In New Champions #1, a ragtag bunch of kids and teens unite to fight crime… stop me if you’ve heard that one before.

New Champions #1 introduces a team of, well, new Champions. (For those keeping track, this is essentially the third iteration of the team after two prior rosters.) It’s also yet another youth squad of characters derived from established heroes, and I’m sure Young Avengers fans won’t have any sort of intense angry feelings about it whatsoever.

If some of them look familiar, it’s probably because quite a few were originally created for a variant cover series a few years ago and have since made the jump to actual canon in writer Steve Foxe’s recent tenure on Spider-Woman. You don’t really need to have read that run to understand what’s happening here —an origin backup story is provided— but essentially, they’re all products of a nefarious HYDRA project who decided to unite and use their newfound powers for good. Classic stuff.

A select few are among the starting lineup here in New Champions #1 —Hellrune, Liberty, Moon Squire, Cadet Marvel— but their ranks will seemingly appear in upcoming issues. This first arc places Hellrune, as Asgardian-themed heroine, at the center of a familial mystery, but not until familiarizing readers to the others. They all have unique circumstances and I’d like to know more about each, but I do worry that expanding the team as they’re set to do will cause the overarching story to suffer, since that’s what ultimately made the last iteration of Champions suffer in its latter half. It’s fun to introduce a bunch of new characters, but if they’re not all given equal attention in the narrative, then they’re just barely indistinguishable action figures knocking into one another.

Until then, however, I’m interested to see how Foxe handles a concept that’s, quite frankly, a bit dicey in a saturated market. Marvel and DC alike are never hurting for youth teams —see the aforementioned Young Avengers reference— and justifying a new one’s existence is tricky, especially given this one’s (admittedly) cynical genesis as mascots to sell extra comic books. I really enjoy his work and particularly his last team book (Dead X-Men) so he’s definitely got the chops to do it. Ivan Fiorelli (with Ig Guarra) is a fantastic choice for the art, matching Foxe’s script with expressive, approachable visuals. I could see young people getting into this —if they somehow manage to find it— and maybe even winning over a few neglected YA fans. They just need to keep the momentum going.

New Champions #1

4.99
7

Story

7.0/10

Execution

7.0/10

Script

7.0/10

Art

7.0/10

Credits

  • Writer: Steve Foxe
  • Artists: Ivan Fiorelli with Ig Guarra
  • Color Artist: Arthur Hesli
  • Letterer: VC's Travis Lanham
  • Cover Artists: Gleb Melnikov & Edgar Delgado

Credits (cont)

  • Editor: Alanna Smith
  • Publisher: Marvel Comics
Nico Sprezzatura
nicofrankwriter@gmail.com
Obviously a pen name. 32. Schrödinger's writer.

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