(w) Keiron Gillen
(a) Jamie McKelvie w/ Mike Norton (line art) Matthew Wilson (colors)
In 2005, writer Allan Heinberg and artist Jim Cheung surprised people with the original new series Young Avengers, a title which was originally believed to be a poorly-conceived spin-off of Marvel's most popular property at the time, New Avengers but which turned out to be so much more in terms of narrative heft and overall quality. Heinberg's characters were utterly compelling to read, and Cheung's art was A-list quality. Notwithstanding decent sales, though, and a pretty positive impact among readers, the series did not last more than twelve issues before it went on what was described as a "hiatus" apparently due the fact that writer Heinberg's many other writing commitments prevented him from getting the book out on a regular basis. Heinberg was later able to get enough scripts together for the mammoth miniseries Avengers: The Children's Crusade, which reunited him with artist Cheung about two years back, but between those two series the Young Avengers have been little more than supporting players in other Marvel characters' books, with the occasional appearance in the pages of Marvel's "events" like Secret Invasion or Siege. After Children's Crusade wrapped, it looked as though the Young Avengers having their own adventures in their own book was going to be a thing of the past.
Fortunately, however, Marvel had other ideas, and as a result, last month the Young Avengers, albeit with a tweaked roster, started appearing in their own monthly book once more.
Of the original Young Avengers, only Kate Bishop aka Hawkeye (a redundant name if ever there was one, and one I sincerely hope Marvel changes, if not now then eventually), Billy Kaplan aka Wiccan, and Teddy Altman aka Hulkling remain, though they have been joined by new members Noh-varr, or the Kree warrior formerly known as Marvel Boy/Captain Marvel/The Protector, Miss America, a fledgling powerhouse of a superhero, and most significantly, Kid Loki, the actual god of mischief who has cheated the death that he apparently suffered in the Siege storyline, only to be transformed into a child.
Issue #1 begins with Kate Bishop apparently just having enjoyed a roll in the proverbial hay with Noh-Varr (the hay actually being his orbiting spaceship), shortly after which they are attacked by Skrulls. Meanwhile, Teddy and Billy are having issues; Teddy has resumed superhero work on the sly despite the team resolving at the end of the cataclysmic events in Children's Crusade to hang up their tights for good. Billy finds out, and they fight, with Teddy reminding Billy of all they have lost. Teddy reminds Billy of how lucky he is to still have parents considering that the Skrull who raised him, the only mother he knew, was killed. Feeling guilty for giving Teddy a hard time, Billy decides to do what any good boyfriend would do and raise Teddy's mother from the dead by pulling her out of one of the universe's many time streams at the moment before she was evaporated by the Super Skrull.
Meanwhile, Loki, who is apparently freeloading at a diner, senses that Wiccan is about to cast a spell and, appearing on top of the apartment building where Billy and Teddy live with Billy's parents, tries to counteract it before he is interrupted by Miss America, who is about to pummel him when he magically slips away from her grasp, but not before their fight attracts Teddy's attention.
The spell works, with Teddy's mother apparently very much back from the dead, but it is not without its consequences.
In issue #2, Wiccan and Hulkling learn that the latter's apparently resurrected mother is not quite what she seems, with dire consequences for them both. Not even the Avengers are able to bail them out of this situation, and they find themselves imprisoned in a curious fashion. Of all people, it's kid-Loki who bails them out, ostensibly because he wants to help them, but at least partially because he needs someone to settle his considerable tab at the diner. Wiccan and Hulkling, who somehow feel Loki has had a hand in their predicament, then apparently decide that the best thing to do with Loki is take him to Asgardia, which is basically the rebranded Asgard, floating over Oklahoma.
Gillen won me over with his run on Thor, which I recently picked up in collected form, and when I found out he was writing the further adventures of Loki and that the Young Avengers were finally coming back to their own regular series, albeit without series creators Heinberg and Cheung, picking up the new series was an easy decision.
For the most part, I was happy with issue #1, though there were some details that stifled my enjoyment the tiniest bit.
For one thing, the depiction of Wiccan in particular was a bit of departure from the way he was written by Heinberg and drawn by Cheung. I always found him a well-written character, and having him recite Gillen's dialogue here was quite a treat, save for the fact that he's gone from being a superhero who happened to be gay to being, to paraphrase Nathan Lane's character from The Birdcage, a bit of a screaming queen, from his flamboyant hair to his mannerisms. Heinberg didn't make a big thing of this when he was writing the book, despite the fact that he himself is openly gay. This little storytelling tic doesn't detract significantly from his character, but it distracts from what matters most to the story. Another very minor niggle I had was with the notion that Kate Bishop's parents would be fans of sixties music considering that, considering Kate's age, they would probably more likely have grown up with the likes of the Bangles and the Go-gos (80s music) than the Ronettes (60s music). That's an even more minor concern than my objections to Billy's characterization, but it was still a slight distraction, though the action sequence that followed it was incredible. The overall issue was pretty solid.
Issue #2 was a bit more problematic for me. It was a lot of fun seeing kid-Loki interact with Wiccan and Hulkling, with the scene in which he frees them from their magical prisons being a visual treat and his dialogue with the two of them in the diner being particularly amusing, especially his dig at Wiccan's codename, which made me wonder if Loki even knew that Wiccan originally called himself "Asgardian." However, Wiccan's and Hulkling's eventual decision to haul Loki off to Asgardia doesn't make the most sense to me, because even though it is suggested that they believe he is behind their woes I still got the impression they were going off half-cocked instead of having a real plan. Well, they are teenagers, after all, and they may have made a mistake they may yet live to regret.
As Gillen's writing goes, however, the pacing here feels a tad slower than the stuff he had going on during his run on Thor. I breezed through these issues with the impression that little had happened, although of course, the twist at the end of issue #1 was still a doozy. Also, although all of the characters to be featured in the book have already shown up, it appears that I may yet have to wait for at least another issue or two for them to get together as a team, assuming it even happens within this story arc. There's arguably something very deliberate to Gillen's pacing, and it does seem on the one hand like he's lining things up for a big payoff later in the arc, or in the series, but considering that my first exposure to his writing was his Thor stint, which had several explosive three issue-arcs (and a couple of one-shots at that) contained in one big volume, his work here still feels relatively static. Still, his gift for lively and compelling dialogue still shines through here. Gillen, I would like to point out, writes an exceptional Loki.
Another truly exemplary aspect of this new series is the work of Jamie McKelvie, aided in some capacity by Mike Norton. While McKelvie is probably mostly responsible for Billy's new look that I kind of find a little too "beauty parlor gay" his character work is otherwise beyond reproach, as are his panel layouts, which I first glimpsed in the Siege: Loki one-shot reprinted in the aforementioned Thor volume. In particular, when the battle between Noh-Varr and the Skrulls breaks out in the first couple of pages, McKelvie's depiction of the action is pretty outstanding. I wasn't too thrilled with Matthew Wilson's palette of colors, though, considering I'm a bigger fan of the more "showy" colorists like Laura Martin and Morry Hollowell. Overall, though, the art is one of this book's strongest points.
Reservations about Gillen's pacing aside, this is a very engaging book and compares decently enough to the other titles in the Marvel NOW! line, even though it is not my favorite. Still, it is the only book Marvel has right now featuring Loki, and after reading Gillen's take on him over in Thor I can say with certainty that this is a book I want to follow.
3.5/5
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