Atoll Comics Round 11

Or changes to my top-ten


Due to poverty and an urge to buy better comics, I have decided to be super-selective about which superhero comics I read. Harnessing the Awesome Power of Maths, I have determined that I can afford to read 10 ongoing titles. So I get to read 10, and only 10, titles published by either Marvel or DC as well as one trade paperback a week of my choosing.

A complication of this is that I am forced to drop an on-going title if I want to try reading a new on-going title, an act of very tough love. Being financially responsible is the worst.

I will be adding Ms. Marvel and dropping Young Avengers.

Why Ms. Marvel: In short because it isn't comics as usual. 

On the day I bought Ms. Marvel #1, the news that Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr. would be writing Superman dropped. While I am sure it will be a perfectly fine comic, I'm left wondering what new or exciting thing is going to come out of that? I suspect that it will be a couple of talented, but very mainstream creators making what I suspect is going to be vaguely nostalgic Superman stories with a new, modern twist. And... ehn? I came to comics in my early twenties and Superman isn't a thing I have a deep nostalgic love for. I'm glad it's out there for people into that, but I'm much more interested in a comic that isn't a retread of the same storylines and manages to try something new and interesting. I love me some superheroes, but I'm finding myself growing ever more bored with business as usual, PACK OF CAPES PUNCHES WORLD CATASTROPHE! I'm finding, more and more, that it's superhero comics with some kind of different take on the genre, or an interesting perspective or thematic approach that are catching my imagination these days. And I think Ms. Marvel is poised to tell me a story I've never really seen before and talk about some interesting and important ideas. Which is why I'm giving it a try.

The concept of the series is that Kamala Khan, a 16 yearold American teenager of Pakistani descent with a very Marvel name suddenly gets superpowers. She is a Muslim and Captain Marvel fangirl and she lives in Jersey City where she tries to navigate, well, life with all of its teenage drama, cultural complexity, and, presumably, the added challenge of superheroics. The comic is written by G Willow Wilson, drawn by Adrian Alphona, and coloured by Ian Herring, which is maybe the perfect group of creators for the story. G Willow Wilson is a great writer who I think is poised to offer a really interesting perspective on the story (among other reasons, she herself is a Muslim living in America), and Adrian Alphona is an artist I really like (Runaways is a favourite early comic for me) and whose style has a youthful, energetic style and sense of cool that is perfect for telling a teenage story. If the first issue is any indication, Ms. Marvel looks like it is going to be both a thematically interesting and really well made comic that looks poised to be fantastic. It is absolutely a top-ten comic.

(I think Ms. Marvel is also an Important comic. For one, I think it's pretty cool to see more mainstream comics that star under-represented groups because everyone deserves to see themselves reflected heroically in comics and because its always interesting to learn about people whose lives are different. But I think it's also Important because it's a comic that is maybe designed to appeal to a different kind of comics consumer. When I bought Ms. Marvel #1, a 38 year old, overweight dude, nazally wheezed that this was "The Ms. Marvel comic no one asked for". I was in a hurry and arguing with garbage skow humans is a waste of energy so I didn't suggest that I very much asked for this book, but I did make a point of interrupting his nazal-wheezing to add Ms. Marvel to my Pull List because screw his stupid face. My point here is this man is a disgusting jackass who represents a side of comics that I think most people find highly loathsome, and that there are people that aren't 38-year old caricatures who might also want to read comics. And I feel that since mainstream comics cater to 38 year old dudes so extensively that they have maybe curbed the market on 38 year old dudes who are interested in comics. Which might mean that if comics want to grow the market (which is good for everyone) they need to start making content for people in their 20s and teens, children, women, and people from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds with various sexual orientations and gender presentations. Basically everyone who isn't an old white dude. And if wheezy garbage skow is any kind of survey, Marvel has succeeded in that.)

(Incidentally, wheeze-bag is very excited for the Johns-Romita Jr run on Superman.)

Why not Young Avengers: Because it's over. Young Avengers was a comic that was beautiful and experimental and expertly crafted and now it's gone. A fact that simultaneously makes me very happy and quite sad. Like all great things that end it has left a space, both in my heart and in my Pull List, and so I formally say goodbye and welcome something new.   Lion King.

(For those keeping score, I think Young Avengers was another Important comic by being diverse and by having a story that also appeals to non-38 year old wheeze dudes.)

Previously:

Atoll Comics Round 10: Black Widow in and The Movement out

Atoll Comics Round 9: The Movement in and The Indestructible Hulk out

Atoll Comics Round 8: The Indestructible Hulk and FF in and Uncanny Avengers out
Atoll Comics Round 7: Young Avengers in and Winter Solider out
Atoll Comics Round 6: Either The Indestructible Hulk or FF in and Batwoman out
Atoll Comics Round 5: Avengers in and Fantastic Four/FF out
Atoll Comics Round 4: Avengers Assemble in and The Invincible Ironman out
Atoll Comics Round 3: Uncanny Avengers in and Ultimate Spider-Man out
Atoll Comics Round 2: Hawkeye in and The Flash out
Atoll Comics Round 1: Captain Marvel in and Thunderbots/Dark Avengers out
Atoll Comics Round 0: The originals

Only The Good Die Young Avengers

Or on the glorious/tragic end of Young Avengers 
by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, others; Marvel Comics

Young Avengers is over. I am overjoyed, I am crushed.

I'm happy because Endings are IMPORTANT. For a story to have catharsis, to really have dramatic weight it has to conclude, it has to have something approaching finality. Superhero comics are, by their very nature, comics that do not end. As a result they are stories that are often denied the dramatic finality of stories. But sometimes, glorious sometimes, a particular creative run gets the opportunity to tell a complete story, and to end it in a way that provides a cathartic ending. And I absolutely love that Young Avengers was able to end so perfectly, so completely. 

I am crushed because I am really going to fucking miss this book. Young Avengers was one of my favourite comics during its run. The story was consistently fun and exciting and heartfelt. The artwork was always beautiful and experimental and a treasure trove of cool comics tricks. Young Avengers was a comic that would always throw something surprising our way: some wonderful plot twist or some never before seen piece of comics magic. It was also a deeply thoughtful comic filled with meta-thematic ideas about youth and authorship and a dozen other things layered into a story that was deliberately interacting with social media in a really interesting way. Young Avengers was a great comic that was as fascinating to read as it was fun. I'll miss it.

I'm happy that Young Avengers ended because I'm not sure the magic was sustainable. Quality and quantity are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they often are at odds. Young Avengers danced like it was on fire: it packed an enormous amount of action and feeling into every issue. Team Young Avengers was also able to show us comics we'd never (or seldom) seen before while also delivering jaw-dropping plot twist after jaw-dropping plot twist. (YA holds the distinction of the comic I read immediately just to avoid internet spoilers.) I can't help but feel that level of creative experimentation and that constant parade of surprises could only be sustained for so long, eventually Young Avengers had to start looking more like a conventional comic. And I am forever grateful that Team YA decided to quit while they were still on top. Live Fast Die Young.

I am crushed because Young Avengers was reliably interesting to write about. Part of writing a regularly updating blog is that you have to come up with content every damn week. Preferably this is content that is fun to write and interesting for other people to read. And Young Avengers was a comic that I could count on every single issue to be super interesting, to show me cool comics process or provide some sort of nifty meta comment. It was ALWAYS fun to write about and with all the passionate, awesome fans, it was also a comic people were interested in reading about. (And Team YA has been super generous with signal boosts, for which I am forever grateful.) I am sincerely going to miss the enjoyable challenge of trying to criticize Young Avengers. 

I'm happy because the Young Avengers thematically HAD to end. One of the main thematic aspects of Young Avengers is, well, youth. Youth by it's very nature is impermanent, it's fleeting nature is part of what gives it its size, and impetuous, and magic. And a comic that is ABOUT this state of youth-on-the-cusp of adulthood can't carry on, can't become just another perpetually ongoing comic without destroying the magic of youth. Young Avengers have to grow up to be Avengers, they can't be Young forever. It is perfect that Young Avengers ends.

I can't wait to see the next thing Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, and Matt Wilson cook up. Because it's going to be spectacular. 

Previously:
Favouring The Young Avengers #15
Favouring The Young Avengers #14
Favouring The Young Avengers #13
Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 2)
Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 1)
Favouring The Young Avengers #11
Favouring The Young Avengers #10
Favouring The Young Avengers #8
Favouring The Young Avengers #7

Favouring The Young Avengers #6
Favouring The Young Avengers #5

Favouring The Young Avengers #1-4

Favouring The Young Avengers #15

Or how colour is used to emphasize separation in Young Avengers #15
by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Becky Cloonan, Ming Doyle, Joe Quinones, Jordie Bellaire, Maris Wicks, Matthew Wilson; Marvel Comics

Young Avengers #15 is the final, goodbye issue of Young Avengers. It's pretty much a pitch perfect issue that, along with #14, does a really great job providing closure to the various character-plots of the series in a fun and VERY Young Avengers way. YA#15 is a testament to everything I love about the series and a perfect note to go out on.

Young Aveners #15 is also a comic that features a Noh-Varr section, with art by Becky Cloonan and Jordie Bellaire, with some really clever colouring. Colouring is an aspect of comics that I find really fascinating and important, but given the subtlety of it, pretty difficult to talk about. That said, YA#15 features colouring that is obvious in its intelligence and effectiveness.

There will of course be *SPOILERS* for Young Avengers #15 in this post.

Actually, before I get to the colouring of this section of YA#15, I'd like to point out how great the pencils by Becky Cloonan are. The characters are alive with emotion, the story telling is crisp and clear, and the entire composition lives every moment in a really evocative way. The Noh-Varr section of the comic may be short but it really highlights the tremendous acting, compositional chops, and the ineffable magic of Cloonan's artwork. It's always a pleasure to read comics drawn by Becky Cloonan.

The plot of the Noh-Varr portion of YA#15 is essentially that Marvel Boy is ruminating on how his relationship with Hawkeye ended and meditating on the bittersweet flavour of love lost. This is all played out while Noh-Varr is behind the mixing table DJing and watching Kate having fun and being beautiful on the dance floor. As such, much of the dramatic weight of this sequence is the physical and emotional separation between Kate and Noh. This is accomplished in a bunch of ways: from the very discrete ideological demarcation between DJ and crowd (cerberal-observant/emotional-active) to the way the pencils separate the two groups physically and contrast Noh-Varrs aloneness in the booth to Kate's position in the people of the dance floor. But I think one of the most effective ways the separation between the two characters is emphasized is through the way the sequence is coloured.

The brilliance of the colouring is that it colours Noh-Varr in a different way than Kate and the dancing crowd and this contrast in colour emphasizes the separation between characters. Simple stated, Noh-Varr is colouring in a cool, shadowy blue, while Kate and the dancing crowd are bathed in a red glow that permeates every aspect of their colouring. Now, this fits very well into the plot of the series as the dancers are all lit by the dancefloor lighting which is the in-story source of the red glow, while Noh-Varr working in the DJ booth is not lit-up and therefore living in the shadows. So this colour separation makes perfect story sense. But it also makes really great emotional sense too: the cool blue of Noh-Varr fits his melancholy (he is literally blue!) while the hot, passionate red captures the fun and energy of the dancers. This difference in colouring, then, manages to emphasize both the physical separation (booth/dancefloor), the emotional difference (sad/celebrating), and the story distance between the Kate and Noh-Varr in a seamless way that brilliantly enhances the composition and storytelling. It's great colouring and great comics.

Previously:
Favouring The Young Avengers #14
Favouring The Young Avengers #13
Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 2)
Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 1)
Favouring The Young Avengers #11
Favouring The Young Avengers #10
Favouring The Young Avengers #8
Favouring The Young Avengers #7

Favouring The Young Avengers #6
Favouring The Young Avengers #5

Favouring The Young Avengers #1-4

Favouring The Young Avengers #14

Or looking at the use of panel shape in Young Avengers #14
by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, Emma Vieceli, Lee Loughridge, Christian Ward, Annie Wu, and Jordie Bellaire; Marvel Comics

Young Avengers #14 is the first half of an extended "Resolution" to the series. It wraps up some loose ends and begins the unenviable task of providing some closure to a really remarkable series. It's a great issue, but difficult to talk about as it feels very much like a portion of a larger statement. 

So in lieu of a premature series retrospective, I'd like to use Young Avengers #14 to explore how panel shape can be used to enhance storytelling because the issue has some really nifty examples. 

There will, as always, be *SPOILERS* beyond this point. So be wary.

Specifically I want to talk about the America Chavez section of the issue drawn and coloured by Christian Ward. Ward has a really distinctive approach to artwork that makes really interesting use of colour and shape to convey additional story information. And it is completely worth taking a closer look at.

This page here has a bunch of interesting transitional elements. The page starts in the present with realistic, mature artwork that uses very structured panels and gritty, natural colouring, but transitions into a flashback sequence featuring America's childhood which is defined by a looser, more childlike style and a riot of brilliant colours. The change in colour and style clearly marks the difference between the flashback and present day sections of the comic and beautifully sets a tonal shift from the cynical, worldly perspective of grown up Chavez and the more joyful, naive perspective of young America. I also especially love the triangular fifth panel on this page showing the closeup of America's eyes. This panel makes a great use of shape here: the panel seems to be an arrow that points at what is happening in America's mind. It's a great way to effect the story transition that occurs between the fifth and sixth panels.

This page here has another pretty great use of shape. In this case the page uses a round panel in the centre of the page to add dramatic emphasis to the HOLE IN REALITY featured in the centre of the panel. It's as if the hole in the centre of the panel is a singularity pulling at the very fabric of the comic and warping the square panels around it into its orbit. It suggests that the hole in reality is vastly important to the larger story of America's childhood (of which we only get a glimpse) and really cements it as a focal point of this page and this section of the comic.

(Also notice the use of the Demiurge colour scheme around the hole in reality? The recurrent iconography in Young Avengers is pretty amazing.)

This page here makes a subtle, but really effective use of shape as well. Essentially the dramatic beat of this page is Chavez being presented with a choice, with the majority of the page containing the exposition leading to the choice which is revealed on the following page. What I find so great about this page is that the expositional elements come to a point on America's head as she makes a decision. I think this is clever because it's as if all of the information that effects Chavez decision is projecting above her head and literally on her mind. It's also quite clever as the decision that Chavez makes at the end of this page is the crux of the America section of Young Avengers 14 and the layout of the page focuses in, and balances on this decision. It's subtle, but great stuff.

This page is the dramatic climax of the America story and portrays young America Chavez breaking through the hole in reality, leaving utopia and casting herself on the path that would eventually land her in the events of Young Avengers. And, since this is a sequence that uses magic (demiurge magic judging by the colours) the page contains a breakdown in the progression of comics reality. In this case the page loses its structured panels and instead is drawn into a star-shaped, whirlwind of comics chaos that ends with America Chavez falling right out of the plane of the composition and into the background. Great comics.

(Also, incidentally, I had always assumed the stars associated with America Chavez were a United States of America thing, but I wonder if they had, perhaps, been a nod to the Demiurge all along?)

Avengers #14 is another great issue in an outstanding series with a bevy of great artists working on wrapping things up. I'm going to miss this series when it's gone...

Previously:
Favouring The Young Avengers #13
Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 2)
Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 1)
Favouring The Young Avengers #11
Favouring The Young Avengers #10
Favouring The Young Avengers #8
Favouring The Young Avengers #7

Favouring The Young Avengers #6
Favouring The Young Avengers #5

Favouring The Young Avengers #1-4

Favouring The Young Avengers #13

Or on the meta-layouts and meta-theories of Young Avengers #13
By Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Stephen Thompson, Mike Norton, Matthew Wilson; Marvel Comics

Young Avengers! What is there to say that I haven't said already? The comic is clever, beautifully drawn, and full of draw dropping, medium challenging moments. It's a great comic that I like a lot. Young Avengers #13 contains the climatic scenes in a long running comic and, in the proud YA tradition, contains some pretty exciting story which is told using some astonishing comics. It also contains some more fodder for my critical theory of Young Avengers. So this post is going to take a look the innovative layouts in the comic, then change gears and do some meta-commenting.

There will of course be intensive *SPOILERS* for Young Avengers #13 and the series as a whole in this post.

Part of the magic of Young Avengers is how effectively team YA uses colours and iconography to quickly and obviously convey story information. This scene here, shows the climatic reconciliation of Teddy and Billy which serves as the inspiration Billy needs to go full Demiurge (translation for the non-YA fan: Get really, really powerful). This power up is represented entirely through colour and shape: the star has been a recurring shape associated with Billy's use of power and the red-shifted space scenes are the colours of Billy's costume and power. This giant, page commanding Billy-coloured star tells everything we need to know about the moment. Which is pretty great.

(Also, D'awwwww.)

So the big deal about Billy unlocking the power of the demiurge is that he gains the ability to use his magic to manipulate the very fabric of reality. In Young Avengers, magic translates to big, bold, rule breaking comics, and for something as monumentous as redefining reality, we get a doozy. In this case, we see Billy literally reach out and grab onto the panels that constitute reality and change things. (He has the whoooole world in his haaannndsss as my very religious relatives are won't to hymn.) We see the Mother-Parasite washed away in a wind of Billy-colour, and Billy-colour fires tear through the invading Firefly-monsters. It's a very straight forward visual metaphor, but damn if it isn't a satisfying and effective one.

(It's also a pretty great visual representation of what comics creators literally do: with their hands they create and manipulate the very panels of (comics) reality.)

And this is the climax of the climax of the comic and such a cool page hat it would be criminal not to take a look at it. From a story perspective this double page spread shows Demiurge-Billy looking at the recent shape of history/reality and musing about whether he should use his amazing new power to change the past to improve it. And, beyond any of the clever metaphorical or smart process choices on the page, this is just an oh my god amazing bit of comics. Look at it and embrace the awesome. Beyond being wicked cool, this page is also an insanely smart way to portray the concept of a being with godlike powers over reality in a comic. Again and again the Young Avengers has portrayed "reality" within the comic as conventional comics, normal looking panels and magic as the ability to affect these panels in interesting and rule breaking ways. And what could be more rule breaking than a character stepping outside the comic and reading his reality? What could be more powerful than the ability to reach in and rearrange and edit the panels, the reality building blocks, of the Young Avengers world? In the context of comics the creators are gods, and in this layout Billy is endowed with the perspective and power of them in a very visually dynamic way. It is amazing comics.

It's also technically great comics. The way the panels sit in the background is incredible, and the way Billy interacts with them, sliding the last panel of the previous page into place, and then maybe undoing the panels of the very beginning of the story are really great touches. We also see the repeated Demiurge-star motif with it's Billy-colour which is a great continuing symbol for Billy in godmode. But I think my favourite thing about the page is how effectively it leads us through the page. Practically speaking we have Billy swooping a complex zig-zag around a page with no borders or obvious sequence indicators in the foreground (and a sea of unrelated panels in the background). This could be a super confusing page to navigate. But a combination of Billy's perspective (he looks at the next Billy location), word balloons, and the trail of white/blue speckles provide all of the visual information to make moving through the page super simple. It's the basic machinery that makes this complicated, beautifully experimental page work in a way that is completely effortless. 

Oh and before I get to the meta-stuff, I just kind of want to point out how great the multicoloured blood is on Miss America here. The literal in story reason for it is that America has been punching the hell out of a aliens and mutants and monsters that bleed all kinds of different colours. But because Young Avengers is unapologetically meta, these colours, I think, have a dual role. I think they are meant to represent America punching comic characters so hard the artwork breaks. That the multicoloured splatter is not much blood, but the very INK of her foes torn from the page because she punched them so damn hard. Regardless, Miss America Chavez is a badass and this is a pretty sweet panel. 

Alright. Now the meta stuff. I have a theory about Young Avengers that centres around the idea that Loki is a stand in for the creators of the comic. (Part 1 of the theory is here, and Part 2 can be read here.) He is a reality and character manipulating liar god that wants to control the team for his own ends and is manipulating Mother (a stand in for the audience) for control of reality (the comic). And this issue has lots of fodder to fuel this theory:

Like he admits that he is behind the events of the series and that he is "improvising" the "tune" that the other characters are "dancing along" to. And that his interest was to "control the dance steps" of the "rules of magic". I mean, it isn't explicit, but pretty close, eh?

And then after Loki confesses to his guilt/involvement in manipulating events his subconscious stops generating the League of Evil Exes. Which, if you look at it in a certain way, is Loki writing the villains out of the story. 

We get to see Loki make silly/quippy wordplay at an inopportune time which is such a comic writer move. (Also, think about this in the most meta way possible: Gillen had Loki do silly word play, then Gillen went something like "Gee that was quite silly for this dramatic moment" and then decided to have Loki point out that what was just said was too silly. Magnificent.)

And in the end Loki writes himself out of the story.

Maybe at the end of the day that is the point of the meta-commentary on authorship in Young Avengers. Maybe the point is the creators need to take themselves out of the story (like Loki), with their goals and egos and needs, and just let the characters tell their own story (like Billy taking control of reality). That by letting the characters tell their own story the audience (Mother) can finally be defeated and by removing the creators from the story, critics (Leah) can also be sidestepped. And maybe this is the thematic conclusion of the Young Avengers story. Maybe...

Also, ZOMBIE KATE BISHOP!

Previously:
Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 2)
Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 1)
Favouring The Young Avengers #11
Favouring The Young Avengers #10
Favouring The Young Avengers #8
Favouring The Young Avengers #7

Favouring The Young Avengers #6
Favouring The Young Avengers #5

Favouring The Young Avengers #1-4

Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 2)

Or more meta-theorizing about the subtext of the Young Avengers
By Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Mike Norton, and Matt Wilson; Marvel Comics

As much as the Young Avenges is this incredibly innovative comic in how it tells its story, it's also a really noteworthy comic in how it plays with some very deliberate and meta themes. For all of the explicit comics action and feels, Young Avengers all but thrumbs with hidden machinery and meaning. It's the kind of comics experience that BEGS for critical theories to be applied to it. And with the behind the scenes intensive issue of Young Avengers #10, I laid out what I think might be some of the meta-commentary built into the Young Avengers machine. With the meta-fertile pages of Young Avengers #12, I feel the need to expand this YA critical theory.

You better believe that there will be *SPOILERS* for Young Avengers #12 in this one...

You can read the entire initial theory HERE, but to briefly catch you up, my theory is that Loki functions as a stand in for the creators in the comic and mother represents the audience. Essentially, my idea sees Mother as a ravenous audience that wishes to consume the Young Avengers, particularly Billy, to sate its appetite. Loki in the theory is an author in that he is working for his own ends, but is manipulating both Mother and the Young Avengers to attain what he wants. I also floated the idea that Leah represents a critical force, someone who dislikes Loki and is trying to use Mother, the audience, against the creator stand in. Essentially, I think there is a meta-interpretation of Young Avengers that pits the audience, critics and creators against each other to control the shape of fiction.

And Young Avengers #12 totally plays into this and opens up some new avenues for thought.

So one of the holes in my last theory is what role do the parents and adult heroes play. These adult characters fall under the spell of Mother and as a result to a certain extent work with her and don't see the problem of just giving Mother what she wants. After floating some ideas with commenter John Jake Minaldi (@Schminaldi on twitter), I think that the adults of YA could represent the publisher. Like a parent, a publisher effectively owns its creative property children and wants to see its comics succeed. But, like the brainwashed parents and heroes of YA, a publisher doesn't necessarily see the problem of giving the audience (Mother) what it wants. Publishers care about sales and can be willing to sacrifice creative freedom or challenging stories for commercial success, for giving the audience what it wants the most. So that's my take on that.

One of the ideas I floated very briefly in the initial theory is that the league of evil exes might be thought of as lapsed fans of members of the Young Avengers. The idea being that when these characters were in relationships with the characters they were fans, but time has made them no longer like the character which allows Leah (the critic) to use them against the Young Avengers. Now, I think it might be more accurate to call them fans who disagree with the current directions for the characters they once loved: it seems they are less interested in seeing the characters destroyed than having them revert back to the versions of the character they loved and were with. Which is kind of neat.

But what makes it maybe even cooler is that it seems like there is a commentary on the nature of these fans implicit in the chosen evil exes. For instance the Ultimate Nullifier, a not-really but maybe kind of ex-something of Miss America, is a prototypical bro resplendent with popped-collar. As such he maybe represents that mouth-breathing boner-thing that is disappointed whenever a female characters receives a functional instead of sexy costume or is characterized as a human woman instead of fantasy caricature. The ex-girlfriends of Noh-Varr are even more interesting: they were each in love with Marvel Boy during radically different eras of his life. Meree dated Noh-Varr before his ship crashed and before he became Marvel Boy, Oubliette (which is the word for a kind of dungeon FYI) was Noh-Varr's love interest during the Morrison Marvel Boy comics, and Annie was in a relationship with him while he was briefly the Protector during his Avengers involvement. What this means is that each of these women loved a very different version of the character, and while they all agree that they do not like the current Noh-Varr, they don't agree on what they want him to be. Which maybe plays to the fact that when real life fans dislike a particular take on a comic they often disagree on what the right or best take is. It's like a comment on how infuriatingly contrary we comics fans can be for creators. Gotta be thick skinned to be a comics maker, methinks.

Patriot remains one of the most enigmatic and difficult to aspects of the Young Avengers to fit into a theory. But since I am wildly unprofessional, I'm going to take a stab. I'm beginning to think that he represents time or the inevitability of ending. All stories will eventually end,  and as much as the audience or critics are things a comic and its creators must contend with, time will eventually end even the best creators runs. It is inevitable, tick-tock, no one escapes. I'm still not sure this entirely right, but I'm sure we will find out soon.

Okay, this next bit is *SPOILERS* so many *SPOILERS*. *SPOILERSSSSSS*

The big reveal of Young Avengers #12, the holy shit moment, is that Leah is really the physical embodiment of Loki's guilty conscious. She is his missing power given form to oppose him because he feels bad about being kind of a monstrous snake. If you accept my idea the Loki is a stand in for authors and Leah represents critics, some really cool things come out of this revelation. Like, maybe the worst critic is the creator himself, and that his own doubts are his greatest enemy. Or that criticism is an essential companion for any writing: that the very power of creating necessitates the generation of criticism. And maybe even that all of the real life critics of Young Avengers are a kind of magic embodiment of the authors guilty conscience, of all of his doubts and missteps and regrets, given a kind of sentient physical form. Regardless it is pretty cool.

I love how meta-active Young Avengers is. What's your theory of it?

Previously:
Favouring The Young Avengers #12 (pt. 1)
Favouring The Young Avengers #11
Favouring The Young Avengers #10
Favouring The Young Avengers #8
Favouring The Young Avengers #7

Favouring The Young Avengers #6
Favouring The Young Avengers #5

Favouring The Young Avengers #1-4

Favouring The Young Avengers #12 Pt. 1

Or more innovative page layouts from Young Avengers
By Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Mike Norton, and Matt Wilson; Marvel Comics

One of my favourite things about Young Avengers is just how experimental it is. Nearly every issue of this series has had some example of artwork or design or layout that I've never seen in a superhero comic before. And the way these novel layouts, especially, are married to narrative to convey additional story elements or emotions is frankly brilliant comics. The layouts of the Young Avengers are absolutely worth examining to discover their magic.

Young Avengers #12 dances like it is on fire and has a bunch of cool design elements and amazing layouts.

This post will have *SPOILERS* for Young Avengers #12

The first bit of uncanny comics in Young Avengers #12 is the portal between Mother's dimension and the home dimension of the Young Avengers. Now, portals in comic books are nothing new: everyone uses portals between planets, places, and dimensions. But the portal in Young Avengers #12 is interesting in that takes the form of an impossible interface between comics and not-comics. Within the context of Young Avengers, comics-as-usual is reality with all of its panels, colours, etc. Mother's Dimension exists as this white space punctuated occasionally by ersatz comic panels, it's a little bit as if Mother's Dimension exists in the gutter space between all comics (if that makes sense). This portal is kind of an intermediate step between the comics of reality and the clean gutter of Mother. It takes the form of a panel embedded in the reality of the comic, which is impossible, but I think you can also look at it kind of like a box of gutter right in the middle of a panel of artwork. The colours play into this two, being broken up by old-timey printing artifacts. It creates the impression of a gutter space or corner that some colour bled onto, which, I think, is like the comic reality bleeding into the white space of Mother's Dimension. Which is kind of exactly what the portal is. It's really cool comics.

This layout here is meant to depict a battle between the collective young heroes of the Marvel Universe vs the fanarty, remixed Young Avenger knockoffs of the Mayfly Dimensions. First off, this layout is totally awesome: it depicts a guy firing a gatling gun mounted to a psychically animated stone man where the bullets are made of a comics battle. (If you don't think that is awesome, you are empirically wrong.) What it also is, is a really clever and original way to portray a large battle scene in a pretty small space. Young Avengers #12 has a lot of plot to cover but still needs to show a particularly epic battle and this single page manages to convey all of the relevant information for an emotionally satisfying brouhaha. For one the epically-epic nature of the photo, with the gatling gun and the golem and the zooming bullets, conveys that this battle is big crazy comic book action. And the 45 (if I counted correctly) bullet panels display the scope of the conflict: there are 45 (or so) separate scenes of different heroes and villains fighting all within this page. But the real brilliance of this is that all of this action, all 45 (!?) panels of action, are all occurring at the same time in the tiny instant of a moment when these bullets were in just this position. Like, in a fraction of an eyeblink there is so much happening in the battle that these 45 (I wish I had more confidence in my counting) bullets caught and reflected this much action. Which of course leaves open to the imagination just how much action we aren't seeing in this instant, or in the larger battle. It's very cool comics.

This double page spread is more pretty great, experimental comics. From a story perspective this layout is designed to communicate that Billy and the Young Avengers are leading an attack against Mother and her allies. In addition, Billy, with the power of magic, attempts to awaken the power of the Demiurge to combat Mother for all the marbles. The special feature of this page is the band of panels in the middle third of the spread. The structure of these panels, with its curve and perspectives, creates the illusion that the panels do not lay flat in the plane in the page and instead sort of wrap around our perspective (like Jordie Laforge's visor). What this does is that it puts this particular set of panels into its own dimension: that Billy's magic and Demiurge transition is so far above the ken of of the rest of the comic that it needs to occur in its own plane. It's a really great choice that continues the Young Avengers tradition of using really innovative, impossible layouts to convey the supernatural.

But this two page spread does something else really cool too: it actually uses, or at least accounts for, the seam between the pages. The page seam doesn't just literally split the spread into physical halves, but it also splits the artwork into distinct halves. For instance, in the mid-page band of panels the page seam clearly demarcates the transition point from Billy as Wiccan to Billy as the Demiurge. In the bottom third of the spread the page seam sits right in the middle of the yin-yang vortex between Mother and Billy as they magic-duel it out. This split not only shows a point of demarcation between the two battling godlings, but also splits the lower composition into the left, where the artwork shows mother entering battle, and the right side which focusses on the young avengers and primes the next page. Normally page seams are an annoying reality of double page spreads, but the way the seam is accounted for and maybe even used in this page is really thoughtful and really great comics.

And finally we get to the climatic battle of Billy-vs-Mother, and the Young Avengers against the league of villainous exes. This takes place in yet another really innovative and clever double page spread. The entire page is framed by the magic battle between Mother and Billy with the two godlings superimposed in a plane in front of all the other events. From a story perspective this conveys that the battle between Mother and Billy is more important than the other conflicts and these other events are in some way secondary, or behind, the magic fight. The choice of putting the godling battle in the foreground also allows the composition to be broken up by the lightening bolts of the spellbattle: the thickest forks of power separating the four sub-stories of the page, while the smaller branches of lightning provide the frames/gutters for within each individual story. This provides the structure of the page and also organically ties the whole thing together in a really visually interesting way. (This layout also consciously accounts for the page seam too.) It's more great comics.

There are also some neat colouring choice aspects to this spread as well. The most obvious is that Mother's powers appear as bright blue lightning while Billy's power manifests as lightning with the colour of the night sky, with specs of stars and the Milky Way. What this does is give a very easy to follow visual cue to assess the progress of the magic battle: by seeing how much bright blue and dark blue, and the shape of the that colour, readers can pretty quickly tell what is happening and who is winning the fight. It's pretty smart. But what is even cooler is that on this double page spread the interface between Mother-lightening and Billy-lightening has areas where the colouring rules break down. Instead of following the standard clean colouring of the rest of the issue, the lightening interface has spots of Billy-blue and Mother-blue bleed over into the opposite colour lightening. What this means, practically, is that regions of the lightening look to contain old fashioned comic printing dots. And this in turn feels like comic reality breaking down, as if there is so much power raging where the lightening meets that the comic itself is breaking, that printing errors are happening, and the very structure of the comic threatens to come undone. It is subtle, but such a cool choice. 

So there you have it, another great instalment of Young Avengers with more really great and interesting comics decisions. Tick-tock, time is running out, but goddamn if it isn't going to be a glorious final few moments.

Previously:
Favouring The Young Avengers #11
Favouring The Young Avengers #10
Favouring The Young Avengers #8
Favouring The Young Avengers #7

Favouring The Young Avengers #6
Favouring The Young Avengers #5

Favouring The Young Avengers #1-4