. They would get their own series the following year, developed and written by Fabian Nicieza and drawn by Mark Bagley. Comparisons to the Distinguished Competition's own band of young superheroes have been made over the years, but more than a replication of George Perez's iconic New Teen Titans run, Nicieza described the Warriors as more of a hang-out group who sometimes fought evil and even saved the world: "The New Warriors isn't an official group with a rule book and charter and the like. They're more of a club for super-powered teens. So if Darkhawk wants to hang out on a Friday evening and talk about his powers, then he'll stop by the New Warriors' crash pad."

While the original series had a fairly solid 75-issue run, any attempts afterwards to reboot the Warriors have struggled to find any footing, up to this day. I'm sure you are all well aware of the infamous backlash for the pitch of the newest New Warriors rebrand back in 2020, but you might be surprised to know that was merely the tip of the iceberg for the team's bad luck in continuing their legacy. If not the whole "Snowflake & Safespace" debacle, you probably know of the Warriors as the reckless, fame-hungry super-team who provoked a supervillain into committing the Stamford Incident and kicking off the first Civil War. That and the entire reality show premise of that run was but one of many attempts from the late 90's all the way up into the present to relaunch the team, sometimes with a few founding members but never a full-on reunion, and all have had middling runs if not preemptively cancelled altogether, as was the case for the 2020. This bad luck extends even outside of published comics, with a Squirrel Girl-staring New Warriors live-action series getting canned before it really got off the ground.

The Warriors have existed in this strange comic-book limbo where they can never quite catch a break, yet continue to have consistent enthusiasm backing them to try again a few years down the line. The original run concluded before I was even born, so I was exposed to and became endeared with the Warriors retroactively. Going back to my senior year of high school, I was obsessed with shows like Young Justice and Spectacular Spider-Man. Around the same time, I had come upon the story bibles for Gargoyles and Batman: The Animated Series online, which gave me the drive to try my own hand out at adapting a comic property in the framework of an animated series as a writing exercise. I was too intimidated at the time to write for a big name such as Spidey, not feeling my skill and familiarity at the time was up to the task. I then thumbed through my school library’s copy of the Marvel Encyclopedia, where I first came upon the Warriors. Operating in their own little bubble, not too terribly tied to any major characters or events, they seemed ripe for adaptation, and I slowly collected the original run on eBay. I read the entire first twenty-five issues over one weekend and was hooked. To this day, my friends among fandom spaces know me as the resident New Warriors scholar and defender.

Much like the Warriors themselves, this project has had many stops and starts since its inception. A lot of thought and effort put into it, but never really at any semblance of completion, and almost always back at a time where I was too comfortable with sharing my works with others in the first place. At best, it was more of an idle project to tinker with on my creative off-days, such energy would shuffle around to other endeavors, including what would become Earth-93. But in my boost of confidence with my writing and just wanting to make a habit of getting more material out there, I decided to dust off all my notes and give it a more proper shot. Shout out, by the way, to @spiralcass , whose own #New X-Men: The Animated Series project and minimalist screenplay format lit a fire under me to revisit a similar project.

If this pitch is well-received, it will become the first of a two-part entry; the second of which I will get more in-depth with recurring and supporting characters, as well as an outline to what a figurative first season of storytelling would play out as. But before we get to the cast, allow me to set the stage:

SETTING

The wider world the Warriors live in is early 90's Marvel, full stop. I would like to feel as though we have progressed past the point of making fun of Liefeld's art and can appreciate the quality content in the supposed Dark Age of Comics that existed amid the admittedly still quite embarrassing material that grabs most people's attention when looking back on that era. The Warriors are absolutely an era highlight, and as plotting and research developed the figurative show slowly evolved into a love letter to the Marvel canon as it existed in the early to mid 90's.

That's not to say the art direction to this figurative show would reflect this period or any particular artist, though I would absolutely preserve various designs and specific status quos as homages and signifiers. Reed Richards is rocking a fisherman's vest. Ghost Rider is burning a blue flame. The Hulk can be seen sporting a black tank top, and seems to have gotten his temper under control. Spidey is zipping around in the Ben Reilly suit (Is it actually Ben? We won't know, this isn't Spidey's story). Et cetra.

There will also be two major events prior to the events of the series which will significantly shape the wider world:

OPERATION: GALACTIC STORM

As the Kree-Shi'ar War begins to encroach into the Sol System, the Avengers bring on every active member they have and split into three teams. Two will enter space and sneak into both sides of the alien war to try and diffuse the conflict while one stays behind to protect the Earth. It is a prolonged effort out in space, where every hero fights and negotiates with everything they have, and it all ends up doing nothing when a bio-bomb is released that decimates the majority of the Kree race. Not too long after the heroes discover much to their horror that the bomb as well as the war itself was orchestrated by the Kree's leader, the Supreme Intelligence, who deduced that a mass culling of its people was a necessary action to jumpstart Kree’s stagnant evolution.

This revelation shook the Avengers to their core, and while some just wanted to go home, others refused to leave until justice was served. This faction of Avengers, led by Iron Man, stormed the Supreme Intelligence's base and killed the being in retribution, while the opposing Captain America-led faction stood their ground. The heroes returned home splintered, and returned to find the Earthbound team having fallen into dysfunction.

All of this would have happened less than a year before the Warrior's formed, but it would still radically reshape the superhero community. Cap and Wasp remain leaders of the Avengers proper, holding down a new, more oddball team as many veterans stepped away following Galactic Storm. Some joined Iron Man's Force Works team in California, who took a more proactive mission statement to their duties rather than primarily intervening at the moment of crisis. Others had taken up employment at the recently expanded Heroes For Hire, and a few outright retired.

THE TAMING OF TERRAX

The Sphinx was an immortal wizard who sought to find a means of finally ending his overlong life. He menaced the hero called Nova, believing the Xandarian Worldmind might have the answer to his query, but upon tapping into the vast knowledge of the Worldmind, Sphinx swiftly changed his directive and sought to steal this power for himself and ascend to godhood. Nova failed to fight back against the Sphinx, necessitating the intervention of the Fantastic Four. The Four in turn found themselves bargaining with Galactus to overpower the Sphinx, and the eater of worlds cajoled the heroes finding him a new herald in exchange for his intervention.

Desperate, the Four targeted Tyros the Tamer, the brutal ruler of a small planet, rationalizing he is more deserving of such a fate than others. Imbued with the Power Cosmic, Tyros became Terrax, gaining an incorporeal form that took solid shape of whatever solid matter the planet he strikes down into is composed of. Galactus slew Sphinx, hurling him into a time loop where the immortal’s consciousness would be worn down to almost nothing, and for punishment of bringing both Xandar and potentially the entire universe to the brink, Nova was stripped of his powers and sent back to Earth as an ordinary teenager, Richard Rider.

Just a few years later, Terrax would break free of Galactus’ bonds, and crash into Manhattan, demanding the Four face him, or else he would bring the city down to rubble. It was then that six superpowered youths would take the call to protect New York...

MAIN CHARACTERS - THE WARRIORS

NIGHT THRASHER

Mix:

Fistful of Steel - Rage Against the Machine

Cult of Personality - Living Colour

Bring Da Ruckus - Wu-Tang Clan

Re-Ignition - Bad Brains

Life Goes On - House of Pain

Dwayne Taylor’s comfortable childhood as the son of a philanthropist was violently upended one night when his parents were gunned down in the street right in front of him. Taken in by his father’s war buddy Andrew Chord, Dwayne spent his adolescence honing his body and mind, channeling his grief and rage into becoming the Night Thrasher, New York’s newest costumed vigilante. Initially, Dwayne formed a partnership with the brother-sister duo of Midnight’s Fire and Silhouette, and for a time the three struck out as a trio patrolling the streets of lower Manhattan. A gang bust gone awry left Silhouette critically injured and Dwayne barely escaping with his life from the wrath of Fire, who blamed Dwayne for his sister’s paralysis. Dwayne retreated to Madame Tai, his and Chord’s enigmatic martial arts master, dejected over his failings, to which Tai merely scolded her pupil further before instructing him to lick his wounds and try again.

When he did, Dwayne decided to dream bigger, accessing SHIELD and Hellfire data to find candidates to a super-team that could match the iconography of the Fantastic Four. Dwayne’s candidates understandably did not take well to Dwayne’s method of recruitment, assembling them at a meet-up through vague, threatening messages and testing their skills through direct combat. When Terrax suddenly menaced the city, the quartet were able to put their enmity aside for the sake of others, and through Dwayne’s tactical skills they succeeded in fending off the cosmic threat long enough for the F4 to take him down. The public gave the more famous team with the success over the fight, but none of them could deny they had a synergy capable of great feats. Dwayne propositioned the group once more, this time far less abrasively, and thus the New Warriors officially came together.

Dwayne is steadfast, focused, and wildly competent, though a lot of that is not wholly authentic to who Dwyane truly is. He takes any failure very personally, and has low tolerance for it with those around him. Dwayne starts off treating the Warriors more as soldiers than as teammates, to which most of them manage to tolerate with for their own reasons. This will come to a head part way through the first season, when Speedball’s mother comes under threat by a gang of eco-terrorists, and instead Dwayne is attempting to keep the Warriors on track to his ongoing plans to strike back against Midnight’s Fire. The few people whom Dwayne trusts to be vulnerable with is Chord and Silhouette, who even then Dwayne is more talking at while she remains in the coma her injury left her in. That slowly changes the more he works alongside the Warriors, and finds the affirmation that Madame Tai never provided. As the season goes on, Dwayne uncovers the conspiracy behind his parent’s murder and the devastating reveal of who had been manipulating the direction of his life into the present. With the Warriors’ help, Dwayne fights back, but in that victory he also loses that razor-sharp focus which had largely allowed him to operate through the trauma left unresolved. By the season’s end, Dwayne will pass along leadership duties to Namorita as he takes some time off with Silhouette to more properly find himself.

FIRESTAR

Mix:

Do You Wear The Mark - Danzig

Mary-Christ - Sonic Youth

Velouria - The Pixies

Crush - Smashing Pumpkins

Angels of Deception - The The

Angelica Jones’ mutant ability to generate microwave heat first manifested through the intense grief of her beloved grandmother passing away when Angelica was fourteen. Rather than a certain man in a wheelchair entering the scene, the Jones household was instead visited by Emma Frost, the villainous White Queen of the Hellfire Club but known by the public as the headmistress to the esteemed Massachusetts Academy. Angelica’s father, well-meaning but unequipped and overwhelmed as how to nurture his daughter and her newfound powers, hastily agreed to Frost’s offer to take in Angelica and properly tutor her. Though Emma initially planned to enroll Angelica into her clique of mutant students she dubbed the Hellions, once Emma estimated the sheer scope of Angelica’s microwave powers, she instead took the young girl directly under her wing. Over the course of her adolescence, Angelica was desensitized to violence and had her devotion to Emma solidified through entrapment and emotional and psychic manipulation, all in the service of Angelica being made to be a literal nuclear option for Emma, should her feud with her fellow Hellfire members necessitate it.

Angelica was discouraged from socializing with her fellow Hellions to ensure Emma’s direct control. When a rogue student Emplate fled the Academy, Angelica went against Emma’s orders out of her utter devotion and tracked down Emplate herself. During their fight, Emplate used his powers to unearth Emma’s exploitation of Angelica that had always been in her periphery, but could no longer deny. Her entire world shaken, Angelica was driven into a blind rage and stormed back to destroy Emma’s personal office back at the Academy. She left for home, threatening Emma to never come near her again. Angelica attempted to return to her old life, but the years of abuse had turned the shy but kindly young girl into a sullen and withdrawn teenager, unwilling to let other people in and distrustful and resentful to even her father for allowing Emma to come into her life in the first place. Then came the fateful evening where she came home to an empty house and a vaguely threatening message left by Dwayne. By the end of that night, Angelica was forced to use her powers for the first time in months for the sake of the city.

Firestar might be my favorite characters in the whole team, and I love the backstory that Tom DeFalco had crafted for her after the decision to make her canon to the main Marvel universe. With that said, there was always one glaring thing about her that was one of my least favorable aspects of the original Warrior’s run, and that is that, for the most part, there’s no real impetus for Angel to continue with the superhero life. In both her origin story as well as the first few arcs of the series, she is portrayed as having overcome the trauma inflicted upon her by Emma Frost and is by all accounts a well-adjusted teenager. I always felt what Angel went through would have created far deeper repercussions than her initial depictions would have let on, something that Angel’s more recent depictions in the Krakoa era appear to be aware of.

Committing to that, I decided Angel’s initial arc would be while she is still very hesitant to use her powers offensively even as a hero, she nonetheless agrees to join the Warriors because, at that time, there’s no one else she can confide in how having superpowers has affected her life. Eventually, Emma will reenter Angel’s life and will finally overcome her menace for good, but in the following episode Angel will realize how hollow her victory truly feels, and it will take more than retribution to fix her problems. From this, Angel steadily opens herself up a bit, which in turn allows her to better empathize with her teammates. She can better recognize the pain in Dwayne’s eyes, and how the brutality in his combat might stem from more than a bad attitude. She sees Vance as less of a stuffed shirt and a boy scout, and how his own trauma shaped who he is. And she becomes more receptive to Nita’s efforts at becoming a friend. In effect, Angel becomes a happier, more well-rounded person thanks to being a New Warrior.

NOVA

Mix:

Tear It Up - Queen

Take Me Home - LOUDNESS

Love Gun - KISS

Fire Your Guns - AC/DC

Turbo Lover - Judas Priest

Richard Rider was just an average teenager before he was the unexpected bystander to Nova Corpsman Rohmann Dey’s crash-landing onto Earth. Mortally injured, Dey entrusted his powers and duties of interstellar peacekeeping to the young man, and for the next several Rich years went on high-flying adventures as Kid Nova, the human rocket. One day, however, Rich squared off with a villain far stronger than him, putting both the treasured Worldmind of the Nova Corps home planet Xandar and with it the safety of the very universe. As punishment, Rich was stripped of his rank and sent back to Earth, where he found out his prolonged time out in space left him severely behind on his schooling. No powers and no diploma, Rich is slaving away at a dead-end fast food job when Dwayne leaves his meet-up directions. Unlike Angel or Vance, Rich has no powers to test out against Dwayne, to which Dwayne retorts that his research has led him to believe Rich’s Nova powers are still within him, but as a fail-safe in a life or death situation. With this, Dwayne hurls Rich off the roof, and though Rich does find himself once more encased in his Nova armor, it was not for the reasons Dwayne stated. Rich attempts to fight Terrax on his own, but realizing how rusty he has become, allows the others to assist in spite of the power gap between him and them.

Rich will slowly mature into the seasoned hero some of us know him to be. His time in the Warriors is that awkward middle ground between that and being the plucky new hero on the scene, a broad archetype I like to call the Washed Up High School Athlete. Having fallen so low and then seemingly reclaimed his lost glory, Rich has a bit of an ego about him. Additionally, Rich is inarguably the most experienced in the superhero game than any other Warrior. He’s gone out to space multiple times, has had tons of team-ups with major players, and has had his own robust rogues gallery. Rich’s arrogance, however, doesn’t come from an overestimation of his abilities—no, he learned that the hard way in his battle with Sphinx. Rather, it comes from the flip-side of an insecurity to prove that he’s still worthy of being Nova. He’ll pall around with Speedball, develop a teasing friendship with Justice, and butt heads repeatedly with Thrash. Part of which stems from a desire to lead the Warriors himself, but as he slowly learns humility he will concede that just because he’s the power house doesn’t mean he deserves to be running the show. This is when his bond with Nita strengthens, who previously rolled her eyes at Rich’s flirtations, but shows due respect and encouragement once Rich slowly began to take things more seriously.

JUSTICE

Mix:

Something I Learned Today - Hüsker Dü

Everything Turns Grey - Agent Orange

Outside The Trains Don’t Run On Time - Gang of Four

Life Goes On - The Damned

Lawless - Social Distortion

Vance Astrovik grew up in a lonely household, with his mother having died when Vance was young and his father emotionally distant, unsupportive, and generally scolding and abusive. A chance encounter with a strange man in the park, who advised Vance to “focus” his frustrations, allowed him to first tap his mutant powers of telekinesis. As Vance got older and his father’s abuse became physical, Vance lashed out with his powers before running away from home. Vance enrolled into the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation, lying about his age and utilizing his telekinesis to imitate super-strength, to make a living on his own. After winning a streak of matches under the persona of “Marvel Boy”, Vance was set up with the UCWF’s highest-profile contender: The one and only Thing, who like Vance was at the time also living a life on the road, struggling to find himself. Seeing the eyes of an angry, tortured young man staring back at him struck a chord with Ben, and he very quickly threw the fight against the promoter’s demands. Ben let Vance use him as a big, stony punching bag to let out all his emotions, and when the match was over Ben approached Vance more earnestly.

With the senior hero’s help, Vance slowly started to get his life back together. Vance went back to New York with Ben, where he split his time between a contract with the Heroes For Hire while also catching up on his missing education. For the first time ever, Vance’s life was stable, and through the Heroes For Hire he was even able to live out his dream of being a superhero, though he longed for the gung-ho adventuring of the profession that didn’t seem to be around in his generation. It was that type of longing that made Vance the most amenable to Dwayne’s proposal, despite his unorthodox method of recruitment. When up against Terrax, Vance was directed by Dwayne to use his telekinesis in a more intangible way, and pooling his powers with Speedball’s, ended up becoming an instrumental force in disarming Terrax and saving the day. Vance’s enthusiasm continued into Dwayne’s second attempt to assemble a team, and was the first one to agree.

Vance is the fanboy of the team, who loves all things superhero. Rather than having the plucky enthusiasm a character like Robbie might instead bring, think of Vance as the type of fan who is somewhat embarrassed or even ashamed to be a fan among his given friend group. He’s reserved and stoic a lot of the time, but the moment he’s in his element or encounters a fellow fan in the wild, a switch just goes off in him and his enthusiasm comes out. Ergo, Vance could potentially be the point of exposition in a given situation (Because he's done the research on his down time) but only if other team members such as Dwayne (The tactician) or Rich (The senior most hero) aren't around to exposit themselves, or might just be drawing a blank on the matter at hand. This close-to-the-vest behavior is extremely indicative of Vance at the beginning. He is reserved yet courteous, bashful yet determined. He believes the most in the Warriors, but because of his fledging confidence never volunteers to actually lead.

He will start the series utilizing his powers more like Superboy, "tactical telekinesis" and all, but the more the series goes along and the more emotionally available Vance becomes, the more his mind becomes open to the more intangible aspects of his powers. Vance is patient towards Dwayne's hostilities, but less so with Rich's braggart behavior. He geeks out over Namorita at first, badgering her with questions over her famous cousin, but learns to reel back and respect Nita as a person and as a hero in her own right. He gets along well with Bobby in their mutual enthusiasm, though Bobby is significantly less mature and far more rambunctious than Vance might prefer. The only team member Vance actively comes to blows with is Firestar. They start out fundamentally disagreeing on helping others being a duty to people with powers such as themselves, but once Angelica’s abusive past comes to the forefront, it allows Vance the ability to unpack the baggage from his own abuse. He apologizes to Angelica for his confrontational attitude from before, and the two develop a bond and understanding unique from the rest of the team.

NAMORITA

Mix:

Train of Thought - a-ha

The Blood - The Cure

Another Part of Me - Michael Jackson

Dazzle - Siouxsie And The Banshees

Raspberry Beret - Prince

The “little cousin” to the tempestuous prince of Atlantis, Namorita is the daughter of Namor’s maternal cousin, Namora--more precise, Nita is her mother’s own genetic clone, conceived in such a way due to Namora’s hybrid physiology rendering her infertile. Namora died when Nita was still very young, killed in a coup against Namor orchestrated by his treacherous cousin, Byrrah. Namor was exiled and Nita was lied to by Byrrah and his conspirators that it was Namor who was the betrayer who left her mother to die. In spite of the loss of her mother and apparent betrayal of her cousin, Nita otherwise had a happy childhood as princess to the Atlantean throne. She was trained in combat by the warlord Krang, educated by the sorceress Llyra, and nurtured by the lady Dorma, all steps made to endow her with the skills necessary to be Byrrah’s eventual successor. Only when Namor returned to Atlantis decades later to challenge Byrrah for the throne did Nita understand the truth of her family, and she gallantly assisted her older cousin in reclaiming his birthright as Atlantis’ king.

Still, the revelation left Nita troubled, and Namor recommended to his little cousin that some time away from Atlantis might help her clear her head. Namor arranged for Nita to live with Betty Prentiss, an old friend of his who had long retired to upstate New York. Nita grew to love Betty as a maternal figure, so much so that she took Betty’s name as part of her surface-world identity. Betty’s health began to fail, but she urged Nita not to hold herself back on her part, stressing that she was ready to brave the rest of the world. Nita was living in New York as a part-time college student, part-time sidekick to Namor’s new adventures, the day Terrax attacked the city. Though she was not among Dwayne’s initial recruits, she charged in and fought the good fight regardless, and it was her mastery in the water which barred Terrax from recomposing his physical form long enough for Rich to absorb his Power Cosmic directly and launch Terrax back out of the atmosphere.

Out of all the Warriors, Nita is the one who comes in the most put-together. She’s the oldest—literally. Despite physically and mentally still being around college-age, by non- Atlantean conditions she is in her 40′s—and unlike the others she joins the Warriors not out of a claim for fame or fill some existential void, but because she thought it would be fun to have a group of super-teens to become friends with. In the team’s earliest outings, Nita’s fun-loving nature comes off as flighty and vicarious to some, but as the Warriors grow more seasoned Nita demonstrates repeatedly how dedicated she is. When the chips are down, she does not make light of the crisis at hand, and is swift and unforgiving in her actions. The two big things that get under her skin are deception and not properly valuing the loved ones in one’s life.

Nita is transparent and unapologetic in who she is, but that’s not to say she has all her issues of self-esteem squared away. Even in her time in Atlantis as next in line for the throne, there was always a pervasive contempt aimed at Nita, for no fault of her own than that she shared the pale skin of the betrayer, Namor. Additionally, later on Nita will discover the nature of her conception which will briefly throw her into an identity crisis, fretting on whether or not she is a “real” person. She constantly brings her other team-members up, yet rarely asks them to do so for her. So when Dwayne steps down by season’s end, it’s not Nita who volunteers to fill his role as leader, but her friends and teammates who rally behind her.

SPEEDBALL

Mix:

Stand Together - Beastie Boys

Molly’s Lips - Nirvana

The Farther I Go - Mudhoney

Lexicon Devil - The Germs

Scenario - A Tribe Called Quest

Slacker Robbie Baldwin was working late at his custodian job at a local research laboratory when he became an accidental witness to an illegal testing of experimental energy. Robbie was bombarded with this kinetic energy, endowing him with extraordinary powers, not only generating and projecting this energy but also using it to launch and propel his own body as a kinetic force, all while his body is rendered immune from physical harm. After making a splash in his hometown of Springvale, Connecticut as the local hero Speedball, Robbie decided to strike out in the superhero capital, New York City, only to quickly realize he was a big fish in a small pond. He even attempted to make a big splash to impress the Avengers and talk them into taking him in, only to be politely but firmly rejected by Captain America himself. Robbie was nearly ready to pack it in when he just so happened to be in the city on the day of Terrax’s attack. Though at first Robbie sought to distract Terrax and keep his rampage out of the way of civilians, he rolled with Dwayne’s direction to combine his powers with Vance’s, which gave a massive blow to Terrax’s physical form and won the heroes an edge that helped to secure the fight.

At sixteen, Robbie is the youngest of the Warriors, and by every measure the least experienced and most immature. That excitement manifests in his powers, to which Robbie has to actively exert himself to calm down and lessen his generation of kinetic energy. In his earliest outings back in Springdale, Robbie was more a showman than a proper superhero, and that class clown persona carried over as a New Warrior. Next to Namorita, Robbie is the one with the most unabashed excitement towards being a superhero, and through that ends up becoming the heart of the team. His pluckiness allows him to easily chum it up with Rich and Nita, and his light-heartedness shines through to even the most jaded members of the group, such as Angel and Vance. He’s the biggest wild card for Dwayne, but keeps him on board for his untapped potential, a call that brings Dwayne to blows with Chord and Tai, one of many as the Warriors continue to operate.

Dwayne volunteers to train Robbie in combat as a compromise with his mentors, an arrangement Robbie isn’t initially receptive to but commits to once he understands how important it is to keeping him on the team. For outside of simply wanting to strike out as a superhero, Robbie seeks any excuse to get out of his house, as his parent’s constant bickering and intrusive opinions on what Robbie should do with his life make Springvale nigh insufferable. Getting to and from the Warriors in New York and his home in Springvale, all while concealing his identity to his parents, is a strenuous to maintain, but Robbie keeps at it. This dedication eventually pays off, granting Robbie a focus and determination that not only allows for a greater application of his powers, but makes him a more capable hero that he would have been without the support of his fellow Warriors.

GENERAL GUIDELINES

The team are rarely all together at once.

This is both a tool to alleviate the burden of handling up to six main characters at once, as well as taking writing cues from previous shows such as Teen Titans 2003 and Justice League in juggling their own large casts. Additionally, I feel like this would help sell the Warriors' status as being a bunch of kids with their own lives and priorities. Dwayne is rich and has his own personal pilot, sure, but Angel lives in New Jersey, and Speedball in Connecticut. Rich and Vance sometimes have their own hero-work to do, as does Nita when adventuring alongside her cousin. The plan is to use this status quo to the story’s advantage, focusing generally on up to two or three characters at a time with every episode, building up on their relationship with one another in addition to individual one-offs. Whenever the Warriors are fully assembled, such as the series premiere or the season finale, it's made that much bigger of a deal.

The team is not trying to replace an established super-team, nor do they regularly rub elbows with more famous characters on a regular basis.

Not to say it never happens, but cameos should be used sparingly, especially for the first season. The Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Heroes for Hire, and any other big names are all out doing their own things, and so will the Warriors. Team-ups with the F4 and Avengers are planned in this first season, but that and any subsequent team-ups should always happen organically and contribute to the episode’s plot.

Every Warrior starts out incomplete in some way, and becoming a team and befriending one another slowly helps them realize their potential.

Their initial formation, banding together to fight Terrax, happens completely by accident, and not before Night Thrasher attempts to form the team forcibly, hacking the private information of Firestar, Justice and Nova. Even then, there is a period after Terrax’s attack where the group rarely see each other, and some assume it was just a one-off thing. But all six are compelled to work along with one another, and make that initial agreement with Thrash following Terrax’s invasion, based on a very specific shared circumstance: They are all young people with superpowers that have affected their lives, for either good or bad, and they don’t have anyone in their personal lives to relate to or confide in. That’s what keeps them coming back despite in some cases living across the city or whole states apart, and that budding friendship with people they never would have engaged with otherwise helps each member of the team become more complete individuals in the process. That’s the biggest through-line of this series.

#fanfic #comics #marvel #Marvel Comics #new warriors #firestar #nova #namorita prentiss #speedball #night thrasher #90s #fantastic 4 #The Avengers

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