Siege Young Avengers One-Shot Review
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 21 April 2010 19:38
- Written by Andrenn
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With Children’s Crusade on the way in July, Marvel still has one last helping of Young Avengers goodness to tide us over. This time it involves the events of Siege, which has so far been an underwhelming event. Can Sean McKeever, well known for writing teenagers well, make this a worthwhile peak into the YA’s perspective of the event? Let’s find out.
Creative Team
Writer: Sean McKeever
Art: Mahmud Asrar
Inks: Scott Hanna and Victor Olazaba
Colors: Matt Milla and Jorge Maese
Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 6.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: Wiccan and Hulkling are flying over the wreckage of Asgard and Wiccan starts saying how the reason he originally called himself Asgardian was because he was a huge Norse Nerd. Hulkling says any other time then right now he’d be laughing but then we see more of the chaos. Speed runs up, talking real fast about how everyone needs help, then rushing off.
Hawkeye wakes up in Patriot’s lap with her head hurting. They are trapped under the rubble of Asgard and Patrior says that even when he tries he just can’t push the rubble away without fear of it coming down on them.
Wiccan mentions one of the Asgardian warriors he recognizes from the stories. Hulkling says they should keep moving, looking for survivors. As they fly off Hulkling says this is the hero community’s fault for not stopping Osborn sooner. (no, you think?) Speed is rushing survivors out of the rubble and to a safe field away from the chaos, telling himself to move as fast as he can.
Patriot is pushing against the rocks and Hawkeye tells him to push harder. When Patriot gets mad at her she says that he’s usually better in situations like this and hopes he snaps out of it fast. Wiccan and Hulkling find the wrecking crew, one of them saying this place is sacred so he gets knocked out. Wrecker and the others are about to loot the throne room when Wiccan attacks them.
Wiccan says how this place is special and the Wrecking Crew mock him. Charging at them to attack. Speed is rushing around Asgard and he searches for Patriot and Hawkeye, berating himself for not finding them yet and rushing off to try and find them again. Hawkeye is about to blast the wall of rocks with an exploding arrow, Patriot stops her and when she asks him what’s wrong with him he kisses her (Uh…smooth one?)
Hawkeye pushes Patriot back and asks whats wrong with him. When the area starts to rumble she sees a weak spot they can use to try and get out. Back to Wiccan and Hulkling, Wrecker is berating Wiccan for his ideals of Asgard being great, calling them Junior Avengers as well. Wiccan gets pissed and blasts all 3 with a heavy dose of lightning, knocking them out.
Speed has finally stopped and his holding his head, telling himself he’s a failure. Ronin approaches him and tells him that as long as he does his best that’s all anyone can ask of him. Wiccan and Hulkling are looking over the Wrecking Crew and Hulkling hugs Wiccan asking if he’s okay. Wiccan says how his dad used to read him stories about Norse Mythology all the time, but one time when he lashed out at his father and said he hated them so he never hears them anymore and he feels bad about htat.
After shifting around the rubble around, Hawkeye is able to take aim with an exploding arrow and blows up a hole for them to escape. They get out just as Wiccan and Hulkling are passing by, Speed then shows up as well. As they get ready to head out Patriot says he’s good. Hawkeye says that was a hell of a kiss. They all run off to help as Speed says the Avengers need them.
Commentary
The Good: Siege Young Avengers was solid but imperfect and kind of disappointing all in one. Now I want to mention that coming into this issue my hopes where high, but not too high. With this being a tie-in to such a bland event like Siege. There’s only so much you can do with a snore-fest like Siege so the fact that McKeever made some lemonade out of the lemons he was handed is good.
The biggest highlight for this issue was the character work. McKeever simply gets teenagers and knows how to write them well. He doesn’t write them as annoying angst-filled losers or cocky over the top idiots. He knows how the teenage mind works and how to handle a character of that age when writing them without falling into any of the stereotypical teenager storytelling.
While I find it awfully convenient that Wiccan was a Norse mythology lover, it was a good way to tie this story into the large event of Siege and make it feel like something important for Wiccan to get off his chest. If this ever actually goes anywhere in Children’s Crusade I’m not sure but as of now it was a good character development.
I did like the scenes with Patriot and Hawkeye. Seeing Patriot sort of weaken under pressure made sense for the guy since he often goes in head first not knowing what he’s getting in to. Seeing him finally realize that was nice and you kind of wonder if he’s going to have problems like this in the future.
McKeever obviously couldn’t get Norman Osborn for this one-shot, but the Wrecking Crew where good villains to use since they tied into the Asgardian mythos of the Marvel universe. Though I’ve never liked the Wrecking Crew they made sense to use and they were utilized well as something for Wiccan to blast and for that they where a smart choice.
It was nice seeing Hulkling show concern for Wiccan. A lot of fans for these 2 have been wanting to see them more intimate. I have no stand on seeing Wiccan and Hulkling’s relationship develop but seeing McKeever make sure the message of their relationship went out without beating us over the head with it was nice. He handled it well.
My favorite character had to be Speed, seeing him freak out and try his best to save everyone was great. Speed has been sort of bad at times, but like anyone else when he has a chance to help people he does what’s right and seeing that was great. I also just loved the use of his super speed and how he’s constantly running all over Asgard to help, it was very well handled.
Though my favorite moment was seeing Speed thinking he was a failure. Every teenager deals with failure, if it be at school, at home, with friends, and often it can be really crushing and overwhelming. McKeever perfectly captures that feeling of being a teenager and just being totally overwhelmed and feeling like a failure. We really sympathize with Speed and for that he handled the character very well.
Despite being constrained to not getting to change the characters or advance them at all really, McKeever did his best like so many other writers have the last few years in still trying to tell a great story with these great characters. Limitations be damned, McKeever made this feel like a good Young Avengers story and I honestly forgot about the limitations of Heinberg’s return in July.
While I didn’t like the art a lot, it had plenty of issues and was mostly uneven, it was still solid work. Asrar is starting to get some big work at Marvel and I think he’ll be their next big breakout artist in the following months. Hopefully at least, he certainly deserves it.
The Bad: Honestly, even though this didn’t feel like a shameless unimportant tie-in, I do still have to question the point of this storyline. Other then shining some light on Wiccan being a big fan of Norse mythology and showing Speed finally act like a normal human being, this issue didn’t do much for the YA and that’s a damn shame.
I think my biggest problem would be the art, mostly for how uneven it gets. Some of the proportions and images are weird. For one Asrar can’t seem to get the Hawkeye glasses right. Something about them looks off, I can’t really even describe it but they make it look like Hawkeye doesn’t even have eyes beneath them or something. It’s creepy.
I chalk the weakness in the art up to 2 inkers and colorists. That always can spell trouble even for a great artist and this was just another good example why an artist should have one inker and one colorist or it’s just going to get messy.
Speaking of the colors, I don’t know who colored what pages exactly but some of the coloring around the mouths looked downright creepy. Like they had just put on Vaseline on their lips or something. It was really weird and kind creepy almost.
Can someone tell me whats going on in Siege, why have all the heroes stopped and calmed down? You’d think this takes place after Siege, the way everyone is just walking around like nothing major is going on anymore. Last I checked there’s a massive black and red bug monster in the sky ready to kill all life on earth, and we’re just sitting around digging holes?
I blame this mostly on the flawed idea of these tie-ins though. They just don’t work with such a small boring event like Siege. There doesn’t feel like there’s any reason or importance for these tie-ins to even exist since Siege itself is a very boring drawn out storyline that doesn’t feel all that important or interesting to the Marvel Universe.
So what we have is a rather boring and out of place storyline that doesn’t really even work all that well as a tie-in since it can’t address the main issue of Siege which is of course Sentry-Bug-Void-Thing. That makes the importance of this storyline feel even weaker and lacking then before.
This issue automatically loses a point for no Vision. Vision is easily my favorite Young Avenger and not having him here really sucks. I know he’s over in Thunderbolts but I think at least highlighting a brief moment with him and Stature would have been nice. If anything I think it would have worked even better to have Vision and Stature join their teammates at the end.
I really hated the part where Hulkling said he’d be peeing himself laughing at Wiccan loving Norse mythology. Who says that to their boyfriend? Hell who says that to their friend in general? I guess McKeever was going for some comedy or something but it came off as just plain rude and insulting. So Wiccan like Norse mythology, how is that funny?
It just felt totally out of character for Hulkling to say it. It sounds more like something Speed would have said but not Hulkling. Hulkling is often the “big sweet hearted guy” of the team. You know the type, really big and strong but deep down he’s just a big sweetheart who wouldn’t hurt a fly. This comment just felt out of nowhere and was a bad character moment.
Overall: Siege Young Avengers was a decent read, I felt it was still worth the 2.99 despite it’s failings. Young Avengers fans have read better, such as the excellent Dark Reign mini, but for a one-shot involved in such a boring event McKeever did his best and I applaud him for it. Fans of the team should give this a read if you’re dying for some YA goodness like me and just can’t wait until July.