Young Avengers, Young Assemble!!

Let's talk about Young Avengers for a moment. I am just one of the many people who picked this up out of curiosity and I was not just pleasantly surprised, I was blown away! First off, check out this promo:



I saw this and said, "Wow. That looks like it could be stupid on an epic scale." But a small voice in my head murmured, "It could be kinda cool." Boy am I glad I listened to that voice. This thing rocks! Young Avengers has all of the elements I read superhero comics for.

The characters are engaging, the art is excellent - especially the action scenes, the relationships between the heroes and (more importantly) between the heroes and the villains are three-dimensional, stuff blows up, I could go on and on about what's good about this title.

Allan Heinberg, a TV writer best known for his work on The O.C. is doing an above-and-beyond-the-call job on this. The writing is tight and the story is compelling. This is the only comic book out right now that makes me want the next issue to be in my hands as soon as I'm done reading the current one.

Heinberg is one of those "celebrity" comic book writers who has come in from another medium who understands that comics are visual. He doesn't waste words (and valuable page space) by having characters say what the reader can clearly see in the panel. Each character has his or her own distinct voice and their actions all make sense within those characterizations rather than serving the plot. Nothing turns me off of a story more quickly than watching characters make decisions for no reason other than to put them where the plot needs them to be.

Heinberg also knows how to keep me turning the pages. He's doling out the information about the main characters with an eyedropper and it works! Each issue reveals a tiny bit about one or more of the characters just as it raises more questions about them. This is a very, very cool comic book. The trade paperback compiling the first 6 issues will be out in either August or September. If you like superhero stories, get it.