Night Thrasher #1 (2024)

The issue begins with Dwayne Taylor landing in New York and heading to a cemetery. It’s there we see Silhouette (who had legally changed her name to Janelle Chord, but this never gets brought up in conversation).

Silhouette (we will call her that since that’s the name she goes by in this issue) is giving an eulogy for her father, the late Andrew Chord. Dwayne approaches her after the funeral is over and the two talk. He mentions that his flight from Los Angeles had been delayed, and she asks that last she had heard he was in Madripoor. He explains he has been moving around a lot – he just couldn’t stay in New York, as he looks over at his own tombstone. (Note: Dwayne was believed to have died along with several other of the New Warriors in the event that triggered Civil War – as it would turn out, Dwayne was pulled away right at the moment of the explosion – and brought into a Contest of Champions – and a clone, or something, was put in his place, which is the remains apparently that Bandit later identified as Dwayne’s through DNA). Dwayne tells Silhouette that he will see her later at the Taylor Foundation.

Gai No Don (who has a complicated past, including founding war atrocities during the Vietnam War, as well as the Poison Memories among many other things – despite knowing his history (or rather because of it) Night Thrasher made peace with Gai No Don and put him on the Taylor Foundation’s Board of Directors), Father Michael Janes (who was a soldier in the Vietnam War, who excelled at killing and not much else who sought to redeem himself by becoming a pastor), Walter Rosen (who was the CEO of Genetech after the death of Harmon Furmintz), along with Silhouette wonder what Dwayne has in mind. Silhouette pauses as several kids in black hoods catches her eye – but she thinks nothing of it.

Dwayne tells them all he’s going to shut down the Taylor Foundation because it was built on lies and the only way to be free of it is to tear it down. Silhouette argues with him, but there’s no turning back – Dwayne explains it’s already happening. Ezra Ikolo tries to stop Dwayne as he’s leaving to speak with him – but Dwayne tells the Council member “another time.” He explains he knew Dwayne’s parents and this gives Dwayne pause.

In Danly’s Department Store, the same children whom Silhouette had spotted all pour inside the store. The kids do a smash and grab – grabbing as much as they can – then fleeing in separate directions, leaving the two officers to try and decide who to chase down. Dwayne tries to stop one – but the kid fights back – and fights back with moves that Dwayne is all too familiar with. Captain Armez of the New York Police ends up stopping Dwayne and Ezra, suspecting that they’re a part of the crime spree – but that’s made clear they’re not, after the fact.

The officer explains that they’re losing control of the city streets as these little thugs follow someone named “O.G.” This entices Night Thrasher to look into it – because he wants to know how the kid fought back to well, with moves he was familiar with. He heads back into the Taylor Foundation and goes to where he stored his Night Thrasher armor. He looks around at several photos. (Interesting Note: One that he looks at has Rage, Microbe, Firestar, Silhouette and Night Thrasher- a team we never saw work together – he notes that it’s Donyell in the Night Thrasher armor not himself. This could have been when Microbe was first recruited, because he shares a similar story to Thrash – that Dwayne became his legal guardian. So it’d place it between New Warriors Volume 2 or Volume 3 and Volume 4. Dwayne may have been running the Taylor Foundation while Donyell was, with his permission, using the Night Thrasher guise. Which might even help explain why Donyell is already using the Night Thrasher disguise in Volume 4 (so setting it between just before Volume 3, is probably a logical area. Now the artist, probably did mess up by drawing Firestar in that photo, as Dwayne mentions her by name (and names everyone else in the photo, except Firestar). So my guess is, it was intended to either be Namorita in the photo since the writer had the script – and the artist drew Firestar. Because as Namorita, this would also definitely help cemente it around V3’s era (since Namorita would be dead by Volume 4, or so thought to be dead. One might explain, as a no prize, that Dwayne mentions Namorita, because he knows that she died also – so her name was just a memory to someone else who died because of the Civil War fiasco. But that’s a bit of a stretch… but since he mentions Microbe, the only other person to die was Namorita. So it’s a stretch, but almost believable if you need to explain away the mistake).

Night Thrasher tracks them down into the sewers where he sees a small army of children have amassed – numbering over thirty – and he wonders who has brought them together?

The O.G. makes himself known by attacking Night Thrasher, and speaks as if he knows him. Even as Dwayne fights him he quickly realizes he knows who O.G. is – it’s none other than someone he helped raise for many years – someone he took under his wing – it was Elvin Daryl Haliday – better known as the Avenger and New Warriors member – Rage!

Rage continues to pound into Night Thrasher, explaining that Night Thrasher had left them – and he pounds him down hard. He tells the kids to drag Dwayne out of his sight, and the badly beaten Dwayne is taken to the surface streets and left there to bleed out.

As an epilogue…

We see a flashback with Silhouette with her father, Andrew Chord, who is rapidly dying on the bed. She uses her ability to teleport to a local prison and free her brother, Midnight’s Fire, so that he can be with her at their father’s side as he passes away. After Andrew passes away, from what appears to be Cancer, she takes him back to prison where he thanks her for the time she gave him to spend with their father, and giving him the chance to say goodbye.