In the New Warriors, there’s thing thing called Taylor Foundation that is run by Andrew Chord and Tai. It has a lot of money and funds New Warriors. In this miniseries, there’s a hostile takeover attempt that involves kidnapping Chord–and Night Thrasher rescuing him.
Among the employed criminals who he gets to fight are Lady Lotus…
…Bengal…
And Gideon. The initial Gideon confrontation, though, is in a board room–not a street fight.
In his secret identity, Night Thrasher talks to the shareholders of his deceased father’s company–the company that funds the New Warrriors.
He is interrupted when Gideon shows up.
Turns out, the immortal External’s company, Ophrah, is the source of the corruption of both Night Thrasher’s father’s legacy and a company owned by the father of Sunspot of the New Mutants.
Not often you see a board room debate take up six pages of a comic book.
Of course, they do end up going at it “man to man.”
Pilot “Sprocket” (who debuts here but becomes the New Warriors’ pilot, and a nonpowered member of the team) makes it all happen:
I love that Thrasher uses his cunning to beat Gideon by taking his own armor OFF.
Yes, it’s a macho moment–but it’s also nicely juxtaposed against the board room negotiation, where Thrasher is clearly less comfortable and capable.
I don’t really understand the Night Thrasher character. His use of a skateboard marks him as a faddish/novelty character (or in this case a snowboard….)
But his brutality tastes like Punisher.
Overall, this series is much better than I thought it would be. Then again, I rated it a C+ because I thought it would be really, really bad.