Style > Substance, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie

I’ve been sort of reading this since the individual issues came out, but this is the first time I’ve properly sat down with it and read it all the way through. I’m pretty sure I’m going to love Gillen’s run on Young Avengers — I mean, he gets the humour just right, he combines the characters in fun ways, and the art does a lot of interesting meta things that my comics & graphic novels class would’ve had a whale of a time with.

Since I haven’t read the Secret Invasion, Civil War or Dark Reign Young Avengers comics (yet), I’m unsure how Kate got together with Noh-Varr, and I don’t know much about America Chavez, but this new make-up of the team is pretty awesome, adding Noh-Varr, Kid Loki and America Chavez to the original Young Avengers line-up. I miss Iron Lad/Vision and Cassie, but this does deal with the fallout of that somewhat too, which means it all works really well.

Obviously, Loki’s up to something, and I mostly know what that is; and I know what happens in terms of Billy and Teddy’s relationship in the other volumes, so there’s not as much mystery for me as there would be for most readers, but for the reader coming in fresh there’s stuff to work out, too, which is cool.

Alternative Culture, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Kate Brown

Alternative Culture is fun and meta, once again. The only annoying thing was how little was revealed. I mean, where does Leah tie in? Who is the fake Patriot?

But in terms of characters and the art and design of the comic, it was amazing. I like Prodigy as a character — he can stay in the team — and I loved some of the throwaway lines like Hulkling finding the little green things really cute, and Kate telling Noh-Varr to shut up and look pretty (and being, at least according to one of Noh-Varr’s exes, pretty kinky).

I’m not as fond of McKelvie’s art as I was of the original Young Avengers art, but it is pretty good.

Mic-Drop at the Edge of Time and Space, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, et al

Volume three definitely makes a great ending to this run of Young Avengers. It continues with all the great things about the previous volumes, and wraps things up pretty satisfyingly. I’m intrigued by the ending with Patri-not, and Loki’s character arc works well too.

The hints about what Billy will be/do are interesting, as well as how Patri-not links into that. And I love the new team, the way it didn’t make sense at the beginning how all these kids would be together at the end, and now I’ve got there it seems perfect.

I love the New Year’s party, too. Tommy’s dorky dancing is the best.

Journey into Mystery featuring Sif: Stronger than Monsters, Kathryn Immonen, Valerio Schiti

I liked this quite a bit. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen Sif’s character explored anywhere else in Marvel-verse, whether it be the comics or MCU, but I was just glad to see her front and centre. I liked the art, and I liked the tie-in to known Norse mythology (the concept of berserkers). Other stuff, I think I’d have picked up on more if I was used to the version of Asgardian mythology created by Marvel, but it still worked pretty well.

I think some people talking about her just being bloodthirsty and so on missed all the points where she held back the other Berserkers and forced them to behave fairly. So the spell gives her “licence” — but she fights that even before she knows anything about it.

I did like the bits with Heimdall, too. Also nice to see Asgard with barely a trace of Thor. (I like Thor, but he steals the show.)

Spider-girl: Family Values, Paul Tobin, Clayton Henry, Matthew Southworth

This was fun, a good place to jump in on Spider-girl. It seems that as this volume opens, she’s lost her powers, but she’s still doing her best to fight crime — and maintain an impressive presence on social media. I enjoyed her wise-cracking, apparently a Spider-people necessity, and the emotional side of her development in this story.

Anya’s normal life is pretty solid, with friends and eventually a roommate, contacts outside the superhero world (unlike, say, Captain America). I liked Spider-man’s parts too, and I was intrigued by Red Hulk — I haven’t read anything including him so far.

The art is pretty good — there are couple of patchier issues that I wasn’t so fond of, but it’s reasonably consistent, and I liked that they portray Anya as a lithe, athletic sixteen year old girl. She’s not sexualised or anything in her fights the way, say, Black Widow often is. I’ll probably pick up some more Spider-girl given a chance — earlier or later, I don’t mind which.

Spider-woman: Agent of S.W.O.R.D., Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev

It would probably have helped if I’d read the Skrull invasion stuff which figures highly into Jessica’s emotional state here, or other stuff that explains Madame Hydra’s obsession with her, but this was better than the Spider-woman: Origin TPB. The art felt more alive; I liked a lot of it, though in some places the colour palate was so limited it was hard to make sense of what I was seeing.

Again, though, this isn’t the Jessica I’m used to seeing from Captain Marvel and the recent Avengers: The Enemy Within. It’s dark and she’s tortured and not sure where the hell she fits in the world. I did like the brief glimpse of the team caring about her, particularly Carol.

And let’s be honest, I spent half this book wondering if they were counting Teddy Altman as a Skrull and if someone would try to kill him.

Spider-woman: Origin, Brian Michael Bendis, Brian Reed, Luna Brothers

I’ve loved what I’ve seen of Jess in Captain Marvel, but this is a long way from that cheerful character. This is Jessica’s dark past, her birth and her training as a member of Hydra. We see a couple of flashes of her later humour — when told her costume doesn’t count as a uniform, she retorts that she’ll just go and break that to Captain America — but mostly this feels a bit flat, despite the emotional content. It just goes too fast: one minute she’s a seven year old in an adult body, the next she’s an adult who’s willing to sleep with her enemy to get what she needs, using her body consciously and purposefully.

The art is okay, but nothing special — people kept talking about the Luna brothers when I was looking up this comic and raving about them, but the art here felt kinda flat here, too.

Still, it’s good to have more backstory on Jessica Drew.

Captain Marvel: Down, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Christopher Sebela, Dexter Soy, Filipe Andrade

As with the first Captain Marvel book, I liked half the art (Dexter Soy’s work) and then hated the latter half. More so in this one. Carol just looks deformed in half of this. But story-wise, this is another good volume: Carol as Captain Marvel is rash, determined, unstoppable, and the latter half of the book with the worries about her health kept me interested. It doesn’t matter that I’m lacking some of Carol’s backstory — and the Helen Cobb story from the first volume seems to be playing a bit into this, too, which I enjoy. I’m even a bit anxious about Carol and how exactly this will play out.

I love her interactions with the people around her. I haven’t read anything with Monica Rambeau as Captain Marvel — actually, I haven’t got round to anything with her in it at all — but I loved her back and forth with Carol. I enjoyed the inclusion of Spider-Woman, too, and Captain America and Tony Stark’s brief appearances.

Really need to get hold of The Enemy Within, pronto.