In 2020, Marvel announced a reboot of The New Warriors, a team through which many heroes have cycled. The original core reflected the 1980s vogue for the teen supergroup, which had grown so overplayed that it inspired a semi-parody called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The New Warriors included Firestar, Night Thrasher, Marvel Boy, Kid Nova, Speedball, and Namorita. More lore than you could possibly want about the group is available at the usual sources.
The concept behind the reboot was to add five new characters that reflected the times, created for Marvel by a former Stephen Colbert writer named Daniel Kibblesmith. Those characters, introduced as The New New Warriors, included Screentime, “a Meme-Obsessed [sic] super teen whose brain became connected to the internet after becoming exposed to his grandfather’s ‘experimental internet gas,’” Snowflake and Safespace, psychic twins who can “materialize snowflake-shaped shuriken projectiles for throwing” and “materialize pink forcefields” respectively, B-Negative, who as a baby received a blood transfusion from Morbius for some reason and inherited his powers, and Trailblazer, who has an enchanted backpack containing a “pocket dimension with seemingly infinite space, from which she can pull out useful or random objects.” Snowflake had blue hair, Safespace had pink hair, Trailblazer was native American and plus-sized, and Snowflake was furthermore said to be non-binary and a user of they/them pronouns.
This was the debut cover. Namorita, Night Thrasher, Firestar, Speedball, and Rage occupy the upper portion, and Snowflake, Safespace, Screentime, Trailblazer, and B-Negative listlessly stand around the bottom.
It was a rare moment of culture war unity: everyone hated this. Kibblesmith was trying to inject every progressive cultural signifier he could cram into the new team, seemingly to irritate YouTubers who had been complaining about such insertions for several years. In doing so, he caused Social Justice Warriors to wonder if he was making fun of them. This cover is gross. The heads of the original team members are all different sizes. The psychic twins hold each other with a tenderness far exceeding the mutual feelings of most siblings. The new team members are standing in lava, except for B-Negative, who is standing on it.
Kibblesmith claimed to have modeled Safespace on a “typical jock” despite putting him in a fuchsia singlet with matching hair. The author appeared in a promotional trailer for the book in which he did not comport himself impressively.
In the free time made available by the Covid shutdowns, I wrote a parody of this, to see if I could get it printed and self-published before Marvel could get The New Warriors on comics store shelves. But Covid gave Marvel an excuse not to publish the book. With nothing to parody, I decided not to go through with it. Nobody except a handful of culture war insiders would have understood what I was doing.
The New New Warriors appears to have been published recently, or released, or maybe leaked. While I can’t find anything official to that effect, a digital copy somehow ended up in the hands of Splatto Comics proprietor Richard Meyer, who reviewed it. To mark the occasion, I post my 2020 parody script below.
I stand by my decision not to draw this out. Some of the jokes would need explaining. The bit about customer service and hot dogs relates to an internet fight about whether it is the job of culture providers to provide culture or promote a particular politics in the manner of Kibblesmith. But a lot of it holds up, in that we’re still dealing with the culture war dynamic and the story may contain timeless lessons. Enjoy, if you can.
[Office. F is on the phone. Sign on the wall says Franklin’s Artisinal Franks.]
F: Hello, Ms. Noodlemeyer. How can I help you?
[New Worrier home base. An alarm is going off.]
INTERGAS: That’s the alarm! Time for action, New Worriers!
[F's office.]
F: I’m sorry, Ms. Noodlemeyer. Once a week a box falls out of the back of a Fed-Ups truck. I'll send you a new shipment immediately, no charge.
F: You’re very welcome, Ms. Noodlemeyer. I'm grateful to have good customers like you.
[F hangs up. The New Worriers are in his office.]
F: Who are you gooneybirds?
ALL: We’re the New Worriers!
SNOWSPACE: Our Customer Service Detectors tipped us off that you’re practicing customer service!
F: Of course I was practicing customer service. I run a business. I have customers.
SAFEFLAKE: Customer service is a codeword!
F: No it isn’t. If I don't serve my customers I won’t have a business.
ALL: Codeword!
F: I’ll bite. Codeword for what?
ALL: White supremacy!
F: I'm Jewish.
ALL: White-passing privilege!
F: Go tell the guy who shot up that synagogue.
INTERGAS: Enough talk, evildoer! We're here to put a stop to your customer servicey ways!
INTERGAS: Stunning Brave, charge!
[Stunning Brave is mostly a blob. She does not appear to move.]
F: “Stunning Brave”?
SNOWSPACE: She’s a hero of vague Native American origins who charges bravely into battle!
F: I see. Is she charging now?
SAFEFLAKE: Shut up, bigot! Also, she has a magic backpack that produces gifts from her ancestors!
F: Cool. Like what?
A-HOLE: Usually it’s donuts.
F: Seriously, is she supposed to be approaching me at a high speed in a threatening manner? I’m not detecting movement.
INTERGAS: She’s healthy at every size!
F: Also, isn't the Fat Indian kind of a racist trope?
SAFEFLAKE: Why do you hate Native Americans?
[They fall silent and watch her for several panels. She barely moves.]
F: It’s like watching a snail chase a cloud.
SNOWSPACE: Shut up, bigot!
F: Listen, I have work to do. Maybe someone else should lead the attack.
A-HOLE: I shall!
F: And what are you?
A-HOLE: As a baby I received a blood transfusion from Social Justice Twitter and it transformed me into...
[He rips off his shirt, exposing a hole that takes up most of his thorax.]
A-HOLE: A-Hole!
F: That is very sad.
[A-Hole swipes at F with his claws. Momentum keeps him rotating, twisting him like a twist-tie until he breaks apart with a “Ploit!” and dies.]
F: That guy really needed to work on his core.
INTERGAS: Time to feel the wrath of Intergas!
F: Ew. What are your powers?
INTERGAS: I can harness the worst insults on the internet into a concentrated form and direct it at you!
F: What if I don’t care?
[Intergas shatters.]
F: Okay, I was speaking hypothetically but I should have figured. How about you two?
SNOWSPACE: I'm Snowspace and this is my twin brother Safeflake!
F: Hold on. You two have been cuddling like lovebirds. You’re siblings? That’s nasty.
SNOWSPACE: Love is love, you incestophobe!
F (TO SAFEFLAKE): Are you in a consenting relationship with her?
SAFEFLAKE: “Them.”
F: Okay, with them?
SAFEFLAKE: Sort of.
F: Meh. What do you got?
SNOWSPACE: I can make it snow in space!
F: Do tell.
[She strains. Nothing happens.]
F: Well?
SNOWSPACE: There’s a blizzard on the moon!
F: Oy. How about you?
SAFEFLAKE: I'm a typical jock who cautiously eats cereal.
F: I... Have you ever actually seen a jock?
SAFEFLAKE: Maybe from a distance.
F: Okay, I know how to deal with you two. Did you know that a white cop is eighteen times more likely to be shot by a black male than the converse?
SNOWSPACE AND SAFEFLAKE: Hate speech is literal violence! We’re suffering harm!
[They die. F notices Stunning Brave.]
F: Ah, you're still “charging,” I see.
[He walks behind her and removes an armful of donuts from her backpack, then carries them around her front.]
F: Here you are, a great bounty from your ancestors.
[She grabs and gobbles them.]
F: That sure got you moving. Here you go, just one more.
[She eats it, and explodes into a massive splash of fat.]
F: That was disgusting. There must be two tons of blubber in here. What am I going to do with all this?
[F addresses reader, holding a bar of soap.]
F: Hey everyone, if cleanliness is next to godliness, then nothing signals virtue quite like Franklin’s Artisinal Soap! Made with the same care with which we make our hot dogs, and with the same guarantee of top-notch customer service!
[END]
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Our current title in the Asynchronous Studio Book Club is Abstraction and Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology of Style by Wilhelm Worringer. For more information, see the ASBC homepage.
“Franklin Einspruch: Tangibilia” is an online exhibition representing the physical one in New York in June 2024.
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Baaaaa ha ha ha!!! Though a slight dilemma as I was actually reading it out loud in the classroom, as this relates to the arts, but I self censored (job security?) because one of my students definitely identifies woke.
I expect, Franklin, that you may agree with this:
"Above all else , the devil cannot stand to be mocked." C. S. Lewis