If people were rolling their eyes at the powers that heroes had in the 90s and 2000s then heads are probably spinning right now, and not just those that are a bit leery of seeing the comics become so much like real-life that battle lines are about to be drawn among the fans. Snowflake and Safespace are no longer just buzz words on the internet capable of triggering people, now they’re actual superhero names, as the two individuals are twins that have ended up on the new cast of the New Warriors and are going to be trained by the same icons that took the name of the group initially. Speedball, Night Thrasher, Rage, Namorita, Firestar, and Silhouette, the original members of the team, will be taking on the task of training this new bunch when it comes to fighting and, obviously, being heroes. The downside of a couple of them, Snowflake and Safespace, comes from the fact that such terms are still seen as derogatory by the LGBTQ+ community in many ways, no matter how many people are attempting to state that they’ve become badges of honor. As Liam McGuire of Screenrant says, it’s a rough way to start the inclusion process, but unfortunately that process might never get any easier since it’s bound to come about that one thing or another will trigger someone as the story goes forward.
The team itself is enough to make a person roll their eyes hard enough to induce a headache since Safespace is the jock that can create defensive force fields that he can’t utilize, but that he can use to protect others. In other words, he sounds like the atypical ‘white knight’ figure that many people might point out is willing and ready to defend anyone he thinks is being wronged. In a hero sense this could be extremely useful, though the idea of making everything pink is an interesting choice. Snowflake, who is the first non-binary character in the Marvel universe, has been given the power to create shuriken-like snowflakes that can be used as weapons, giving way to a veritable storm of comments that might come from people admitting that enough snowflakes can create a blizzard, so the term is no longer as derogatory as it used to be. I kind of wish that was as bad as the team has gotten at this point, but it goes on. Screentime was exposed to an ‘experimental internet gas’ (really?) and is now able to access the internet wherever he’s at, accessing real-time maps and other services. He can also check anything on Google anytime he wants, since of course that’s a valuable power that could come in handy. Well, it could really, but it doesn’t make a person a genius as this character appears to think.
B-negative is a goth-looking ‘living’ vampire that apparently received a much-needed blood transfusion from Michael Morbius and became the way he is as a result. And then there’s trailblazer, she of the magical backpack that evidently has unlimited space and…well, nothing else really. Her claim to fame on the team thus far is the backpack and the fact that she met Night Thrasher and was targeted after that. If your head is in your hands and you’re wondering what in the world happened to the superheroes of yesteryear, look no further than Father Time and the current era we live in. A lot of current fans might want to argue and that’s okay, they’re entitled to their opinions, but let’s be real just for a moment and say the heroes of old weren’t perfect, but imperfection appears to be what we’re going for now and someone went wide of the mark. If anyone wants to know why heroes such as Firestar, Namorita, Night Thrasher, and even Speedball are so appealing, it’s because they have powers that are insanely useful and they simply look as though they could mess someone up. This new team doesn’t look like they could handle Paste Pot Pete or Stilt Man, much less some of the villains that the New Warriors have taken on in the past. Of course appearances can be deceiving and it might be that the writers have something special in store for the fans, but right now, just with the description of the group and what people might be thinking to expect, it’s almost as though Marvel is admitting that the future looks a little bleak.
As for Snowflake being non-binary, who cares? Gay, non-binary, whatever the character needs to be, so long as it doesn’t affect the overall story in such a way that it can’t continue in a reasonable manner, it shouldn’t be a huge concern. To the LGBTQ+ community members that might be chewing on this, settle down, Marvel is still getting the hang of it.
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