When Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers burst onto the scene one year ago, it was like a breath of fresh air. More than any comic since Brian K. Vaughan’s Runaways, this one felt fresh and vibrant and… young. The characters watched Game of Thrones, and posted to Instagram. They wore trendy clothes and had cool hair. The recap pages were based on Tumblr and the credits were on concert and movie posters. This version of Young Avengers was, in a word, cool.
Over the course of the series, the title characters went through a lot. Billy and Teddy’s formerly unshakeable relationship was most definitely shaken. After all, when you’re dating a reality warper, how much can you trust yourself – or him? Speed was kidnapped by a very creepy entity in Patriot’s costume after working at a temp agency. Prodigy came out as bisexual. The Mother entity brainwashed everyone’s parents – and potential versions of the Young Avengers themselves from across realities. And they fought their very own League of Evil Exes! Finally, in the big two-part finale, lingering plot threads were resolved. Billy and Teddy had a big talk. Prodigy figured out who Patri-not was. We got to see Miss America’s origins. Kate Bishop got a big midnight kiss. And Loki left to go run his own new series. Oh yeah – and absolutely no one drank any alcohol that definitely was not in the punch at all. Nope.
So how was the series as a whole? Well, aside from being fun, and cool, and excellently – and innovatively – drawn, and relevant, and well-plotted. To borrow a phrase from the very first issue, Young Avengers tended to put style over substance.
Take Miss America for example. She’s a strong female. She’s fierce, and an excellent fighter. But up until Issue #14, could you really describe her beyond that? Many times, it seemed as though she lacked any real relationship with the rest of the team. And the same could be said of the team as a whole. The audience saw them reason for them banding together (fighting Mother), and we saw them fight her, and we saw the resolution. But Gillen really skipped over the team bonding aspect of the book. So many adventures took place between issues – or even between panels – all the audience really got to see of them spending real quality time together was a montage of Instagram photos and the occasional diner booth chat. In a way, all these characters felt so cool, but also vaguely distant. Like people you’d ask for their autograph, rather than to lunch.
None of that is to say that the series is bad! Everything comes remarkably full-circle – the relationships, the plot, even the past and future. Loki certainly benefitted, as Gillen has a handle on his characterization more than anyone else. The art, both in terms of McKelvie’s pencils and Matthew Wilson’s fantastically consistent and vibrant colors, was reliably interesting, affecting, and clean. The characters were funny, and occasionally complicated, or sweet, or lost, as teenagers so often are.
Overall, Young Avengers was an excellent series, but one that will probably be remembered more for its incredible sense of style, rather than for making you fall in love with the characters as Allan Heinberg’s original series so easily did. It was a tremendously fun book, and one that makes you celebrate youth – the heightened emotions, the whirlwind romances, the devastating breakups, the total confusion, the driving need to prove yourself and find out who you are. There is no doubt that both the creators and the characters have bright futures ahead of them, and this is certainly a series that will be missed in the months to come.
