Now Marvel is introducing the new New Warriors.

The former New Warriors were reality-TV stars. Most were blown to bits in a fight with a group of villains that included the exploding Nitro. It was that event, which killed hundreds of innocent bystanders, that triggered the push for a Superhuman Registration Act and divided the heroes of the Marvel universe in the "Civil War" miniseries.

Now the war is over, with the heroes who supported registration emerging as the victors. That new status quo doesn't sit well with the new team, which refuses to cooperate with the government and submit to registration and training.

"They're more in the line of freedom fighters than anything else, but they're not so political that they get on soapboxes," says "New Warriors" writer Kevin Grevioux.

So who are these new New Warriors? Grevioux isn't saying - not exactly, anyway.

He rattles off a list of superhero names: War Hawk, Wondra, Tempest, Decibel, Ripcord. But he won't reveal their true identities or their connections, if any, to the earlier team.

"A lot of it is really secret," he says, "so I can't go into it too much. There will be a lot of surprises. You'll recognize some of the characters, or you think you will."

The New Warriors aren't the only superhero team operating outside the law: The New Avengers, with such high-profile members as Spider-Man and Wolverine, also oppose registration. What sets the New Warriors apart, Grevioux says, is their youth.

"Like normal teenagers, they think all adults are out to control them."

The New Warriors will be a special thorn in the side of Tony "Iron Man" Stark, who led the pro-registration forces to victory.

"Stark has a particular attitude about them that I really don't want to give away right now," Grevioux says. "Suffice it to say, he is not happy."

Grevioux is hardly new to comics: He's the creator of two comic-book lines, Astounding! Studios and Darkstorm, which are in search of a publisher after the demise of Grevioux's original publisher, Alias Enterprises. But it's his first work for Marvel.

"Dude, this is like a dream come true," says Grevioux, a self-described "Marvel zombie" who lists Marvel's Fantastic Four and the Hulk as his favorite comic-book characters.

Grevioux is not your everyday comics writer. He's a 6-foot-2 former microbiologist who abandoned graduate school to pursue a screenwriting career. The science-fiction buff wrote the story for "Underworld," the 2003 movie that pitted vampires against werewolves, and also appeared as the character Raze in the movie. As an actor, he's also had small parts in films including Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" and "Men in Black II." (He was the alien with a third eye high on his forehead.)

He has some noncomics projects in the works, he says, but nothing he's ready to disclose.

"The writing is more important to me than the acting is," Grevioux says. "That is where everything starts, and I love being part of that."