- The first two pages were a nice little recap of the characters for new readers or those who may have felt that they fell into complete limbo between volumes. It was nice to see Heinberg make mention to events he didn’t take part in, as I could see a lot of writers in his position just writing off anything that didn’t occur under his pen. It was a nice way to show that he did his research.
- Though that was short lived when Captain America, Iron Man, and Ms. Marvel showed up. Why? Because it was Steve and Tony in his Extremis outfit. Sure, I can let the Iron Man part go as Tony changes his armor more often then most people do laundry, but Steve as Captain America was just a giant oversight. Bucky has been wearing the costume and wielding the shield for the better part of two and a half years now. Almost exclusively.
- Wiccan’s ever growing powers, especially with their obvious connection to his potential mother, Wanda “The Scarlet Witch” Maximoff, is interesting. It’s an obvious way to bring importance to the connection, as well as to eventually bring Wanda back into the fold. It also led to a really awesome looking double page spread where Iron Man explains Disassembled and the House of M to the Young Avengers.
- Heinberg’s Steve Rogers is just as giant of a dick here as he was during the first volume of Young Avengers, I mean, Wiccan is freaked out and angry by what he’s wanting, so what does he do? Runs and narcs on the teenager to his parents.
- Wiccan and Hulkling’s relationship works for me, and has since the characters were introduced, but in this issue it goes between feeling natural and feeling forced from page to page. I’m writing it off as Heinberg just getting back into the feel of the characters, because I know he’d never token either of them.
- The Young Avengers as rebellious youths really does work just as well in this issue as it did in the first volume, and Heinberg still has a great grasp on the voice of youth. I’m going to assume his television work has led to this, though for the life of me I can’t fathom any of his work that I’ve actually seen outside of comics, lest I admit that when I was younger I watched Party of Five because Jennifer Love Hewitt had a huge rack and I was going through puberty…..fuck.
- Not enough good can ever be said about Jim Cheung, as everytime he does anything it looks amazing. The downside is that he’s criminally underutilized as an interior artist, as since the original Young Avengers came out he’s done a few issues of New Avengers and the Illuminati mini-series. I’m not saying give the man a monthly, but if you’ve been saving him for this then you’ve been wasting the ability of someone who could easily do a three part story arc in any book and have it look awesome. This isn’t to say that I want him off of Young Avengers, just that I’d like to see more of him aside from covers when it comes to other books.
- It might be selfish, but Stature’s reasons for wanting to find Wanda are my favorite. I won’t say why, but they seem the most honest of any of them.
- The last page cliffhanger was a pretty cool moment, and while I’m not going to spoil it, I will say that it has the same problem that Steve Rogers did. While yes, the character works in the context of the story, the character does not make any sense given what’s currently going on with them in other titles. This one is far less head scratchy as Steve though, as this character is neither dead nor the new Nick Fury, and could even be seen as not a big deal, but I felt it was worth noting. The editing on this book really doesn’t lend itself to current continuity.
- Rating: 7/10 – A good reintroduction to the characters as Heinberg both sets up his story as well as gets his own legs back under him. The story isn’t perfect by any means, and there are some obvious continuity missteps, but it’s a solid effort. The art is amazing, and to be honest, it’s just really good to see the characters again. Aside from Stature and Vision the roster has been horribly under used in recent years, so it’s good to see Patriot and Wiccan again. With any luck we’ll also see some sort of interaction of explanation between the two characters using the name Hawkeye. If you were a fan of the first volume, you’ll enjoy this.
About Grey Scherl
