Young Avengers
Apr. 17th, 2014 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkI just read Young Avengers "Ultimate Collection" (#1-#12 + Special #1, man comics numbering is confusing.) I enjoyed it a lot. :)
First: graphics! I don't read a lot of comics: I read Asterix as a kid, and later Manga but they're black and white, and Watchmen, which is pretty but also much darker. So I enjoyed the colors and some of the bigger panels and entrances :) I liked the art in general (In the middle the art style changed suddenly, probably a different artist, not sure why, but fortunately not long.)
Wheee team! Hard question: what do you do with superpowered teenagers? Cassie is 14! (How old are the others? Billy and Tommy are 16, I'd guess most of them about 15/16.) Because as they repeatedly pointed out, how do you stop them? Except threaten to tell their parents. The effectiveness of that was sort of hilarious, despite the fact that several of them have very bad masks.
Do you train them to improve their chances or not? That's what ends up happening because Kate guilt-trips Cap into it, but she doesn't mention that because of their inexperience they could be liabilities.
(Is there a superhero school other than Xavier's for mutants? There should be.)
So many characters! I liked the intro and then Jessica Jones (!) and Kat Farrell, and the Avengers in the background (well kind of), I even recognized almost every one of them. (All except Sentry and a guy on the Avengers group picture who is purple bubbly gas and has a big W on his chest.)
The Young Avengers are dorks. And fanboys/girls, it's hilarious. And not very good at this superhero stuff... at least not yet.
Nate: poor guy :( More than not going back and becoming Kang he doesn't want to forget. (That was cruel, Eli/Billy.) But this is comics, I'm sure he'll be back.
Eli: asdsafasd Eli, darling. So desperate to be someone, do something, belong somewhere, be respected and relevant. He'll be a leader one day, but he's also a hothead. Actually having superpowers will make him more confident, I wonder if he'll become a bit more mellow ;) And probably the whole thing where he got exposed as a liar and temporarily quit also contributes.
Kate! Kicking ass in a beautiful purple dress, among other outfits. I want all the stories about her and her sister. Smart and confident and not afraid to speak her mind and/or break some rules. Hates to be underestimated. And anyone would be stupid to.
Billy and Teddy are adorable, together and on their own. Teddy's mom's self-help books! Dinner with the parents-in-law! And very protective of each other, awww.
I have to admit I'm not quite sure what to make of Cassie. I like what they did with most of the (family)backgrounds, but with Cassie her relationship with her dad, mom, and step-dad kind of dominates everything, and I find it hard to get a feel for her for some reason because whenever the focus is on her it's not exactly a typical situation. She develops a crush on Iron Lad extremely quickly, mostly adrenaline. She's 14, which is extremely young. The only teammates we've really seen her interacting with are Nate and Kate. (All the Cassie&Kate sister stories, please.)
Vision: stubborn, heh. Could become interesting - what kind of data does he have, exactly? How many other candidates for the fail-safe program? (And how many of them will they visit? It was either pure coincidence or an algorithm that had Tommy first. They could just as well have decided not to recruit someone in juvie and asked the next one. I want that story.)
Tommy: Haven't seen a lot of him yet, but he's a familiar "type." Could be amusing.
I like how annoyed everyone was with "time travel, not again", heh. Complicated stuff, that. Also realities and so on.
Teddy's origins: Uh, so what happens when the Kree/Skrull find out? I mean Teddy was probably right saying he's just another excuse, but still... Also someone give me the fic where the Superskrull dies and Teddy does have to go himself. And the one where he finds out that the deception led to a lot of chaos and bad stuff and feels guilty. I don't know enough about space politics in Marvel 'verse to speculate, unfortunately.
Poor Teddy, watching his mom burn to death in front of him... and Billy not being able to save her; he seemed to hold a grudge against the Super Skrull for longer than Teddy, which I attribute to Teddy being in shock and very confused.
To recap: Teddy's family (biological parents and his mom) is dead. Billy's is alive and they know about the superhero thing and his powers because of what happened in their living room. Eli's grandparents know because Cap told them. Cassie's mom knows because Jessica told her. Kate's dad doesn't know yet, but she doesn't seem too bothered and just says that he wouldn't believe it. The only thing we know about Tommy's parents is that they're divorced. So even the "we'll tell your parents"-threat is ineffective now ;)
So how effective are they actually as a team? They're untrained and young, so in a big hit-everyone battle like with the Kree and Skrull they can do okay but with things that require plans? Eli and Kate have some studying to do. The Vision could also help. Tommy is new, but otherwise they do seem willing and capable of working together, so that bodes well. And they have time.
With time, I wonder if Billy isn't overpowered? So far we haven't seen limits to his spells except his own inexperience, and if he's Wanda's kid, uh-oh. Scary powerful. Maybe even more so because he doesn't really know what he's doing. (Who'll train him? It needs to be a magician, there can't be that many candidates.)
In short, I want all the stories. Eventually I'll read more canon too, of course, but I don't know when yet, probably during the summer holidays. (And I've read some spoilers about later issues that I'm not looking forward to.) This is comics, so it's certain that before they're twenty they'll have material for enough nightmares to last a lifetime. But hopefully nothing too traumatic or long-lasting... that seems futile to even write.
I've already started on AO3 and found some that I enjoyed, like Teenage Wasteland, an at times unexpectedly dark pre-canon Billy/Teddy fic; a Pacific Rim crossover; Tommy and the Kaplans etc. But if you have any recs, please share :)
First: graphics! I don't read a lot of comics: I read Asterix as a kid, and later Manga but they're black and white, and Watchmen, which is pretty but also much darker. So I enjoyed the colors and some of the bigger panels and entrances :) I liked the art in general (In the middle the art style changed suddenly, probably a different artist, not sure why, but fortunately not long.)
Wheee team! Hard question: what do you do with superpowered teenagers? Cassie is 14! (How old are the others? Billy and Tommy are 16, I'd guess most of them about 15/16.) Because as they repeatedly pointed out, how do you stop them? Except threaten to tell their parents. The effectiveness of that was sort of hilarious, despite the fact that several of them have very bad masks.
Do you train them to improve their chances or not? That's what ends up happening because Kate guilt-trips Cap into it, but she doesn't mention that because of their inexperience they could be liabilities.
(Is there a superhero school other than Xavier's for mutants? There should be.)
So many characters! I liked the intro and then Jessica Jones (!) and Kat Farrell, and the Avengers in the background (well kind of), I even recognized almost every one of them. (All except Sentry and a guy on the Avengers group picture who is purple bubbly gas and has a big W on his chest.)
The Young Avengers are dorks. And fanboys/girls, it's hilarious. And not very good at this superhero stuff... at least not yet.
Nate: poor guy :( More than not going back and becoming Kang he doesn't want to forget. (That was cruel, Eli/Billy.) But this is comics, I'm sure he'll be back.
Eli: asdsafasd Eli, darling. So desperate to be someone, do something, belong somewhere, be respected and relevant. He'll be a leader one day, but he's also a hothead. Actually having superpowers will make him more confident, I wonder if he'll become a bit more mellow ;) And probably the whole thing where he got exposed as a liar and temporarily quit also contributes.
Kate! Kicking ass in a beautiful purple dress, among other outfits. I want all the stories about her and her sister. Smart and confident and not afraid to speak her mind and/or break some rules. Hates to be underestimated. And anyone would be stupid to.
Billy and Teddy are adorable, together and on their own. Teddy's mom's self-help books! Dinner with the parents-in-law! And very protective of each other, awww.
I have to admit I'm not quite sure what to make of Cassie. I like what they did with most of the (family)backgrounds, but with Cassie her relationship with her dad, mom, and step-dad kind of dominates everything, and I find it hard to get a feel for her for some reason because whenever the focus is on her it's not exactly a typical situation. She develops a crush on Iron Lad extremely quickly, mostly adrenaline. She's 14, which is extremely young. The only teammates we've really seen her interacting with are Nate and Kate. (All the Cassie&Kate sister stories, please.)
Vision: stubborn, heh. Could become interesting - what kind of data does he have, exactly? How many other candidates for the fail-safe program? (And how many of them will they visit? It was either pure coincidence or an algorithm that had Tommy first. They could just as well have decided not to recruit someone in juvie and asked the next one. I want that story.)
Tommy: Haven't seen a lot of him yet, but he's a familiar "type." Could be amusing.
I like how annoyed everyone was with "time travel, not again", heh. Complicated stuff, that. Also realities and so on.
Teddy's origins: Uh, so what happens when the Kree/Skrull find out? I mean Teddy was probably right saying he's just another excuse, but still... Also someone give me the fic where the Superskrull dies and Teddy does have to go himself. And the one where he finds out that the deception led to a lot of chaos and bad stuff and feels guilty. I don't know enough about space politics in Marvel 'verse to speculate, unfortunately.
Poor Teddy, watching his mom burn to death in front of him... and Billy not being able to save her; he seemed to hold a grudge against the Super Skrull for longer than Teddy, which I attribute to Teddy being in shock and very confused.
To recap: Teddy's family (biological parents and his mom) is dead. Billy's is alive and they know about the superhero thing and his powers because of what happened in their living room. Eli's grandparents know because Cap told them. Cassie's mom knows because Jessica told her. Kate's dad doesn't know yet, but she doesn't seem too bothered and just says that he wouldn't believe it. The only thing we know about Tommy's parents is that they're divorced. So even the "we'll tell your parents"-threat is ineffective now ;)
So how effective are they actually as a team? They're untrained and young, so in a big hit-everyone battle like with the Kree and Skrull they can do okay but with things that require plans? Eli and Kate have some studying to do. The Vision could also help. Tommy is new, but otherwise they do seem willing and capable of working together, so that bodes well. And they have time.
With time, I wonder if Billy isn't overpowered? So far we haven't seen limits to his spells except his own inexperience, and if he's Wanda's kid, uh-oh. Scary powerful. Maybe even more so because he doesn't really know what he's doing. (Who'll train him? It needs to be a magician, there can't be that many candidates.)
In short, I want all the stories. Eventually I'll read more canon too, of course, but I don't know when yet, probably during the summer holidays. (And I've read some spoilers about later issues that I'm not looking forward to.) This is comics, so it's certain that before they're twenty they'll have material for enough nightmares to last a lifetime. But hopefully nothing too traumatic or long-lasting... that seems futile to even write.
I've already started on AO3 and found some that I enjoyed, like Teenage Wasteland, an at times unexpectedly dark pre-canon Billy/Teddy fic; a Pacific Rim crossover; Tommy and the Kaplans etc. But if you have any recs, please share :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Icon only relevant because of the character featured
Date: 2014-04-20 11:35 pm (UTC)Pretty much, yeah.
The artist for most of this run is Jim Cheung, who also did Avengers: Children's Crusade, which is the next Young Avengers storyline. He did not do Young Avengers volume 2. (I like Jim Cheung, even if he draws very slowly.)
I don't think they give ages, but 16 sounds about right, since they're supposed to be 18 or so in v2 and that happens some ~2 years after, if I'm not messing up my timeline.
(Nothing will ever convince me that Billy and probably Teddy aren't in fandom. Nothing.)
No spoiler on the Nate thing.
Eli has pahses of being on the team, it's a thing. If anyone does become the leader though, it's Kate. Mostly they time-share. Eli and his grandfather are so heartbreaking. That one page where Isaiah is reaing the Bugle and crying? Now I'm crying!
Kate is so so so great. She doesn't afraid of nothing and wears purple like a boss and have I mentionned lately I love people not being broken and deciding to be heroes? Because I really do. (If i can toot my own horn for a moment, I wrote one fic with Kate that I've posted. It's called The Hawk and the Bat (http://archiveofourown.org/works/733981) and is a crossover with the preboot DC universe, but all you should need to know is that Stephanie Brown is also a non-powered superhero who wears purple and she was Batgirl before the reboot. /self-promotion)
her relationship with her dad, mom, and step-dad kind of dominates everything
That's kind of what happens when your mom is emotionally abusive, though.
(Your yearning for Cassie&Kate sister stories reminds me that I have a Children Crusade AU (by which I mean it's 1212 and they're headed for the Holy Land) I wrote years ago that I never posted, so I should do that.)
I really like Tommy, but he gets the short end of the characterisation stick. Especially in v2. There are some good Tommy moments in Children's Crusade, though.
Timetravel again? Must be Tuesday!
The Kree and the Skrulls are pretty constantly at war, although if iirc, the Skrull Empire collapses during Runaways and Xavin (a Skrull) insists on calling Teddy Dorek. Teddy does find out that his absence led to bad stuff, but possibly the bad stuff would have happened anyway? I need to check that.
We saw very little of Sarah Altman, but what we did see was glorious.
Afaik, we never get told if Eli's parents know he moonlights as a superhero. Iirc, we do get more info on Tommy's parents, but I can't remember when.
You're definitely going to want to pick up Children's Crusade to deal with Billy's powers. (It's kind of hard to discuss without spoilers, but they do work well as a team and yes, Billy is scary powerful.)
As far as recs go, I got into the fandom while Children's Crusade was coming out, so I don't know any fic that doesn't have spoilers for that. (Hell, even the unposted-AU I mentionned above has some (very vague beacuse AU), as does Strange Aeons (http://archiveofourown.org/works/596171), a crossover between fantastic Four, young Avengers and Journay into Mystery.)
That said once you've read CC and v2, you should absolutely read reclaiming her satr (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1303462), because it is so so so great! Sure, it was written for me in the beyondpanels exchange, but it is still 6k+ of absolute brilliance.
There is also The Genosha Sequence (http://comics.shipsinker.com/archive.php?arc=genosha), a Young Avengers/Stargate SG1 crossover webcomic.
Edit: Wait, I've actually written another fic where Kate makes an appearance, Training Wheels (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1377043), but it's a retelling of the first arc of v1 with one event from v2 happening earlier, so spoilers.
Re: Icon only relevant because of the character featured
Date: 2014-04-21 11:00 am (UTC)Me too! Recently there was a Tumblr post with Daredevil panels where he says that implying people only decide to be heroes after tragic losses is an insult to firemen and policemen etc. everywhere. (Where are you on Tumblr? :) )
That's kind of what happens when your mom is emotionally abusive, though.
Imo it wasn't just that. From what I remember Cassie never had any significant speaking roles in team scenes, just "I've got you" and stuff like that, never in focus. We get glimpses, and it could just mean that she's quiet, but even then they could show her more.
Thanks for the fic recs! Noted for later, because I'm definitely going to read Children's Crusade + more in the summer. :)
Re: Icon only relevant because of the character featured
Date: 2014-04-21 09:54 pm (UTC)I agree that Cassie could be focused on more, but then the more the story marches on, the more it turns into the Billy Show. (Kinda ironic, when you consider Billy's powerset.)
I wish had had better fic recs for you, but I am terible at fic recs :(
Re: Icon only relevant because of the character featured
Date: 2014-04-22 09:59 am (UTC)Np, thanks for any :)