First impressions of New Blood #1

I had been looking forward to this story for a long time, when I learned it was originally scheduled to take place after Summer Games 2021 (before McCree’s name change). I would like to avoid at least here to comment “what is his name” (that there are far too many comments elsewhere) and instead focus on this new saga after London Calling. I absolutely don’t want to hide that London Calling was great for tidying Overwatch’s early media but it also has one of the worst endings and a baddest logical coherence of the lore (read vol 4 and 5 to understand what I mean).

but here we are, a new comic saga, based on “McCassidy” (and here we all agree and disagree) embarking on a journey. I honestly found meeting Ana without any mention of Soldier and what happened to Valkirie’s narrative very boring. I mean, was Jack just absent to make storytelling easy? I don’t know, the whole talk with McCassidy is the usual talk of whether Ow should come back that we hear from Reunion, Honor & Glory or Zero Hour. but I like that there is a peaceful relationship between the two. perhaps I would have just expected some mutual questions about damage to the body (eye and arm).

what has thrilled me now is the departure to reunite some heroes. sorry that there doesn’t seem to be any suspense for a new hero teaser (as we also read in the encounter between Symmetra and Zenyatta), but I was quite thrilled to see how D.Va, Pharah and Zarya can actually merge into Ow coming soon.

the most interesting part is absolutely pharah with the promise that we will (finally) see the meeting with the mother! we always had a lot of doubts in the dialogue game about their actual relationship during a meeting. and somehow, defining this should “close” our curiosity about Ana, who is perhaps one of the most told characters in the lore in an extremely orderly and precise way. opening up our curiosity for pharah through McCassidy is definitely a great connection with the mother. really, i love it.

what amazes me but at the same time intrigues me is the future with D.Va and Zarya. Shooting Star was an extremely trivial short film in terms of “evolution” of the character (or rather, not very incisive), and defining her position with an external collaboration through McCassidy is perhaps ideal. But Zarya? I find this collaboration stranger but also the strangest.

note that we have new chronological references:

  • Ana would have abandoned Necropolis, a sign that she has already had her contacts with S76 and presumably with Mercy;
  • Shooting Star has already happened, and you can see it on the screen;

obviously we cannot exclude that Ana was talking about another secret base (she has many) and that the one on the screen was a generic fight with the Gwishin. but we can absolutely confirm that mcCree’s journey takes place after Reunion: the motorcycle stolen by Ashe and the total exclusion of including Echo in this team of recruits.

but if I have to be completely honest: perhaps I would have gladly seen the involvement of Lucio or Orisa as candidate heroes, or even new unpublished heroes. but I also think the auttuale list is optimal: too many heroes to tell would create the bad narrative management we saw in london calling, decadent in my opinion due to too many arguments introduced up to the epilogue. in 5 volumes it is absolutely necessary to prove to be able to manage well the rhythms and the quantity of notions.

opinions? in hype for the reunion between mother and daughter?

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Honestly, zarya joining overwatch seems a little weird to me. On one hand, I mean, what else are you supposed to do with the hero?

But on the other hand I just don’t feel it makes much sense for her character. I also agree that not mentioning Ana’s other reunions was rather lazy.

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We also know that this picks up immediately after Reunion, since Cassidy still has Ashe’s bike (which also puts it around the same time as Zero Hour, since that happens shortly after Reunion as well).

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I thought it was really good. I didn’t mind not mentioning Soldier since this was a comic about Ana and McCassidy’s personal relationship. Ana did mention he wasn’t the “only one from the old crew” she’s seen recently. The comic is overall a great starting point as Cowboy Man recruits new people for OW2.

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I am honestly just so happy that Pharah has made her first appearance in the lore since her debut comic, which came out before the game itself was out. Pharah is by far my favourite hero, so ive been waiting many many years for this. I can barely process it. but im very very happy!!!

my only concerns are that I really thought Fareeha was in a position to become Overwatch’s commander, like her mother had been. It seems so odd to give it to Cole over her, but I understand her being hesitant, because of her relationship with her daughter. It does also seem odd to involve Cole in thier relationship, too?

But Im very happy this reunion is happening. I feared it would never happen. All we know is that Fareeha never responded to her letter. Im so excited!!

I wish I knew when the next issue is coming out!!!

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I dont see why people expect Pharah to lead Overwatch when she isnt even a member yet. She wouldn’t join at the top - Reinhardt, Winston, Sojourn, heck even Tracer outrank her.

He’s not the leader of Overwatch either - he’s just recruiting people. Based on the storyboards, it looks like Sojourn takes the leadership position, which makes sense seeing as she’s the highest ranked.

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Reinhardt. Sojourn and Cassidy outrank Pharah, but Winston and Tracer no. She has more time of service in the military than Tracer, and Winston is a civilian, and as far as we know members like him, or Mercy, Mei or Moira were never given military ranks. But I don’t think even blizzad’s writers know how this stuff work in their universe.

Now, considering the NEOverwatch is, well, a new organization, the rank distinctions become way less important.

Which comes to the other point, you don’t hire an award winning movie director to direct an amateur movie. Pharah is a decorated soldier, the same way she left the army to the position of security chief in Helix, she should leave Helix to lead, at least, her own strike team in ow. I don’t agree with the notion of her being the strike commander like they said, that could be a possible future development for her character.

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Mei no, but Mercy and Moira were field agents, both were at the very least combat medics. Mercy is the head of Medical research and joined Overwatch quite early, so she has seniority. All field agents have a rank that’s a parallel to a military organization ranking, so Winston is not a civilian. Mei was a civilian though (although not anymore in NeoOw).

If first hand experience for participating in Overwatch field missions is more important to leading a strike team, then Tracer or Mercy would be picked over Pharah for that role. Tracer has already lead one strike team, and Sojourn also vouched for her.


Winston will be taking Morrion’s role as de-jure leader, Sojourn is the de-facto leader who was an Overwatch captain like Ana (Both are very competent), and Cassidy is I guess Reye’s parallel.

Now that I type all of this out, I actually believe that Winston, Sojourn and Cassidy replace S76, Ana and Reaper respectfully. Remember the sneak peak at Blizzonline where they showed cinematic rendering of Sojourn, Winston and Cassidy in one shot at Toronto? Seems very symbolic.

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True, but what makes me question it is that during the storm rising event Tracer was the one leading it, and you can’t have a lower ranking officer leading a mission when there is someone higher in the chain of command in the team. Also, Mercy didn’t join Overwatch quite early. Sure, she joined before Tracer, but as a researcher that later became a field agent.

But Pharah has more field experience than both of them. Tracer was in OW for around a year before it was shut down(it’s weird how she quickly became a strike team leader, (comic book logic I guess). Mercy, I can’t tell you precisely when, joined Overwatch in her early to middle 20s at least. She later became a field agent, but when OW was shut down she was around 32 years old, so also not a lot of field time if we compare to Pharah. Mercy can outrank her if they establish that she comes back to NEOverwatch with her head of research position.

Seeing how entusiastic she was to follow her mother’s footsteps, it’s safe to say that she would have enlisted in her late teens. That gives her many years in the military and more in the private sector. If you take out the older soldiers, as Ana put it, I think the only others with more experience than her are Cassidy and Genji(by a little).

It’s fair and logical to her character to be given some leadership role, given that Mercy was also hired by Overwatch for a lead researcher position right away. Since Pharah is already established as decorated soldier that quickly climbed through the ranks.

Also, while Overwatch and it’s heroes were inactive, she was still working as a combatant, in a region, from what we learned from the lore, with a lot of conflict. There’s even hints that she worked with Overwatch to contain Anubis years ago.

I don’t understand why people are so against something that would make perfect sense for the lore. I guess it comes down to just not liking her character, I guess.

And Tracer was an ace pilot (she joined the British military as a teen), and then she got the lowest rank when she went on her first Overwatch field mission. They might have 2 separate ranks: your administrative rank and field rank. So Mercy would be head of researcher, but a combat medic at the least.

Torb might be the head of engineering, but perhaps a junior officer like a sub Lieutenant in the field.

Depending the team compositions, she might actually be a team leader. Although I have my doubts since she is seen with Sojourn, Mercy, Brig and Tracer (pilot of the second Orca) in one shot. So, naturally Sojourn would be the leader in that scenario.

The onus is on the writers to make her a leader though. I would have her be the leader or a co-leader if she was leading the lower ranked recruits like Dva and Lucio.

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I mean, in my country military pilots can join as teens or as adults, it depends.

Which I find super unfair! She just had an accident because of their ship and then when she joins Overwatch they give her the lowest rank. I would sue :laughing:

I don’t think that happens in real life, because it would be super confusing for the chain of command. But in ow lore, who knows?

Of course, but if we use the 2 separate rank system, Pharah would also have a high administrative rank because she is a security chief. What I’m saying is that she is overqualified for her role if all they are going to do with her character is to make her fill a footsoldier(DPS) spot, and if I’m going to be honest with all these years of lore happening in Anubis with them ignoring her character, I think it’s exactly what they are going to do.

That’s what I’m thinking too. For her to symbolizes a new leadership to OW representing the new recruits.
But with what Ana said, it implies that that role falls on Cassidy.

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Mercy does point this out during the mission:

Mercy: You know Tracer, technically I outrank you.
Tracer: Did you want to take over, Dr. Ziegler?
Mercy: Maybe if there's a sudden outbreak of infectious disease.

But I think maybe she defers to Tracer to lead the mission because Tracer was the one assigned as team leader? Or maybe Mercy doesn’t want to lead?

I’m not against the idea, I just question the logic of it.

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A medical professional is always the authority when it comes to people’s health. Which is not a matter of rank. That’s why if someone gets sick in an airplane and there is a doctor onboard, the captain will ask the physician if they need land, giving them this authority that only the captain(and the command tower) has.

So Mercy could be joking about something that is obvious…
I don’t know. It feels like the writers trying to address this rank issue on the team but not really doing a good job at it. That’s one of the things that made me think of the researchers turned agents still being considered civilians.

I get it, something that seems pretty obvious for me that is a Pharah fan might not be for other people. It’s just that people seem to want her character to be perpetually subordinated to Ana’s character or as an OW fangirl, anything beyond that or interaction with other characters that could complement her story is outrageous. Even the writers seem to think so too.

So a big thing also not addressed in this comic is the fact Ana didn’t reveal that Reyes is still alive. I get she didn’t want to add the pressure on but this is a pretty big thing when he is with Talon now. But yes it’s hope a reunion that gets complicated. Maybe calling out Ana being selfish in making all these decisions for everyone else. Not wanting Pharah to join Overwatch, making everyone believe she was dead and leaving her daughter and husband alone to, “protect them”. And leaving a note for Pharah saying I’m leaving you alone because I can’t stop fighting. This had also left a weight on Pharah as a result as she has not been able to say anything for years to her family at Overwatch.

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How will D.Va leave Meka for Cassidy?

That’s the confusing question.

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I think Gabriel will have a part in the next episodes
Because he appeared in the comic’s trailer.
And another thing, cassidy is aware of Gabriel’s condition and he knows that he won’t die that easy… well this is a story for another time (topic)

Well I know he knows about his condition but the fact that he’s still alive is another matter.

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