Burning out like a supernova

Cause I feel like taking off, let me be your supernova.

Now who was it that sang that song? It popped up in my head when I started writing this post. Oh right, it was by Mr Hudson and…. Oh, nevermind. Let’s move on. The supernovas were introduced to us as these big game changers at the start of the Sabaody Archipelago arc and some of them definitely had a big impact on the story of One Piece. But did the worst generation truly live up to the hype, or did they sort of fizzle out into nobodies half the time? Let’s take today to dive into each of these rookies and look at their story. Where did they start, what did they accomplish and where are they now? I’m excluding Zoro and Luffy for obvious reasons. This post will also contain spoilers up until the most recent chapters, especially pertaining to those supernovae we see at that point in the story.

So apparently Blackbeard is a member of the supernovas, also often referred to as the worst generation. Since I plan to write about everyone’s favorite laughing villain in a separate post, I’ll keep things short. He’s the only supernova outside of our main duo who we knew a fair bit about prior to Sabaody. He encountered Luffy in Jaya and got Ace locked up after all. He was making big moves while the rest of the rookies were still just making a name for themselves. He also wasn’t present at Sabaody with the rest of the supernovas.

“The mad monk” Urouge is arguably the member of the supernovas that we know the least about. We’ve seen him act very little throughout the story, but we do know a few things about him. For starters, he likely hails from a sky island, sporting a haircut reminiscent of Skypiea in a drawing as a child. He can grow in strength but was – understandably – no match for Kizaru when himself, Kuma and Sentomaru wreaked havoc on Sabaody. He was later fighting in Big Mom’s territory, taking out one of her four sweet commanders before being defeated by Cracker. I personally don’t expect we’ll see him again unless he somehow ends up relevant to Enel and his grand return. At least I hope we’ll see Enel return.

One of the supernovas we work with for quite a while is Capone Bege. The mobster boss with a body that functions as a fortress is our ally throughout Whole Cake Island. He cares about his family but is quick to betray others. His entire plan in joining with the Big Mom pirates was to one day betray her after all. He is married to Charlotte Chiffon who is Lola’s twin sister. This gives the Straw Hat Crew an in with him and although tensions are high at fights, eventually things calm down and they become a solid block, working together on the Big Mom assassination plan. They manage to escape Big Mom’s territory against all odds and that’s the last we’ve seen from them, despite some short appearances in side stories.

The next few supernovas will be discussed in batches since their effect on the plot is similar to each other. The first one of these groups we’ll talk about is the trio of Apoo, Hawkins & X-Drake.
This trio ends up working for Kaido. Apoo and Hawkins do so after they lose a fight alongside Kid & Killer, but X-Drake does so of his own accord and ends up going through the ranks until he’s one of Kaido’s Tobi Roppo. Each of their stories fizzles out during the Wano arc. Hawkins dies and although both Apoo and X-Drake survive, I don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of them. What is interesting to note though, is that X-Drake is a member of Sword. And although I doubt he’ll play a big role in the upcoming story, seeing as his story feels played out, I do think we might see him fighting along Sword members in the future. His father was also the one who had possession of the Ope Ope no Mi before Law took hold of it.

Just like how the previous three were mentioned as a group, Kid & Killer are sort of a package deal. Kid is the captain and Killer is his right hand man in the same way that Zoro and Luffy work together. I believe Oda originally wrote them as foil for Zoro and Luffy, with them being the only other crew that had two supernovas on their side. The duo does well for themselves until they lose the aforementioned fight against Kaido. Kid gets locked up and Killer is forced to eat a smile fruit, ending up as a miserable assassin for Orochi. Eventually the duo joins with the alliance to take down Kaido and both Killer and Kid become crucial in that fight. Unfortunately, their story ends rather abruptly after they make the poor decision to attack Shanks’ crew at Elbaf, resulting in the emperor and his two giant friends annihilating the Kid Pirates. There’s only room for one red-headed emperor on this ocean, I’m afraid.

Now if you’ve kept count, there are only two entries left in this list. There are a total of twelve supernovae and I believe that five out of these twelve – including Luffy and Zoro of course – will end up being crucial to the final arc of One Piece. We’ve already talked about Blackbeard, so that leaves Law and Bonney. Law is an interesting one, which we’ve spent much more time with than any of the other members of the supernova. We first met him on Sabaody and he was the one who saved Luffy at the end of the Paramount War. We then see him again on Punk Hazard where he becomes an ally for Luffy and his crew for most of the four emperor saga, only separating from the Straw Hats at the end of Wano. He then had the bad luck to run into Blackbeard who desperately wanted his devil fruit. Whereas Kid quite clearly got destroyed, Law got away with the help of Bepo, his polar bear mink friend. Still, the fight against Blackbeard all but ruined the Heart Pirates which is a real shame as I quite liked them.

Last one, and it’s a good one. This will also be the one with the most spoilers so if you somehow got to this point but don’t want to get spoiled for the most recent arcs, I suggest you step back now. Let’s talk about the child.
That’s right, Jewelry Bonney, the gluttonous pirate captain that seemed abrasive from the start is actually just a little girl masquerading as an adult. It was fairly obvious from early on in the story that Bonney was going to be an important character but I can’t say I really guessed what her role would be until we got to her story. It turns out she is the daughter of none other than Bartholomew Kuma. Not biological, but if uncle Phil taught us one thing it’s that your father is the man who raised you, not the man who helped conceive you. It’s just that for a lot of people they overlap. Either way, Kuma turned into a cyborg so that Vegapunk could cure Bonney and now Bonney is searching for revenge against the world who took her father away from her in such a brutal way. She took pity on Vegapunk in the end, but with all the chaos on Egghead most of him died anyway. One thing that makes her interesting is that her distorted future abilities allow her to be as free as Luffy is in his Nika form, but to a much lesser extent. She seems to be there for the ride and I expect her to end up with the revolutionary army in some capacity by the end of the story, although what that will look like I don’t know. For now she’s with us on Elbaf. 

And there you have it. The twelve rookies in a quick overview. Luffy and Zoro seem to be at the very apex of this group although Blackbeard seems to be in a similar position as well, having some incredibly powerful people under him. I think ultimately most of the supernovas have a role to play in the story. Apoo and Hawkins showed us that some dreams get cut short brutally. Urouge filled a somewhat similar role while also giving us some more nuance when it comes to the Big Mom pirates. Both X-Drake and Bege had a fun role to play in their respective arcs and then disappeared from the story. The three big captains of Luffy, Law and Kid were needed to surpass the wall that is the previous generation and lastly Bonney was there to break our collective hearts. With Urouge being the least interesting one from the bunch, I think the supernovae are now done with their story and I think that Oda did a great job making them all feel important enough to be worthy of that position. But those are my thoughts and my opinions, perhaps you disagree with me. If so, please let me know in the comments down below. Thanks for reading.