Happy Birthday Fabian Nicieza!

Happy Birthday to Fabian!

I remember first reading the New Warriors, and back then the “internet” was still very young. Heck, there wasn’t even a “Google” yet. (That’s right… google would not come to be until 8 years later). AOL (America Online) was still a thing, and you’d constant get CDs with AOL ready to be installed on your home machine! Just slide that disc in – click the set up, and soon enough, you’d be hearing, “You’ve got mail!”

Well, when I searched the web (back then, Yahoo was the thing!) – I discovered there was really no resources about this young team of heroes. So, having already created my own personal website on a free service known as GeoCities (no longer around – Yahoo purchased them and devoured it). Back in 2014, I collected the banners I had of the site and posted them on a “Throw Back Thursday.” (Thankfully my “photoshop” skills have greatly improved since then! With time and better programs!) I also launched a group through eGroups – which was a free email / message system (also devoured and eventually destroyed by Yahoo). The website didn’t get a lot of traffic – but that eGroup I had? That thing was always having messages flowing through it – and I don’t mean just during the New Warriors being active – but after, the lulls, all of it – that group stayed relatively active.

Then my wife surprised me by purchasing this domain – newwarriors.com. I launched a site, that went through thousands of revisions – I had a forum on here briefly, which stayed relatively active – until social media came about.

Finally in 2017, I actually got to meet Fabian at his booth. (I had a chance eons ago, when New Warriors was still a thing – Fabian was selling? Handing out? New Warriors shirts, and I was too young and too shy! I still kick myself, thank you very much!) When I met Fabian in 2017, however, my bag was loaded with New Warriors books – as well as the New Warriors Poster, as well as (unrelated to the New Warriors, but something dear to me) X-Force Annual #2 (first appearance of Adam-X, whom I immensely enjoy – I am not even kidding) as well as a two page spread of original art, from same said issue, of Adam-X. Fabian hung out, we talked about New Warriors, about Adam-X, about me and the original art. They say never meet your heroes, because you will sorely be disappointed. Well, Fabian proved that not every saying is true. Fabian was kind, hung out, talked. He was, just as he is with his writing, amazing.

So why ramble about all of this?

Because when Fabian wrote the New Warriors, he didn’t write “just another super hero book.” Fabian wrote these characters that were hardly developed and breathed life into them. He didn’t make them perfect heroes who did perfect things. They were often broken and flawed – their life not all that great – whether it was because their parents were killed when they were young or their parents were fighting on the verge of a divorce or if they suffered physical and mental abuse – these character had a background that felt real. And despite their super powers, they made mistakes – and mistakes with consequences. Not that just a building toppled over during a fight – but consequences that drove the characters forward and developed them further.

Fabian made these super heroes, dare I say, human.

And I immensely enjoyed it because it not only gave me something to read, but something to relate to, characters that I cared about. And so, on his birthday, I just wish I could give him some kind of cool amazing gift that keeps a fire going on the way the New Warriors did for me.

But for now, here’s hoping Happy Birthday does it!