Being a new, edgy nineties team book, it was inevitable that the “New Warriors” would clash with the hottest Marvel property of the decade, “X-Men”. What readers saw was potential for an all-star crossover, exploring the limitless depths of continuity and doing so with hot-shot characters like Cyclops, Jean Grey and the new kids on the block, X-Force. What readers got… was ‘Kings Of Pain’. Read on, as we recap a brief one-shot with the Hellfire club before we dive into one of the most infamous Marvel annual crossovers.
Written by Fabien Nicieza
Illustrated by Mark Bagley, Guan Yap, Tom Raney, and Terry Shoemaker
Inked by Al Milgrom, Dan Panosian, Jeff Albrecht and Joe Rubenstein
Colored by Andy Yanchus, Tom Vincent
Lettered by Joe Rosen and Chris EliopolousKINGS OF PAIN PART 1 New Mutants vs. New Warriors? The super-powered teams find themselves face-to-face after they discover a shared connection to the Alliance of Evil. Who will stand victorious with so much at stake?
Issue #10 opens with a delightful cover of Emma Frost standing over the defeated New Warriors declaring her victory, cementing Bagley as one of the super fun cover artists of his era alongside Alan Davis on “Excalibur”. Frost’s Hellions attack Dwayne and Sil in the opening of the issue, giving us a super fun but very Liefeld-style double-page spread of the attack taking place. There’s frantic energy in the dialogue and art as Dwayne tries to contact the others, establishing the Hellions as a veritable threat. Nicieza establishes a good voice for Frost here as someone who will go to incredible lengths to ensure the safety of her students, as she reveals she’s here because of Dwayne hacking into the Massachusetts Academy way back in issue one. Back with the rest of the team, Robbie’s mom is still hanging around feeling very out of place as her son exerts the authority in this situation, which Bagley renders with a lot of concern. We do finally start to see the members playing off each other, and get more used to the team dynamics, which have grown naturally over the course of the series.
The Warriors storm Frost’s warehouse in a well-coordinated attack and the team dynamic is infectious. I especially love Namorita leading the team to save Dwayne in this instance, as she brings a level of positivity that Dwayne has no capacity to channel. Everyone pairs off in a fight against the Hellions, with some notable examples being Vance getting to really let loose and be a bad boy against Tarot: I love that even when Bagley draws him with a mischievous grin, he still feels so naïve and innocent. Behind the scenes, however, Dwayne’s mother Tai strikes a deal with Frost, revealing that she has her own agenda for the New Warriors and seeding some potential conflict down the line. The two teams fight it out until all the testosterone is spent, and Firestar gets to confront Frost about her misgivings towards her in the past, which is a particularly cathartic moment.
Enter now, the Kings of Pain. This story takes place through the annuals of our own title, as well as “New Mutants”, “Uncanny X-Men” and “X-Factor”, with each team involved in the crossover. The first thing you might notice is the striking Mike Mignola covers on each of these books, but alas: the art direction on the inside is considerably different. Guang Yap handles the art style in the “New Mutants” issue, and his style is something like an early, loose precursor to Benjamin Marra with more Rob Liefeld energy. It does hurt the flow of the book somewhat as his figure work is stiff and action figure-like and perspective can be a little confusing like when facing down Tower, who’s supposed to be a size-shifter. Despite all this, Yap choreographs some great full cast shots, like the meeting of the New Warriors and X-Force.
Onto the meat of the story: our primary antagonist for most of the book is a heavily armored piece of work with the non-threatening name Harness, who carries around an energy-consuming child codenamed Piecemeal. The relationship between these two is incredibly dubious, as Harness constantly weight-shames Piecemeal into consuming more energy and whips him when he does not comply. We’re introduced to the proto X-Force team (since they are still technically New Mutants) as they are hunting the Alliance of Evil who happen to be working with Harness, and naturally, Nicieza has a great voice for all of them, especially Boom Boom who’s always endearing. The fight that ensues has some snappy dialogue, and I especially love the chemistry between Domino and Cable as they constantly spout action movie one-liners. Yap draws a fantastic scene-establishing shot with complicated nineties technology before the New Warriors show up with a shoot-first-question-later attitude.
Continued belowMark Bagley is back on art for the “New Warriors” annual, inked by Jeff Albrecht who gives this a similar tone to Yap’s work. Naturally, the two teams butt-heads, and Nicieza pairs character off that have a great instant rapport. Namorita and Warpath are particularly fun, as they throw pseudo flirts at each other, but overall, the New Warriors seem to be taking a slight upper hand, making sense considering their level of experience as a team versus X-Force’s. However, some of the newer members of X-Force, namely the fantastic Shatterstar, make some ethically grey moves like threatening to kill Dwayne, which throws the Warriors right off their game. Nicieza, being the continuity junkie that he is, also throws in a connection between Chord and Cable (I hope that their pun was intentional because mine was) which adds an extra level of depth to this team-up.
After everything is settled, we see some more of Harness and Piecemeal hanging out, absorbing more energy in an ethically-ambiguous fashion. Bagley turns up the dark humor as he dresses Piecemeal in a shirt that reads “TOXIC PARENTS”, a kind of self-referential art that I love in this era. Meanwhile once again, X-Force and the New Warriors team up to break Frenzy, one of the Alliance of Evil, out from her cell to interrogate her and reveal that Harness was hired by AIM. The two teams then raid an AIM headquarters, finding out that they’re developing ‘shell casings’ to contain ambient energy… for instance, ambient energy absorbed by a certain mutant power. The teams transition through scenes for the millionth time in this issue back to the currently destroyed Xavier Mansion (don’t ask) as they break in to use Cerebro to track Harness, before realizing that her goal is to resurrect Moira MacTaggert’s nigh-omnipotent mutant son Proteus as a massive energy source. There’s some great commentary from the Warriors about how X-Force is a much more Reagan-era paramilitary group, which is an interesting early read on how the first major arc of “X-Force” will turn out.
The next annual we dive into is via “Uncanny X-Men”, and at an interesting point of continuity where the team was a bunch of outcasts led by scientist Moira MacTaggert. Tom Raney does art here, who does a serviceable, chunkier version of Bagley with some interestingly drawn female body proportions and angles. X-Force and the Warriors head over to Muir Island, the X-Men’s current base of operations, before being shot at by MacTaggert mid-air whilst Nova asks Namorita if she wants to see his club (but why, Nicieza!?). Raney’s Firestar here is also wildly flexible as she seems to have a spine made of putty, however, the rest of the action is admittedly a lot of fun, incorporating some explosive, blockbuster action and well-composed team shots. As usual, the teams come to clash before reconciling, in what has now become a very dry sequence of events. Cable reveals to Moira what Harness is planning to do with Proteus, and we a pretty neat recap of the classic ‘Proteus Saga’ of early Claremont and Byrne “Uncanny X-Men”, in which Raney does absurdly proportioned art very well.
Over in Edinburgh, Harness is doing her good old thing, calling Piecemeal ‘Blobbo’ and enforcing some questionable ideas of ownership of this child. Piecemeal is now past the point of comically engorged, existing as a skin-crawling mass of bloated skin and physical pain, working in tandem with Harness’ abuse to make this story a particularly tough one. The gang over at Muir Island make the connection between Piecemeal and Proteus both being abused children, which they speculate could be a problem. Harness finally comes for Proteus, and a climactic battle ensues. Turns out, when you take Harness away from Piecemeal, they’re a fun standalone villain, quipping hard with the best that X-Force has to offer and feeling like a genuine threat with a crazy-yet-eye-catching costume. The other half of the assembled heroes band together to stop Piecemeal, who are delivering some painfully sad dialogue. A plan is formed, which Speedball makes the perfect comment on with “I love this kind of crazy, half-baked, pseudoscientific hero-plan thing!”. The plan doesn’t work, however, and to summarize a very decompressed sequence, Piecemeal explodes, resurrects and combines with Proteus, and blows up Muir Island.
Continued belowThe final and most problematic annual takes place in “X-Factor”, bringing yet another dang super-team into the fold just when you thought it was already overstuffed. Terry Shoemaker does a very classical and normalized job here compared to the other artists on board, which is honestly refreshing. X-Factor stumbles upon Muir Isle in their Blackbird, which now resembles that weird 3D-wireframe environment in that one Simpsons episode (you know the one). What I love about this sequence is that you can tell this is a big threat, because not only are X-Factor video calling Captain America but also simultaneously Captain Britain and Red Guardian. The Captains of the world! Shoemaker does some great work as X-Factor storm into Proteus’ lair, filling the environment with wild, abstract shapes. However, Nicieza cleverly writes Proteus as willingly baiting them into the lair, almost as if he has a hidden agenda or something to prove. After toying with them, he transports them to a blank white void where the other super teams have been kept.
What plays out here is a surprisingly in-depth ethical debate on what to do with a problem like Proteus. Trigger warning here, and please remember this is a scrappily written early-nineties story. Scott theorizes that Proteus never wanted to be brought back, so he suggests the idea of coaxing Proteus into committing suicide for his and the world’s benefit. Nice one, Cyclops! Outisde, Proteus has both of his mothers, Moira and Harness hostage (yes, Harness is a giiiirl! Supervillains can be women too!), making them feel guilty about his and Piecemeal’s childhood. Moira genuinely wants to help him find peace, whilst Harness wants him to exact vengeance on the outside world, in an interesting angel/devil on a shoulder-style sequence. The combined teams back in the void debate Cyclops as they rightly should, but ultimately realize that this is the methodology that works best ethically within all the teams’ parameters. They’re all neatly teleported out of the void, and alas, Cyclops convinces Proteus to find his own place away from this earthly plane. Both the superheroes and readers are left with an uncomfortable feeling in their gut, and we see that for some strange reason, Toad and Gideon were behind this in some elaborate chess game all along? Maybe just ignore that part.
The hard part is over, dear readers. The Kings of Pain have come and gone, and now we will great the next week with one of the most exciting story arcs of the early “New Warriors” material, ‘Forever Yesterday’. Stay tuned!
