Avengers: The Children’s Crusade: Young Avengers 1
Reviewed by Martin Skidmore 21-Mar-11
This is a weird one-shot, in that it seems like issue 5 of the current Children’s Crusade series, explaining Iron Lad (aka young Kang) appearing at the end of issue 4 thereof. It’s also a weird title, in that the team and book were previously entitled Young Avengers before the bizarre new title.
This is a weird one-shot, in that it seems like issue 5 of the current Children’s Crusade series, explaining Iron Lad (aka young Kang) appearing at the end of issue 4 thereof. It’s also a weird title, in that the team and book were previously entitled Young Avengers before the bizarre new title.
Anyway, it is partly some future scene featuring adult versions of the team (plus a couple of family additions), now in slightly different identities, teamed with actual Kang, for reasons that are totally unclear and make for the kind of mind-blowing time-twisting that Kang stories have long specialised in – whether the outcome of all this will make sense on that level is an open question. Most of the comic, however, is a rather pointless untold story of the team’s earliest days, levered in for no obvious reason, as if someone had some unused pages and wanted an excuse to publish them.
They are quite nice pages, though – plenty of lively character stuff, and Alan Davis has lots of fun with a Danger Room simulation of the original Sinister Six, then with the actual Electro, all tying in to his actions that led to the reforming of the Avengers after the Scarlet Witch’s meltdown, and since the main Children’s Crusade storyline appears to be bringing her back, maybe that is just about enough connection to justify this story.
They’re also good pages because of the art. Davis looks a bit less fresh in an era where Bryan Hitch is a major star, but he’s always given very good value. The Danger Room scenes are particularly delightful, as he happily evokes the magnificent Ditko art on that first Spider-Man Annual, a huge favourite of mine, and delivers attractive lines throughout, helped by the always excellent Mark Farmer.
I wish this weren’t published as a one-shot: it can only feel rather inconsequential and pointless if you aren’t following the regular series (which I recommended a while back), and if you are reading that, this may as well have been #5. It would indeed be a very good #5 in that…
Tags: Alan Davis, Allan Heinberg, Mark Farmer, Marvel, Young Avengers
I was very confused when I saw this listed by Diamond, as I detest the reverting of an ongoing series to #1 and was thought it had gone too far if they were doing this to a mini-series !
Totally agree that it is effectively part of the current mini-series so that the numbering is a bit odd and let’s face it, this wouldn’t be the first time that the number of issues of a mini-series has increased as it went along.
Anyway, I found it an entertaining read, not least due to the Davis / Farmer art.
Hawkeye looks increasingly like the Huntress and is the Cassie Lang outfit the same (or near as) as the character who was part of Avengers Next ? (Never read Avengers Next, never want to; the only interest seemed to be guessing which classic cover Ron Frenz would rip off next !)