Marvel Unbound - Young Avengers, Volume 1: Sidekicks

I caught wind of a mammoth on-line sale over the summer and picked up a bunch of Marvel Adventures digest trade paperbacks to dole out as rewards and atta-boys for the kiddo over the course of the school year. The sale was a great bargain. The books usually go for six or seven bucks a piece, but I got these for just a few dollars each. The one thing I did pick up for myself in that discounted haul, though, was Young Avengers, Volume 1: Sidekicks.

My only exposure to the Young Avengers is the six-issue limited series, Young Avengers Presents. It was essentially six one-shots -- each focusing on a specific member of the team, each written by a different Marvel scribe. I wasn't surprised to find that my favorite entries in the miniseries were issues #1 and #6 about Patriot and Hawkeye, penned by Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, respectively. And although the writing overall was somewhat hit-or-miss, I was intrigued enough by the characters to want to read more.

So I backpedaled and dove into the Young Avengers, Volume 1 trade paperback, which collects the "Sidekicks" storyline that launched the series in 2005. It slips nicely into mainstream Marvel continuity following the events of Avengers Disassembled and predating the formation of the New Avengers team. The book establishes a nice foundation that's fun to read. There isn't much in the way of extras in the Sidekicks trade paperback, only a single page of character designs by artist Jim Cheung, but you shouldn't be reading this for the extras anyway.

Allan Heinberg's writing, especially in the first two issues, is simply fantastic. He can write Brian Michael Bendis' Jessica Jones character as well as Bendis himself. The verbal exchanges between Jessica and fellow reporter Kat Farrell are great, as well as her interplay with Captain America, Iron Man, and the Young Avengers themselves.

Coming along a good two years after Brian K. Vaughan established the market for powered teenagers with his Runaways series, Heinberg carves out a nice place in the Marvel Universe for his team of underage super heroes.

Founded on the idea that there is an Avengers Failsafe Program to be executed by the Vision, Young Avengers takes a unique spin on origin tales. As explained by Nathaniel Richards, Iron Lad, in issue #3, the failsafe program is "designed so that if anything should happen to the Avengers -- if they were destroyed or disbanded -- then the Vision would be able to pinpoint the exact locations of the next wave of ... young Avengers."

Sidekicks packs a lot of fun in six issues. At the core of the story -- beyond being an origin tale -- is some great Back to the Future time-bending with Kang the Conqueror, and it also contains some good "adults don't know everything" type moments between Cap, Iron Man, and the Young Avengers. I'm usually put off by time travel stuff, just because it tends to get so complicated. And it did get a bit convoluted here, but I was enjoying the story so much that I didn't mind it at all this time.

We are initially presented with four team members -- a Captain America-like Patriot, an Iron Man inspired Iron Lad, a Hulk and Captain Marvel hybrid Hulkling, and a Thor and Scarlet Witch paired Wiccan (who originally went by the moniker "Asgardian"). They are joined in the early goings of the book by Ant-Man offspring Cassie Lang as Stature, and Kate Bishop's brash Hawkeye/Mockingbird amalgam.

The mild Sam and Diane/Dave and Maddie tension that Vaughan explores in volume one of Runaways with Alex Wilder and Nico Minoru are also mirrored in Young Avengers between Eli Bradley's Patriot and Kate Bishop's Hawkeye. (Interestingly, both sets of teens also share the same racial profiles as well, with both Alex and Eli being Black, and Nico and Kate as Caucasian.)

It makes sense that for each of the big crossover events of the last few years, Runaways and Young Avengers have been paired up. Although neither of those miniseries was written by Vaughan or Heinberg, they are worth checking out for Stefano Caselli's art in the Civil War tie-in and Christopher Yost's scripting in the Secret Invasion tie-in.

Beyond these off-shoot series, Young Avengers is on hiatus. On the up-side, it's easy to find all the Young Avengers material out there in either monthly back issues or collected editions. The trade paperbacks are available in five volumes: Volume 1: Sidekicks, Volume 2: Family Matters, Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways, Young Avengers Presents, and a soon-to-be released Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers. On the down-side, there doesn't seem to be any new Young Avengers proper series material on the horizon until Heinberg and Cheung free up enough time to focus on another 12 issues.

Marvel Unbound - Mystic Arcana

"Marvel Unbound" returns with the latest Marvel Noise podcast. Here on Random Thoughts Escaping is a written version of the review. Feel free to join the conversation about the title in the Marvel Noise forum's "Marvel Unbound" thread. Enjoy!

Mystic Arcana is a curious little collection. I picked it up because it featured four characters I dig. But there were numerous times while reading this that I stopped and wondered if I missed something -- some kind of prequel or larger continuity signpost. Unfortunately, all I got was an Ian McNee framing device that left me under-whelmed.

This hardcover collects the four main Mystic Arcana issues, each focusing on a specific Marvel character: Magik, The Black Knight, Scarlet Witch, and Sister Grimm, along with the "Official Tarot of the Marvel Universe," and "Mystic Arcana: The Book of Marvel Magic."

Right from the start, though, I got the feeling that even Marvel wasn't sure what they were doing with this collection. The first two pages of the book try to make sense of the confusion to come with a failed attempt at baselining the pending chaos and five short paragraphs on the key players. Then we jump right in to the disorienting Ian McNee story thread that weaves its way between the featured characters' individual books. McNee is on a confusing quest to recover four magic talismans of some sort, and the main characters' stories somehow relate to that quest. And that's about the best I can do to explain it.

Magik was always a character I dug back in the day. I have an issue of the '83 limited series and a handful of original New Mutants books from '84, but haven't kept up on the character. With Mystic Arcana: Magik, writer Louise Simonson gives us a New Mutants-era tale featuring Illyana Rasputin and Dani Moonstar. It's a disorienting beginning to a confusing book.

The Black Knight was cool enough for the Avengers, so he was cool enough for me. This origin tale by Roy Thomas was enjoyable, but the tenuous ties to the overarching Ian McNee storyline felt forced.

I have had a crush on the Scarlet Witch since I was a preteen. Unfortunately, Jeff Parker gives us a preteen Wanda Maximoff. The best thing about this collection is the Marko Djurdjevic covers. The Wanda on the cover is amazing, and probably the best thing to recommend the issue.

Nico Minoru, Sister Grimm, was a recent find on the pages of Runaways and an immediate favorite for me. C. B. Cebulski delivers a compact one-shot that slips nicely into the gap between Runaways issues #17 and #18. By far the best story of the bunch (and another stunning Djurdjevic cover). One objection, though: One of the coolest aspects of Runaways is that although they all thought up codenames, the group quickly abandoned them. Hard to say why Marvel chose to force the "Sister Grimm" moniker on this book, but it feels a little hokey.

"Marvel Tarot" is 50-plus pages of tedium. Subtitled "Ian McNee's Log Book", it consisted of "handwritten" comments around various tarot cards, illustrated as if the reader weren't looking at a journal so much as the jumbled, layered mess of a desktop with items splayed across it. Trying to wade through it evoked the same sort of disorientation as the overall continuity of the collection, leaving me wondering if there was something larger I should have picked up on in the visual mess.

"The Book of Marvel Magic" is essentially an Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe excerpt that focuses on third-tier characters that have a magical bent. No Doctor Strange, no Mephisto, not even a Clea. It doesn't even include all the main characters from Mystic Arcana -- The Black Knight profile is missing!

I usually devour trade paperbacks and collections. So I know it's not clicking for me when reading one feels like work. Part of the problem here might be that all five stories have different writers and artists, but I think it's a larger issue of high-concept and poor execution. I bought Mystic Arcana on the strength of the characters featured; unfortunately Marvel lost its way with this one.

Marvel Unbound - Runaways, Volume 1

An audio version of this blog entry is available in episode 39 of Marvel Unbound. Feel free to leave comments and ideas here or in the Marvel Noise forum's "Marvel Unbound" thread. Enjoy!

I had flipped through Brian K. Vaughan's Pride of Baghdad trade paperback numerous times at the big box bookstore and was totally intrigued by it. I finally picked it up a few weeks ago and sat down one Sunday night to start reading it. An hour later I closed the book, having read it all (and reread parts) in one sitting, feeling like I'd just been punched in the gut. But in a good way.

I had heard of Vaughan because my wife is a huge Joss Whedon fan. And I knew that the two of them had embarked on a sort of creator/writer swap of their respective love children: Runaways and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Vaughan created Runaways, then left the title and penned the "No Future for You" Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight Faith story arc. Whedon created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and stepped away from that title to helm Runaways, Volume 4.

Pride of Baghdad is on DC's Vertigo imprint. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight is published by Dark Horse. But Runaways is all Marvel. Originally produced under Marvel's short-lived Tsunami imprint, designed to capitalize on the popularity of manga, it quickly dissolved, and Runaways was folded into the Marvel Age/Marvel Adventures banner in that they are reproduced in the digest-sized trade paperbacks. But the monthly books and hardcover collections don't carry that banner.

The Runaways, Volume 1 hardcover collection tells the story of six only children -- teenagers -- who discover their parents are the supervillains called the Pride, a group working to bring about the end of humanity on behalf of the Gibborim. This 18 issue storyline follows the kids and their journey of discovering their parents aren't who they thought they were, their world isn't what it once seemed, and the person each of them can become. Oh, and did I mention we get an awesome two-issue Cloak and Dagger appearance in the middle of this thing?!

The bulk of the story arc contained in volume one of this hardcover collection takes place over just five fast and furious days. Although framed in the story's present tense, issue #13 is largely devoted to the history of the Pride by way of flashbacks. And the final issue of this collection seems to takes place a few months after the conclusion of issue #17.

While Marvel's X-titles have been milking the whole "mutations manifesting themselves in adolescence" allegorical angle for decades, Runaways takes a different tack. Vaughan sums up the themes explored in the title in his original premise for the book as "At some point in their lives, all young people believe that their parents are the most evil people alive. But what if they really are?" The result is a more literal, fresh approach, and thoroughly engaging read.

There is so much to recommend this book it's hard to know where to begin. For starters, I can't speak to whether or not Vaughan's writing is an accurate reflection of how teenagers talk these days, but I can say with certainty Vaughan's writing is an accurate reflection of how I think teenagers talk today. And the art... oh, man. The art! Adrian Alphona's interiors are perfect. Although the kids are the somewhat stereotypical California beautiful people type, Alphona is careful to never portray them as over sexualized. And Jo Chen's cover art is just beautiful, adding a hint of realism to her depictions.

The embarrassment of riches continues as it throws standard comic book super hero convention out the window by ignoring clichés like super heroes in costumes, using a team name, or even codenames. The kids of Runaways forego costumes for the more sturdy everyday wear of a teenager's lifestyle: jeans, cargo shorts, hoodies, goth wear, et cetera. This natural appearance helps ground the story in the reality of the adolescent world. Although they comment that they are runaways, I don't think the group ever actually refers to themselves as "The Runaways" in the proper noun sense. This falls right in line with the group's general aversion to using individual codenames for each other. Although at one point five of the six decide on codenames for themselves or each other, Runaway Gert and her pet seem to be the only ones to consistently use them and are called by their codenames. She justifies this because she doesn't want to use the "slave name" her evil parents gave her.

Although not a Marvel title, Y: The Last Man is another of Vaughan's works I am looking forward to checking out. I'm holding off for the hardcover collection scheduled for release this fall from Vertigo. Until then, I have my newly received Father's Day gifts from my wife to work my way through -- the second and third hardcover volumes of Runaways.