Written by: Sean McKeever
Arted by: David BaldeonEmma Frost guest stars! Just as the Young Allies have found themselves thrust together, the Uncanny X-Men’s devious Emma Frost threatens to pull them apart! Are her plans for former pupil Firestar sincere…or sincerely evil? Plus: Toro and Nomad get (re-)acquainted!
This is the last issue of the Young Allies – and the book JUST started! What did I think of the latest book to fall prey to Marvel’s rather strict cancellation habits? Take a look after the jump for a review that is much more a look back on the entire six issue series than it is a singular review – but forgive me. I couldn’t resist.
Poor Young Allies. You never really had the chance, did you?
I like Sean McKeever. I really do. I read Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane and found it one of the most charming books I’d ever read. I even checked out the Nomad mini, although I was certainly not as enamored with that. McKeever clearly likes working with younger characters, and bless him for it. It’s not often that you get books that can appeal to a young adult/college audience as much in the relatable aspect. Sure, we can all appreciate super heroes, but sometimes it’s best to read books about superheroes who go through the same crap we do. This is – at it’s heart – what Young Allies could have been.
Instead, the book seemed to be kind of doomed from the get go. The Heroes Reborn universe certainly isn’t all that interesting of a place to bring back to the regular Marvel Universe, and starting the book off with a group of villains called the Bastards of Evil who blow up the WTC for a second time wasn’t exactly the friendliest thing to do either. It seems to me that the WTC attack seemed like more of a purposeful shock value scene rather than one of the value, and it appears that this might have reverberated with other fans as well because now the book is no more.
Of course, this is a complete shame because for all intents and purposes, this was the issue that I was waiting for. I think that in certain situations, if you’re going to build a group of heroes from the ground up you need to spend more time building their relationship with the reader and the world you are putting them in . While Firestar is obviously an established character in the Marvel U, we’re putting her in a new light here, and giving her an entire issue to connect with the reader is something we should’ve had for all the characters. Young Allies spun out of a Nomad mini that not necessarily everyone read and featured characters that not everyone was necessarily familiar with. That, I think, hurt the title if nothing else. So now that we have an issue that focuses on interpersonal issues and relations, it doesn’t really matter because the book is done now.
To an extent, I’m disappointed. I hate to say this because it seems unfair, but I think that everyone needs to take a note from Brian K Vaughan and Nick Spencer when it comes to writing and developing young characters to an audience. While the Bastards of Evil could have been an interesting villain story, coming with that right out of the gate was a bad move. Morning Glories gave us an issue of character development before the story began, and Runaways started off heavy with it’s villains but focused mainly on the characters more than it did anything else. This is what this issue is all about: where does Firestar fit into the Marvel U if she doesn’t want to be any kind of Avenger or an X-Man, least of all a Young Ally? This issue makes me want to care about Firestar, makes me want to see her in college and balancing her life. In fact, it makes me care a bit more about every character in the story. I want to see Toro and Nikki develop a relationship NOW, whereas before I could care less.
Could McKeever have saved the book by not having his first issue end with a second WTC attack? I don’t know. Maybe. It’s possible that the characters just never attached to anyone. That’s what I’m mostly betting on. These things happen. But I can’t imagine that it really helped much, because that wound is definitely not fully closed and, more than anything else, that scene feels tacky. While this issue did what the book needed to do from the beginning, it looks like it was jut too little too late. If nothing else, the Young Allies series serves as a reminder of how to develop young characters. Fans complain that books like this get dropped quickly, but it’s usually because only small amounts of people develop love for characters like this in such a short while. The rest of us need strong character growth and development to pull us in, and Young Allies didn’t do it enough in the time it had.
Final Verdict: 6.7 – Browse
