Young Avengers #15
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Becky Cloonan & Jordie Bellaire, Ming Doyle & Maris Wicks, Joe Quinones & Maris Wicks, Jamie McKelvie & Matthew Wilson
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Review by Joey Braccino
Miss America. Wiccan. Hulkling. Hawkeye. Marvel Boy. Prodigy. Kid Loki.
America. Billy. Teddy. Kate. Noh. David… Loki…
Young Avengers is over. #SadnessReigns
I’ve been reading and reviewing Young Avengers for the better part of the last year. I’ve followed the hapless (mis)adventures of our eponymous team of emerging adults as they emerged into both adulthood and superherohood.
Young Avengers has been as much a series about four-colored fantastical fare featuring firefights and fisticuffs as much as it has explored the pubescent plights of romance, independence, identity, and friendship. Over the course of the last year, Kieron Gillen has taken the “young people coping with powers and responsibility” themes of Allan Heinberg’s acclaimed Young Avengers concept and turned it into a “young people with powers and responsibility coping with the irreconcilable desire to be both a young adult and an adult at the same time.” Inherent in that thematic shift is a healthy dose of teen angst, #YOLO hashtagging, sassy talkback, and questions of self-efficacy, which Gillen handled deftly from issue to issue to issue.
Young Avengers #15 ends the “Resolution” storyline and proves to be the perfect ending to Gillen’s run on the book. The New Year’s Eve setting, the vignette format, and the interconnected character beats provide ample opportunity for Gillen and his corps of artists to establish a sense of closure for the large cast and the complex themes.
Ultimately, Young Avengers is a series about being young and free and bold and awkward and hopeful. It’s a series about promise and idealism and change. Everything about the series, including this final issue, has channeled all of those ideas, especially in terms of the post-modern, innovative techniques employed by Gillen, McKelvie, and the stable of artists feature in this issue alone. Just one of the best comics of the 21st century so far.
And dammit if the final sequence in this issue isn’t one of the best of the best ever. #somanyfeels #pancakes
Verdict
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes. #Yes
This series has been one of the hidden gems of Marvel NOW! This issue, even if read in isolation, captures all of the post-modern, punk-rock, uber-hip goodness of Gillen and McKelvie’s run on Young Avengers. Of course, you should go back and read all the issues. Because Awesome.
#ReadIt
#LoveIt
#LiveIt
#YoungAvengers4Life
Also, as one last hurrah, here are some of my favorite lines from my reviews of Young Avengers from the last year. Cue up that dubstep remix of Green Day’s “Time of Your Life,” spin the disco ball, and hit the floor.
Young Avengers #2
- “Billy Kaplan is rockin the most wicked side-swept bangs this side of alterna-comics.”
- “I will say that Gillen’s post-modernist, über-meta storytelling and Jamie McKelvie’s hyper-realism mesh together like chips and guacamole on a Sunday morning.”
Young Avengers #3
- “Our eponymous pubescent protagonists come face to face with their worst nightmares: their parents!!! Kid Loki brings the Young Avengers clubbin’!!! Wiccan’s hair remains swooshily fabulous!!!”
- “Furthermore, the amount of punch-and-kick-induced body splattering that goes on in this issue must break some kind of record somewhere.”
Young Avengers #5
- “Gillen has built up to this point brilliantly over the course of the last five issues; the separation from the parental figure is an important part of the coming-of-age story, so Gillen takes this to its natural, superheroic extreme—I mean, who didn’t wanted to explode their parent into a bajillion little smudgy bits when they were 17?”
Young Avengers #7
- “So yeah, buy this series and smooch away. Smooch smooch smooch. #Smooch”
- “OH, and McKelvie gives us some more Noh-Varr eye candy. #KreeAbsFTW”
Young Avengers #14
- “Young Avengers deserves ALL THE READS. What I’m trying to say is: ‘Kieron Gillen’s handling of Emerging Adulthood through the classic Marvel lens of ‘the Strangest Heroes of All’—meets—‘Great Power = Great Responsibility’ lends Young Avengers a deeper metaphorical thread that enriches the reading experience and elevates the franchise and industry standard.’ So yeah. ALL THE READS.”
#AllTheReads indeed. Young Avengers, you will be missed. <3