From 1993, New Warriors Annual #3, "Tough Choices" Story and art by Darick Robertson, inks by Ian Akin. In the lead story, Speedball exclaims how great it is to have more control over his powers, and not just be bouncing around "like a complete feeb!" That way lies Penance, you know...I rather prefer Speedball as well-meaning yet somewhat hapless, so it's weird to see him as somewhat competent; but that would get rolled back eventually.
Robertson would go on to do Transmetropolitan, the Boys, and Ballistic; so this is pretty early work for him. In "Tough Choices" Speedball has to stand up to a bully without blowing his secret identity, which means turning the other cheek no matter how much he'd rather not. In the next year's annual's back-up, he seems to have given up on that, and resolves to give his bully an ass-kicking...as Speedball!
From 1994, New Warriors Annual #4, "Two Sides" Written by Robertson, pencils by Stephen (J. B.) Jones, inks by Ron Boyd. Following his bully home, Speedball eventually realizes his bully lives in the bad end of town, and is getting a heaping helping of abuse from his father. I think Speedball's still considering beating his ass until he sees him bawling.
Just recently acquiring these again (EDIT: these two might have been new to me...) I read both these annuals and one of their appearances in the Kings of Pain crossover; all three had a ton of guest-stars. And the Warriors were a fair-sized team, so they were crowded books!
Thankfully his works gotten so much better since then, but hey, gotta' start somewhere. You can really see the difference after working on the main NW book when he started do Trans.
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