New Warriors #9 Review

With a limited time left for this, should fans bother to pick it up? Read on to find out.

The official description from Marvel:

SPECIAL ISSUE!

• It’s the anti-buddy movie as odd couple JUSTICE and SCARLET SPIDER hit the road together, heading for HOUSTON, TEXAS.

• Scarlet Spider never wanted to be on a team, with… people. And this issue, he shocks no one by QUITTING!

•Can Justice convince him to stay? No! Can they dude-bond by fighting a hundred foot tall guy in a bear suit? Probably not!

Maybe it’s because I have a soft spot for Kaine Parker and his on-and-off quest for redemption, but this issue struck a cord with me. The creative team from the first page to the final panel understood what buttons to push as they offered up hope for our young team combined with some solid laughs throughout.

The personality and emotions felt genuine in large part because the series scribe knew exactly how to write these characters. Christopher Yost gets the Scarlet Spider because he was the one that told his adventures in Houston, and for followers of that gone-too-soon title there’s some closure to be found within this release. I’ll admit the super powered team mascot was a bit much but the comedy born from it balanced the serious undertones nicely, especially when the comic reached its narrative climax.

The illustrations handed in by Tana Ford complimented the text well. They won’t be for everyone, but the slightly chaotic but wholly natural pencil strokes matched the type of book at play. From an interesting moment with Hummingbird to an underage Nova attempting to go clubbing with his crew, this talent did rather nicely. That said there were a few instance in Texas which came off underdeveloped, but with colors by Ruth Redmond the final renditions certainly carried my attention.

New Warriors #9 is an outing that yet again proves why I’ll miss this when it goes. It’s a rare treat to have a franchise that can deliver humor while maintaining enough weight to resonate. And for that reason this comes recommended.