Young Avengers #1

The long awaited Young Avengers where nothing is really yet explained (of course) but hey, with a sub-title like ‘Style > Substance’, it’s almost expected. I hope you like watching teenagers run around for reasons not entirely revealed yet.

Writer: Kieron Gillen | Artist: Jamie McKelvie & Mike Norton

Cover: Jamie McKelvie & Matthew Wilson | Publisher: Marvel

Welcome to Camp-- er, Camp.  But I guess when your cast of superheroes is a handful of teenagers it’s bound to be camp. It’s reminiscent of watching the first two seasons of Buffy, teens running around, relationship drama, and ‘hip’ language. Perhaps Gillen’s time spent on Tumblr is getting to him.

There’s been a lot of hype built up for this series, but if I weren’t already in love with the selected team members, this first issue wouldn’t have sold me on it. In fact, the little bit in Marvel Point One, was a more exciting selling point. That’s not to say this issue wasn’t good, but maybe it was over-hyped and built up expectations rather high. Or maybe I’m just getting old, and the trysts of teenagers evoke a more faint emotion in me. Maybe I’m just jumping the gun too early on this, hoping for something big to happen right away, when Gillen probably wants the readers to get the characters first before throwing them all together. And in that sense it’s great, we know exactly what’s bugging Billy and Teddy and at least our token couple can acknowledge just how cheesy they are, though it doesn’t take away from the idea that I came for serious drama and villain butt-kicking not four pages of teenager romance (I mean I knew there were going to be sweet moments because hello, token couple of Marvel right now, but wow, that was four pages!).

We get good handfuls of Billy, Teddy, Loki (of course, he’s the one who’s putting all this in motion), and even Miss America, but not nearly enough of Kate and Noh-Varr, who is this very attractive Kree-boy, and all we know of him so far is that he enjoys dancing around in his underwear while dancing to sixties music (not that I’m totally complaining though, bless his Kree-soul).

Young Avengers isn’t necessarily a book for beginners though, I’ve mentioned a lot of names already that have quite a bit of back story, and it’s clear that while they’ll be having a lot of new adventures, those backstories are still carried on here, and provides for useful fodder going in. (Though Gillen himself has stated that Kate’s adventures here are totally separate that those in Hawkeye, you’d be a fool to not know just how badass she is from the Hawkeye series). If you have the AR app, there’s a snippet on Loki for those who didn’t read Journey Into Mystery, but there was so much that happened, and there are still questions that need to be answered from JiM that may get around to be answered in YA.

Stylistically, I’m fond of the paneling, it’s fun, and matches the entire essence that I think they’re going for here; my favourite always is when either Wanda, or in this case Billy, is going through alternate realities, it just always looks so cool, and it really gives you the sense of how crazy their power really is. As for the script, it’s hard to say. They speak as you’d expect them to speak, they’re teenagers, but for old souls like me, it’s hard not to raise an eyebrow. That’s not a jab at Gillen’s writing, he’s totally on game, it’s mostly just me being a grump perhaps. But, the nerdy/cultural references are always appreciated.

So far I think what will make readers keep coming back to YA is their love of the characters. The one action scene that happened was a two-page spread, while Billy and Teddy’s emotional back and forth got four pages. Maybe the action picks up later on, but based on first issue, this is what I’m getting.