Didja Know... The New Warriors

Didja Know digs into the fun facts, strange stories, and divine details that helped build the hallowed halls of the House of Ideas!

Hey, heroes! Our titanic teams can take a lickin’ and keep on truckin’—this is well-documented, of course, but today we’re thinkin’ hard about a herd of heroes that have taken a lot of hard knocks over the years, but always get up, dust themselves off, and start all over again.

You’ve probably guessed it by now, but we’re talkin’ about the nifty New Warriors! 

That's right, the terrific team-up of some of Marvel’s greatest young superstars…and the furious focus of our latest Didja Know deep-dive!

Didja Know… Namorita’s a clone?

She won our hearts from out of the waves in SUB-MARINER (1968) #50 and became a kind of sidekick to Namor, but in the beginning neither he nor she ever expected her origin to be so startlingly original and not what the doctor strictly ordered.

See, back then the Sub-Mariner believed Namorita to be the daughter of his first cousin Namora, who sadly lost her life in brutal battle with the forces of evil. In truth, the Atlantean allies discovered much later on in NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER (1990) #20 that Namora had herself cloned because she couldn’t have children naturally. That clone was genetically altered, raised in Lemuria, and grew up to be one of Marvel’s finest fighting female furies.

Namorita made an even bigger name for herself when she met a group of champions her own age on the campus of Empire State University in NEW WARRIORS (1990) #1, and together they tussled with such terror titans as Terrax, Juggernaut, Psionex, the Star Thief, and many more—and that little kid that used to tug on Namor’s royal robes earned her star-status in the heavenly firmament of the Marvel Universe.

Didja Know… Night Thrasher wanted to create his own Fantastic Four?

It’s true! All of it! Thrash—he hates to be called that!—set out to gather a group of young warriors to emulate the famous Fantastic Four, but seeing as how it’s ol’ Marvel, where everything is different than you expect, things didn’t exactly go the way he planned.

So, our armored ally researched all available potential pals and picked three that suited his needs: Nova as his stand-in for the powerful Thing, Firestar as his Human Torch, and Marvel Boy as a likely substitute for the Invisible Woman…and himself, natch, as the Mister Fantastic-big brain leader-type. Put ‘em all together and wham! Instant Fantastic Four!

Not so fast, Nature Boy. Things went awry in NEW WARRIORS #1 when Terrax chewed up the green and two more teens hit the scene to help stop him: The aforementioned Namorita and Speedball. Well, sir, that kinda threw Night Thrasher off his plan, but like a good warrior he rolled with the punch and the rest is history!

Didja Know… Speedball once identified as a different super hero?

Our bouncing boychik Speedball’s gotta be the greatest example ever of a fall from grace in the crazy circus we call comic books. We mean, this guy went from light-hearted to heavy-hearted in an instant, and it was all due to one of Marvel’s biggest storylines ever.

You remember well the electric events of CIVIL WAR (2006) #1 when the New Warriors set out on the wrong foot against the noxious Nitro and Stamford, Connecticut was never the same again. What happened next, though? Speedball ended up flyin' on a a 500 mile toss due to the big blast, and then a coma, and then prison! As low as he’d ever been, our hero renamed himself Penance in CIVIL WAR: FRONT LINE (2006) #1 and tried to put the smiles and sallies of Speedball behind him forever.

Fear not, friends! We’re not gonna end this edition of Didja Know down in the dumps! Nossir! Rest assured the boy did his penance and eventually energized himself for a new entrance as Speedball…and a new day with the New Warriors.

Peruse these eye-poppin' publications with Marvel Unlimited right now! 'Nuff said!