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The New Guardians (1988) #1
The New Guardians (1988-1989) #1
From out of the pages of Millennium come…the New Guardians! They were chosen to help usher in a new age for humankind, and now they’re about to discover just how hard a job that’s going to be.
41 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 7, 1988
About the author
Steve Englehart
1,382 books102 followersSee also John Harkness.
Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry.
He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one).
After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund.
And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane.
In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.
Steve Englehart went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After a stint in the Army, he moved to New York and began to write for Marvel Comics. That led to long runs on Captain America, The Hulk, The Avengers, Dr. Strange, and a dozen other titles. Midway through that period he moved to California (where he remains), and met and married his wife Terry.
He was finally hired away from Marvel by DC Comics, to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but he also wrote a solo Batman series (immediately dubbed the "definitive" version) that later became Warner Brothers' first Batman film (the good one).
After that he left comics for a time, traveled in Europe for a year, wrote a novel (The Point Man™), and came back to design video games for Atari (E.T., Garfield). But he still liked comics, so he created Coyote™, which within its first year was rated one of America's ten best series. Other projects he owned (Scorpio Rose™, The Djinn™) were mixed with company series (Green Lantern [with Joe Staton], Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four). Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, Sega, and Brøderbund.
And once he and Terry had their two sons, Alex and Eric, he naturally told them stories. Rustle's Christmas Adventure was first devised for them. He went on to add a run of mid-grade books to his bibliography, including the DNAgers™ adventure series, and Countdown to Flight, a biography of the Wright brothers selected by NASA as the basis for their school curriculum on the invention of the airplane.
In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse. One of his contributions, The Night Man, became not only a successful comics series, but also a television show. That led to more Hollywood work, including animated series such as Street Fighter, GI Joe, and Team Atlantis for Disney.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 29, 2026
Holy moly and macaroni, this is dated, with sexist aspects like the ridiculous skimpy outfits on the women and the discussions and thoughts about sex--yikes! And there are a few racist things in this--yikes again! But, part of the story at least deals with racism, and the bad guys are the ones saying and doing those nasty things. The story unfortunately (and typically) doesn't deal with sexism while this comic is sexist in part.
But, this book also contains a very diverse cast of heroes, and I think the problematic aspects are probably no worse than today's time because everything's still not equal opportunity for women in too many ways, including because of new problems coming up, dragging women back in various ways in society; however, today’s also terrible when everything has gotten so frigging PC that it’s difficult to fucking breathe for fear of being canceled…uh, I don’t really have that fear. I already canceled myself from society a long time ago when I repeatedly left it lol. And I could deliberately leave it again at any time--poof!--I’m gone. Fuck off, society, the mob, the herd. I. don’t. give. a. shit.
But, but-but-but, as witnessed by some of my reviews here, I still also get offended by things myself. And I do believe in at least trying to be a little kind when I speak my mind, which speaking I always do. I just will not lie to spare feelings. I just don’t lie, period. And I will say what I think is the truth, even if it’s very unpopular and everyone else hates hearing it or would never say it.
Yesterday, after my husband acted so blunt to me when we were getting out of our car, I kept laughing at the way he acted and explaining the way he acted to him; he laughed. Then I finally said that we’re getting too old, and we now have only a 5% filter. He smiled, then pulled a disbelieving face as he looked right at me.
So then I said, “All right--maybe I’ve got a 2% filter now….”
That face of his came back, so I said while laughing pretty hard, “One percent?!? I’ve got at least one percent?...All right. I’ve got none.”
“You never had a filter,” he finally said. “You always said whatever you thought to everybody.”
Hahahaaaaa………
Back to this comic, there is unfortunately disgusting animal cruelty in this--what else is new.
With respect to the other aspects, I do like that the story seems to be giving the middle finger to being too uptight and worrying all the time about isms; that’s daring, even for back when this was created. It reminds me of Lexx! I liked a good deal of that show, even when it contained offensive shit all over the place.
In The New Guardians, the Goblin spitting out Floro’s green slime-blood is hilarious.
Sometimes this story is confusing--things are just randomly interjected into it, information, actions and statements. It’s quite a funky read, but I like that too. I’m clearly conflicted here.
Ultimately, while I like some things in this, all these problematic issues in it taken together as a whole mean that I can only give it like 3.25 stars, for what my opinion’s worth.
Should I dare to read the next one…???
But, this book also contains a very diverse cast of heroes, and I think the problematic aspects are probably no worse than today's time because everything's still not equal opportunity for women in too many ways, including because of new problems coming up, dragging women back in various ways in society; however, today’s also terrible when everything has gotten so frigging PC that it’s difficult to fucking breathe for fear of being canceled…uh, I don’t really have that fear. I already canceled myself from society a long time ago when I repeatedly left it lol. And I could deliberately leave it again at any time--poof!--I’m gone. Fuck off, society, the mob, the herd. I. don’t. give. a. shit.
But, but-but-but, as witnessed by some of my reviews here, I still also get offended by things myself. And I do believe in at least trying to be a little kind when I speak my mind, which speaking I always do. I just will not lie to spare feelings. I just don’t lie, period. And I will say what I think is the truth, even if it’s very unpopular and everyone else hates hearing it or would never say it.
Yesterday, after my husband acted so blunt to me when we were getting out of our car, I kept laughing at the way he acted and explaining the way he acted to him; he laughed. Then I finally said that we’re getting too old, and we now have only a 5% filter. He smiled, then pulled a disbelieving face as he looked right at me.
So then I said, “All right--maybe I’ve got a 2% filter now….”
That face of his came back, so I said while laughing pretty hard, “One percent?!? I’ve got at least one percent?...All right. I’ve got none.”
“You never had a filter,” he finally said. “You always said whatever you thought to everybody.”
Hahahaaaaa………
Back to this comic, there is unfortunately disgusting animal cruelty in this--what else is new.
With respect to the other aspects, I do like that the story seems to be giving the middle finger to being too uptight and worrying all the time about isms; that’s daring, even for back when this was created. It reminds me of Lexx! I liked a good deal of that show, even when it contained offensive shit all over the place.
In The New Guardians, the Goblin spitting out Floro’s green slime-blood is hilarious.
Sometimes this story is confusing--things are just randomly interjected into it, information, actions and statements. It’s quite a funky read, but I like that too. I’m clearly conflicted here.
Ultimately, while I like some things in this, all these problematic issues in it taken together as a whole mean that I can only give it like 3.25 stars, for what my opinion’s worth.
Should I dare to read the next one…???
November 9, 2025
Why am I torturing myself with this?! Oh that’s right, they crossover with invasion and I wanted context, lol. I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting from a series that gave birth to snowflame but this as the starting point certainly adds up. The new guardians as a while is a group made up of special people from all around the globe that have been given power by the guardians of OA to lead the world into the next millennium…so where do they setup a base? LA of course, lmao. And what’s even worse is that one of their members of straight up just the floronic man, luckily with this new power I think he is a bit calmer and with his connection to the world he is orettt powerful but that is still such an insane choice. This entire first issue is just insane as it is. One of the other characters I actually happen to like the design of, aptly named Ram because his body is made up of crystalline computer parts or something, is able to secure them a base in LA by routing all the bank transactions through himself. But what’s the first order of business for this group, perhaps deciding a name? NOPE, we are all powerful and the next stage of evolution we gotta get out there and start spreading our seed! We gotta get down and dirty and help usher in a new race of powerful beings. Oh my god, you’ve got to be kidding me. There’s also a bit of contention on the team, as it turns out Harbinger and jet have the exact same power set, except they look a bit different. Jet especially takes offense to this as she thought she was a lot more special than that. Additionally Harbinger is super worried as she has spent most of her life working for the monitor or any other group that needs it apparently, and she doesn’t know a lot about sex or the ways of humanity in general. Luckily Extraño is super nice and can sense her saddened aura and is there to reassure her that everything will be fine.
But we also need to introduce our villains. I didn’t read the Millenium event but this new group is very aware of a certain South African minister who leads a white supremacist group and I believe was one of the 10 chosen to possibly be part of this group, not sure if his racism forced him to refuse the power but now he is gunning for them. And the scheme to kill them in this issue involves a creature named Hemo-Goblin who is basically a blood sucking vampire that really enjoys ripping people apart with his bare hands. Additionally we also get quick glimpses at a man named Tom, he lives in LA as well and was one of the prospective new guardians but turned it down. Seems like he is having so major regrets on that though, as even though he has a loving family he can’t help but watch the news and follow everything the group is doing. And omg I am just realizing afterwards that Tom is the same Tom who works at Ferris and is a friend to the green lanterns. All the while hemo-goblin and his handler have snuck into the states under Australian passports and have all the information they need to mount an attack on the new team. Hemo-goblin won’t be able to rip apart some of the less blood necessary guardians but a win is a win in their book.
Alright, so the team has to get to populating the planet with super humans, what’s the best way to go about that? Hitting the club of course! Gloss and Jet both hit up the club, and while Gloss immediately takes up an offer to dance from the secret white supremacist working against them, jet decides to hang back for a bit and then when she got tired of everyone staring at her she decided to leave. Immediately upon leaving she is attacked by hemo-goblin and while she is able to hold herself back for a bit he ends up taking a chunk out of her side before Gloss, through their deep connection, felt Jet’s pain and rushed out to help. With both of their power they were able to hold off the vampire but couldn’t get him before he ran away. Strangely enough it seems that Jet and Harbinger are connected more than just their powers, as once the group regroups they find that harbinger developed a similar wound to Jet when she was injured. That’s not a fun thing to share. The group is sure that their South African minister is the one behind this, and the floronic man is able to confirm it but tapping into some elemental plant spirits and having them listen in on their conversation in South Africa, lol. Then to find out where the hemo-goblin is, floro taps I to the salamanders just all naturally in LA, lol, and has them hunt it down. This gets them the location and hotel room of the hemo-goblin and his mysterious associate. While they don’t end up finding the other guy, which would of been really good for Gloss to know about, they do find hemo-goblin and proceed to tag team beat the crap out of him. The funny thing is that even when they get him bloody and on the ground and security starts to show up, they just leave him on the ground and dip out and regroup at their motel room, lol, just letting the cops find him instead of face potential liability for the damages to the hotel room I guess. But as they regroup, celebrate, decide their name should be the new guardians, and can’t wait for the next day…they get a knock at the door. It’s their old friend Tom, what a nice surprise! Except he doesn’t come with good news, apparently none of them have been watching the news. Hemo-goblin is dead but not at their hands, he died in custody from AIDS as he was already sick. OOOF, uh…Jet and Harbinger may need to get tested. What an insane way to end things for the first issue.
But we also need to introduce our villains. I didn’t read the Millenium event but this new group is very aware of a certain South African minister who leads a white supremacist group and I believe was one of the 10 chosen to possibly be part of this group, not sure if his racism forced him to refuse the power but now he is gunning for them. And the scheme to kill them in this issue involves a creature named Hemo-Goblin who is basically a blood sucking vampire that really enjoys ripping people apart with his bare hands. Additionally we also get quick glimpses at a man named Tom, he lives in LA as well and was one of the prospective new guardians but turned it down. Seems like he is having so major regrets on that though, as even though he has a loving family he can’t help but watch the news and follow everything the group is doing. And omg I am just realizing afterwards that Tom is the same Tom who works at Ferris and is a friend to the green lanterns. All the while hemo-goblin and his handler have snuck into the states under Australian passports and have all the information they need to mount an attack on the new team. Hemo-goblin won’t be able to rip apart some of the less blood necessary guardians but a win is a win in their book.
Alright, so the team has to get to populating the planet with super humans, what’s the best way to go about that? Hitting the club of course! Gloss and Jet both hit up the club, and while Gloss immediately takes up an offer to dance from the secret white supremacist working against them, jet decides to hang back for a bit and then when she got tired of everyone staring at her she decided to leave. Immediately upon leaving she is attacked by hemo-goblin and while she is able to hold herself back for a bit he ends up taking a chunk out of her side before Gloss, through their deep connection, felt Jet’s pain and rushed out to help. With both of their power they were able to hold off the vampire but couldn’t get him before he ran away. Strangely enough it seems that Jet and Harbinger are connected more than just their powers, as once the group regroups they find that harbinger developed a similar wound to Jet when she was injured. That’s not a fun thing to share. The group is sure that their South African minister is the one behind this, and the floronic man is able to confirm it but tapping into some elemental plant spirits and having them listen in on their conversation in South Africa, lol. Then to find out where the hemo-goblin is, floro taps I to the salamanders just all naturally in LA, lol, and has them hunt it down. This gets them the location and hotel room of the hemo-goblin and his mysterious associate. While they don’t end up finding the other guy, which would of been really good for Gloss to know about, they do find hemo-goblin and proceed to tag team beat the crap out of him. The funny thing is that even when they get him bloody and on the ground and security starts to show up, they just leave him on the ground and dip out and regroup at their motel room, lol, just letting the cops find him instead of face potential liability for the damages to the hotel room I guess. But as they regroup, celebrate, decide their name should be the new guardians, and can’t wait for the next day…they get a knock at the door. It’s their old friend Tom, what a nice surprise! Except he doesn’t come with good news, apparently none of them have been watching the news. Hemo-goblin is dead but not at their hands, he died in custody from AIDS as he was already sick. OOOF, uh…Jet and Harbinger may need to get tested. What an insane way to end things for the first issue.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 31, 2026
Since there's not a series entry, I'm leaving my review of the entire 12 issues series here. It starts off really strong, even with Englehart getting into it with editorial and leaving the book after the 2nd issue. Those first 2 issues are excellent though. Englehart creates one of the first openly gay characters in Extrrano. This character, Hemo-Goblin (what an awesome name) is infected with AIDS by one of the New Guardians who left and went back to South Africa, Janwilliem Kroef. He turns into the big bad for this series. Hemo-Goblin infects 3 characters with the AIDS virus through bites. The 2nd issue brings in Snowflame, a supervillain fueled by cocaine. (I love that idea for a villain.) Cary Bates and then Kevin Dooley write the rest of the run and the stories get more mundane. There's a couple of Invasion tie ins and then the team heads to South Africa to get Tom's pregnant wife back from Kroef who has kidnapped her. It's real shame Englehart left. He seemed to be cooking up something special.
From Englehart's website. (BTW, this website is extremely interesting and contains tidbits on everything Englehart has written, from Englehart himself.)
I thought this little tidbit was really funny:
From Englehart's website. (BTW, this website is extremely interesting and contains tidbits on everything Englehart has written, from Englehart himself.)
MILLENNIUM spawned a new series starring the heroes created therein. It was supposed to be an advance in comics comparable to COYOTE™ - the next step in a more realistic approach to superheroes - and to that end I got a promise from the highest powers at DC that I could do sex, drugs, and politics, unhindered.
I put all those into the first issue and they were taken out. I went to the man who'd given me the promise and he reneged. So I walked away.
But my insistance on including a gay hero, first in MILLENNIUM and then here, paid off down the line when DC founded a sub-line called Milestone and allowed it to use gay issues with no interference from above.
I thought this little tidbit was really funny:
The original title for this series was TRUMPS, but New York thinking was that this would offend The Donald. I'm not making this up.
July 17, 2024
I'm not generally a fan of Steve Englehart. Granted, I've only read a few issues of his Green Lantern run and Millenium, but largely what I've seen from him ends up dull at best and questionable at worst. What I will give the man is that he loves swinging for the fences, challenging the status quo and trying to evolve his characters to a place readers haven't seen before. New Guardians, in my opinion, is his most successful attempt at that while keeping me engaged.
Is it perfect? Heck no. Englehart's ambitions outshine what the book ultimately delivers. But it has a leg up over the debut of these characters in Millenium because this story is able to focus solely on these people rather than getting lost in trying to be an event book at the same time.
I went in expecting a train wreck. I instead got a fun, if flawed, first outing with a team many comic fans do not remember fondly. I look forward to seeing if Englehart will continue to keep me engaged in the following installments. Especially with next issue's big debut of a certain cocaine-powered supervillain.
Is it perfect? Heck no. Englehart's ambitions outshine what the book ultimately delivers. But it has a leg up over the debut of these characters in Millenium because this story is able to focus solely on these people rather than getting lost in trying to be an event book at the same time.
I went in expecting a train wreck. I instead got a fun, if flawed, first outing with a team many comic fans do not remember fondly. I look forward to seeing if Englehart will continue to keep me engaged in the following installments. Especially with next issue's big debut of a certain cocaine-powered supervillain.
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