Gillen and McKelvie take the Young Avengers on a trans-dimensional journey in pursuit of a metaphor dressed in the clothes of an old teammate. No, trust me, that’s actually what happens. And it’s awesome.
Written by Kieron Gillen
Illustrated by Jamie McKelvie & Mike Norton
The Young Avengers desperately race across the multiverse. Nothing can stop their pursuit of their missing friend. Except the urge to stop and take photos, obv.Lots of cleverly hidden exposition.Kieron decides it’s time to make all the JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY readers scream.
Reading “Young Avengers” almost feels like being pulled along by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie down a path of things that you know are or will be important, but you never get a good enough look at it to work how it will be important. And then, at the very end of the path, they kick you in the shins and run away laughing into the night as you cry. That’s pretty much entirely how it felt to read “Young Avengers” #8 as Gillen and McKelvie pull the team through various and vastly different dimensions only to hit every “Journey Into Mystery” fan right where it hurts at the very end. But that’s why this series has really worked thus far. Even from casually reading the issues, there is an enormous sense of a meticulously planned and structured story at play, behind all the Tumblr and the breakfast jokes, that shows just how intelligent this book is.
That’s possibly why the book is so engrossing for so many people. Gillen and McKelvie present so many layers of enjoyment, from the self-deprecating Tumblr nods to the wonderful character interaction to the overarching metaphors of what it’s like to be a teenager, and each layer is equally valid. The book never once laughs at you if you don’t dig deep into the meaning of each vague panel and are quite content to enjoy the Yamblr recap page. In fact, the book itself is quite content to enjoy the Yamblr recap page. Someone, somewhere is having far too much putting that page together. And that’s the genius of “Young Avengers” right now; it’s fun.
As layered as the storytelling is throughout the series, Gillen still shows that the most important layer is the character interaction between the team. While Loki is still the team’s de facto leader in their crusade against not-Patriot, there’s a nice balance presented here that no member of the team feels out of place or useless. Everyone gets their little moment from Kate Bishop’s heart-breaking opening narration to Miss America’s black hole punch through to Wiccan’s strange sense of universal importance and Loki promptly destroying the souls of all of Tumblr. Everyone gets at least one great moment during the issue as well as one great moment of interaction with another member of the group. This is all thanks to Gillen being able to deftly handle an ensemble like this and make all of the characters fit together which, ultimately, just makes for a fun and engaging read.
That deftness of character writing, however, would be for naught if Gillen didn’t have someone as entirely capable as Jamie McKelvie as his collaborator. It’s hard to overstate just how much the art brings to this book. From his wonderful, expressive character models that make the entire cast of the book seem annoyingly gorgeous to his intricate and subtle layouts. Not since Matt Fraction’s “Defenders” have the gutters of the page been such a part of the comic as the transition from universe to universe is shown by the gutters changing from white to black and back again. It’s the subtle things that really make this book work and make it so enjoyable, really. Though, it seems like McKelvie gets one big and intricate page layout per issue and this one is no different. Here, we get a page where the panels are Escher-like walls that the characters themselves run past. It really is a marvel to see is possibly the first to rival Noh-Varr’s diagram of the club breach.
Probably the only thing that really brings this issue down from being one of the best of the series is simply the length of the story arc. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of longer story arcs and as much as this issue was enjoyable, it’s the eighth issue of the series and we’re still trudging along with a conclusion only just in sight. It’s not enough to make the issue less enjoyable, more a comment on the series a whole so far. Gillen has been excellent at keeping any of the issue from feeling like filler, but this long a story arc right off the bat eventually leads to some dead weight. This issue isn’t it, I just hope it keeps this strong as it finally reaches it’s conclusion.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Still one of the most fun Marvel books out there with a surprisingly subtle emotional intelligence. Why wouldn’t you be buying this?
