Young Avengers, New comics

New comics!
Batman/Catwoman 3

It’s hard to come up with new stuff to say about this.  The usual early Tom King series fun, beautiful Clay Mann art.

Future State: Catwoman 2

At the end of the day, an Elseworlds story that probably wasn’t worth the purchase price: Otto Schmidt has done better work, this one was a little too sketchy.  One moment that I thought was nice:

Strange Academy 1-6

Heard some good buzz for this, and the Humberto Ramos art is excellent.  Don’t think it’s quite good enough to keep buying, though.

Young Avengers 1-12

Young Avengers Special 1

Not as fun as my memory recalls.  The Jim Cheung art is still gorgeous, but I realized that aside from Kate Bishop, I never found myself caring about any of the other team members; Patriot is a whiny, bitter, close-minded dick, Wiccan and Hulkling have little to distinguish themselves outside of “gay couple,” Stature can’t talk about anything besides her dead father, and Iron Lad takes off after five issues.  The concept of the Young Avengers is really strong, but the execution is surprisingly lacking.  

Always loved Cheung's Hawkeye design.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Civil War: Runaways and Young Avengers 1-4

Typical fight-each-other-make-up-then-fight-the-bad-guys crossover.  Sets up Noh-Varr for Kieron Gillen’s run.  I expected more from writer Zeb Wells after his hilarious Avenging Spider-Man stint.  Stefano Caselli’s distorted ugly faces are great for Secret Warriors, but not at all suitable for a book starring teenagers.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Young Avengers Presents 1-6

Meh.  Character building pieces for the team, but nothing that grabs my attention.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Avengers: Children’s Crusade 1-9

More fun than the original Young Avengers series, but I’m again underwhelmed despite the epicness of Wanda’s return.  Too much of it feels derivative, I think.  The argument over what punishment Wanda deserves for No More Mutants is a retread of all the Dark Phoenix disputes.  (Though AvX happens after this, I think.)  

For all his bluster about being willing to do the hard thing...

...even Wolverine is not immune to monologuing.

Doom with cosmic level powers was already done in the original Secret Wars.  Cyclops being a dick...well, he’s always been a dick.  

Eli's clearly a Scott-in-training.

What an idiot.

But damn if Jim Cheung doesn’t draw a stunning Scarlet Witch.

LOVE this outfit.

At the end of the series, the Young Avenger deaths had no emotional effect on me at all; the final indictment of its success (failure) as a series.    

Yeah, no great loss.

Credit to Allan Heinberg, though, for writing some pretty funny moments:

Callback to an amazing issue...

...with a superb retcon.

Kate rocks.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Young Avengers: Children’s Crusade 1

A waste of time one-shot explaining Iron Lad’s return in the series.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Didn’t suck

Young Avengers 1-15

Kieron Gillen’s run starts off with a bang.  I was completely enjoying myself with his sense of humor, the magnificent Jamie McKelvie art (super creative layouts!), and the overall fun. 

Three pages into the first issue...

...and I'm hooked.

I'm a fan of the humor.

But as things went on, one major factor dragged it down:  I hate Mother, and the fact that she’s the big bad makes her unignorable.  Her powers are visually gross (what she does to Hulkling is nightmare material) and her level of unfairness pisses me off.  Her unavoidable off-screen presence places a constant feeling of dread over the story that exhausts me and detracts from the reading experience.  

Gross gross gross gross

One of the not gross powers.  This is just sweet art.

But it sure is pretty.

I like that I never noticed until they called it out in the last issue.

Even the credits are amazing.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good to Nice after five or so issues

   

That’s it for X-Men box 6, with some Young Avengers thrown in to fill it out!

Box summary

Time spent reading: 17 hours 18 minutes

Issues read: 171

Issues cut: 5

Highlights (Good or better): Most of Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men, the Ultimates arc of All-Star X-Men

Project Summary:

Time spent reading: 33 days, 16 hours, 37 minutes

Issues read: 6940

Issues cut: 844