OK, I admit it: Young Avengers is really, really good. It spins out of the weak foundation of "Avengers Disassembled" and suffered in my eyes from being a weak concept completely overhyped by the EiC, but that's really all tangential to the quality of the writing, art and characters, all of which are top notch. Heinberg answers my biggest complaints this issue by overtly stating whether Hulkling is male or female, revealing that the group is much more diverse than the "four white boys" it started out looking like and giving us a lot more backstory on the characters and why they are the "Young Avengers" after all. While New Avengers is showing the formation of a new team using the name, in many ways, Heinberg and company are the ones carrying the legacy of the Avengers forward in these pages.
This issue is the issue in which we get more than a few big answers to questions I've been asking since day one. Who are these characters, really? How did they come together in the first place and why? More than that, though, it ties these characters quite clearly into the Avengers legacy and goes a long way towards "earning" them the Young Avengers name, at least in this readers' eyes. The destruction of the Vision, the death of Ant-Man, the dissolution of the Avengers, all of these things play into the way events are coming together in Young Avengers, and it's a textbook case of using previous writers' stories to springboard new ones. The notion that the Vision had a secret failsafe plan is consistent with the version of the character we saw in the Roger Stern era, and a pretty nifty way to bring a bunch of new characters in to try and take up the legacy. It also allows Heinberg to extend the mystery a little bit more about where these characters got their powers and what their links to the Avengers are, without it feeling like too much of a cheat to draw out the suspense.
Actually, Heinberg is playing in the same territory as the "Marvel Next" folks like Vaughan and Warren, mixing up old school Marvel continuity with some new elements to create something new that still has the comfortable familiarity of the Marvel Universe. It's a recipe for sales success in our conservative market, but it has also turned into a surprising way to "stealth" new characters past people desperately trying to keep up with the flooded X-Men/Spider-Man/other icon market. So we get a bunch of new characters, but some of their roots run into recent Marvel miniseries. These new characters are also facing down a real old school villain, Kang, and I was especially pleased to see one of his old school minions turn up in this issue with a new twist.
One of the things that too many superhero books seem to be lacking these days is a nice balance between the talk and the action, and while Young Avengers can be a bit too talk-y at times, there's a pretty good mixture of action so far. That allows Jim Cheung to really excel, and his showdown between the Young Avengers and Kang's minions in this issue is really nice. Cheung could still use a little more growth in the area of distinguishing characters, as they all seem to have very similar faces, and we get resulting confusion like being unable to tell Iron Lad or Iron Man easily apart or being unsure until this issue whether or not Hulkling was male or female, but his storytelling and general style is beautiful to behold.
From the start, I've said that I liked these characters, and that certainly hasn't changed as they begin to evolve and clarify. The teasers for Bishop's future identity, and her fractious relationship with Patriot, are a nice reflection of the Hawkeye-Captain America dynamic that I'm going to miss in the regular book, and the addition of Cassie to the ranks is a terrific way to add a little more estrogen to the team and a little more legacy credibility. I also formally withdraw my complaint in the first review that Heinberg had presented four white guys on a team, as it is very clear that it's much more interesting than that, both with the reveal of who Patriot is in this issue and the clarification that Hulkling is in fact a guy leading to speculation about the Asgardian-Hulkling relationship. There really hasn't been much fuel to that particular fire in the last couple issues, but I have to say, it'd be nice if young gay males could have a positive role model in comics, and it'd be an interesting twist on the usual inter-teammate relationships as well.
I'll be honest, I'm still wary of this book if only because of its connection to an Avengers sub-universe that I've lost a lot of interest in, but three issues in, I've pretty much bought into the hype. A good use of the Avengers legacy, effective artwork, great moment-to-moment writing and exceptional character work makes for an exciting and colorful new addition to the Marvel Universe. 8/10
