Marvel Ruined Its Best Answer To DC's Teen Titans With One Controversial Decision

Marvel Comics

Throughout its history, Marvel Comics has had numerous teams of heroes made up entirely of teenagers. The original X-Men, when they debuted in 1963, were all teens, and learned to harness their mutant powers while also wrestling with the usual trappings of adolescence. Because the X-Men have been part of Marvel's history for so long, though, the teen characters have to grow up eventually, and be replaced by a new crop of teens. In 1982, the public was introduced to The New Mutants (they eventually got an ill-fated movie). In 1994, we met Generation X. 2001 saw the New X-Men. And so on.

And that's just in the mutant corner of Marvel. When looking at Marvel at large, the teenage wasteland only widens. 2005 saw the introduction of the Young Avengers, a group of teens that resemble members of the adult Avengers. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been hinting at the Young Avengers for many years now. Perhaps most notably, old-school Marvel fans will remember the New Warriors, a team that was first introduced in an issue of Thor in late 1989, and were given their own title in early 1990. The New Warriors were a group of freelance teens, assembled by their masked leader the Night Thrasher, who aimed merely to create a new force for fighting crime. The characters were all relatively new to the Marvel universe, and served as a breath of fresh air. The tone of New Warriors comics were lighter and more fresh-faced than some of their contemporaries. They could serve as a great antidote to the Teen Titans, the successful title put out by Marvel's industry rival, DC Comics.

The title was successful for over a decade. Sadly, the New Warriors were tainted forever after a major twist in the "Civil War" story.

Marvel Comics

The New Warriors, created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, sported a fun a diverse new crew of characters. The Night Thrasher was the team's leader, joined by Firestar, a fire-throwing young woman invented for "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" in the early 1980s. There was also Marvel Boy, the cosmic flyer Nova, the undersea princess Namorita, and the bouncy jokester Speedball. The team changed lineups a lot, but always had interesting characters. The New Warriors also sported the ultra-cool Silhouette, a woman who could essentially turn into a shadow. She was a disabled superhero who walked on crutches. That's great representation. They were also eventually joined by a bruiser named Rage, and the mysterious flying hero Darkhawk. 

The series eventually petered out, but, like all Marvel characters, the New Warriors remained in the margins of other titles. The team comic was rebooted in 1999, and while the newer lineup wasn't as popular as the 1990 iteration, it still had many followers. 

But then, in 2006, the New Warriors were more or less cast aside by Marvel Comics when they provided a deathly inciting incident for their popular "Civil War" miniseries. "Civil War," briefly, was where the popular movie "Captain America: Civil War" got its title, and concerned the usefulness of secret identities in the Marvel universe. Some heroes felt they were necessary to protect themselves, while others began to think they were a way to avoid accountability. The debate flared up when the New Warriors, while fighting an explosive villain named Nitro, accidentally caused an explosion that killed over 600 people ... including most of the Warriors themselves. 

Marvel Comics

"Civil War" also shook up the status quo of the Marvel universe by outing multiple high-profile heroes who had been hiding behind masks for decades.

As mentioned, the New Warriors were there right at the start of the "Civil War" story, hunting a group of villains while whimsically filming themselves for a reality show. Among the villains they were stalking was Nitro, who had the ability to transform his body into gasses, including explosive ones. When Namorita attacked Nitro, he exploded his whole body, and wiped out a notable chunk of Stamford, Connecticut, killing the majority of the New Warriors. 

The only survivor was Speedball, as his bouncy body protected him. Speedball was ordinarily a jokey chatterbox character, but was instantly suffused with severe survivor's guilt after the Nitro incident. He commissioned the building of a suit of armor with spikes on the inside as penance for the victims of the explosion. He even changed his name to Penance. The incident, as stated, sparked a debate as to how controlled superheroes ought to be, and how much the public should know about them. Iron Man and Spider-Man revealed their identities. 

The New Warriors rebooted a few times after "Civil War," but never to any success. The planned 2017 "New Warriors" TV show, where Milana Vayntrub would have played Squirrel Girl, never aired. A proposed 2020 reboot would have featured new teen characters with hip named like Screentimes, Snowflake, and Safespace, but they were roundly mocked by just about everyone. The 2020 book was canceled before it began, and the Warriors have been out of the public eye ever since. A pity. There was so much potential.