Hazel Robinson
17 May 2013
When the previews for Young Avengers #4 came out, there was quite a lot of hand-wringing from the Tumblr zone about Noh-Varr’s line in this panel.
I guess there was probably a lot of hand-wringing about his butt. But I probably glazed over during anything that followed the phrase ‘Noh-Varr’s butt.’ Just to get this out of the way: Jamie McKelvie is doing an extremely fine job of supplying some slightly-older-than-young-and-thus-ok-for-your-correspondent-to-goggle-at totty, here. Who knew the whole part-cockroach thing was attractive?
The question that appears to be being raised by the young people is: is Young Avengers cool enough? And indeed, if it is cool enough, is it also geeky enough? Are Billy and Teddy’s hairstyles preventing them being colossal dorks?
I don’t even want to get into the last question of that (although no, no of course they are not; they’re just vaguely dealing with being super greasy teenage boys for goodness’ sakes) but whether Young Avengers is too cool is a good question.
Y’see, Noh-Varr looks pretty cool. He’s a silver-haired alien boy for ladies in their twenties to mentally high-five Kate Bishop over. He’s got a spaceship and nega-bands and he’s been in the grown up Avengers and he’s totally done it, probably several times. more »
Hazel in The Brown Wedge • 7 Comments
10 May 2013
Apropos >Mark’s earlier post, I must confess to having imbibed some lager and been in proximity to both paper and pens during Europoptimism, which partly resulted in a sign for the door and partly resulted in this.
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Hazel in FT • No Comments
29 January 2013
Young Avengers #1 is here and with it, duly, coverage. Of some sort. Don’t say we’re not up-to-the-minute. This is one of two ENORMOUS CLUNKING WORD-VOMITS I’m going to retch up about specific panels from Issue #1. And you’re in luck, because if the metaphor hasn’t already become wholly unpalatable, this bellyful has mystic sausages.
By now you may well know some of the facts about the reaction to Young Avengers #1: it’s got words and pictures in and the words and the pictures and the way that the words go with the pictures has been widely and rightly praised. It’s witty, it’s dramatic, it’s a little bit sad in places and it’s romantic in others. It’s done good, is what I’m saying. Really good.
And the Young Avengers? They’re a nice bunch of kids. Apart from, of course, the maggot in the orchard. Who might be on one of his less berserkedly, cacklingly, taking-over-the-world-with-fire-and-brimstone, bringing-about-Ragnarok, more reservedly scheming swings but neverless, is neither nice nor, appearances aside, a kid.
I speak, of course, of Loki.
Loki! He does what he wants!
Serrure! Except when he doesn’t.
LOKI!!! That fucker destroyed Asgard
THIS GUY! He’s not always a guy.
FOR ALL THE GODS’ SAKES! He destroyed Asgard AGAIN!
It’s a bird! No, literally.
Hel-with-one-’l'! He’s had his name written out of every debtor’s book. And when he found one he couldn’t, he ate himself.
…Wait, what? Yes, it is time to delve into the pits of NORSE CRISIS ANALYSIS, of GUESS WHICH FUCKER DESTROYED ASGARD NO REALLY GUESS YOU HAVE ONE GUESS AND IT’S RIGHT, of why everyone, even and especially Asgard’s golden son can’t resist the trickster because without Loki life isn’t quiet but there’s a risk that when the pain comes, it might be blunter but also never as funny, of what the hel-with-one-’l’ this ten-thousand-year-old dude is doing in a kid’s body, of, most crucially, LOKICEPTION.
WARNING: This will be the last time I do a big discussion of this in the Young Avengers write ups but this is COVERED IN SPOILERS for how Loki came to be where he is in #1, so Thor by J Michael Straczynski, The Mighty Thor by Matt Fraction, Siege by absolutely everyone (including Gillen and McKelvie) and Journey into Mystery 622-645. You don’t need to know all this to think about Young Avengers, in fact, I would be super excited to hear the thoughts of someone who doesn’t and is reading it. But this follows some threads of my own thoughts. And by that I mean ‘three and a half thousand words about Loki.’
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Hazel in FT • 15 Comments
16 January 2013
Exactly a week from now, Tumblr is going to have a sort of collective aneurysm. Well, bits of Tumblr, anyway. The reason? Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s new series of Young Avengers starts. Eight years since the start of the first Young Avengers volume (although time hasn’t passed so fast for the characters) and in the wake of a Marvel explosion, it’s time to bring back everyone’s favourite teenage sort-of-good-at-saving-the-world, only-slightly-Dr-Doom-enabling, probably-no-longer-dicking-around-in-the-timestream-at-least teenage heroes!
Does Billy and Teddy having an argument in some of the preview panels mean they’re breaking up? (probably not)
Is Loki evil again now? (statistically, yes)
Does Miss America know? (possibly, she might just like kicking him)
Has Kate Bishop totally forgotten Eli in favour of banging Marvel Boy? (well, she is the Tony Stark of the equation)
Where the fuck is Speed? (TOO FAST TO SEE!)
What’s Thor going to do when he finds out his (these days) much littler brother is horsing around between dimensions putting together a superhero team? (tell their mums) (or well, Captain America; same thing)
Tom Ewing will be bringing the reasoned analysis, Pete Baran the puns and I the emotional mental breakdown when I remember that The Vision and Cassie are dead (‘FUUUUUUUUU-’ Feels Editor) as we bring you some sort of coverage of each issue as it happens. In the meantime and if you’re just joining us, why not catch up quickly with my comprehensive and not-at-all biased summary below?
WARNING: spoilers for Journey into Mystery 622-645, some of The Mighty Thor, everything that’s gone before in Young Avengers.
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Hazel in FT • 26 Comments
28 October 2012
This is just a coda to Tom’s brilliant (but spoiler-y! Very spoiler-y!) piece on Journey into Mystery. This is less spoiler-y and much more ramble-y and nothing like as in-depth but Tom asked me to write it, so you have him to blame.
I am not a Western comics reader. I have read some and indeed, enjoyed them a lot but in a hobbyist way that didn’t make me feel like a fan, per se. Even for someone much enthused by enormous run of things, the unassailably enormous back history of Marvel or DC characters always felt like too much work in comparison to the apparent safety of manga, where I had done the groundwork to know where my incestuous reincarnated celestial beings were at. Or more accurately to the present day, CSI, in front of which I had found my adult self lounging and wondering if anything in the geek culture that raised me would ever interest me again.
‘So far so nylons and lipsticks,’ you might think; however, this doesn’t explain why I ended up in the pub last Friday, cursing at the Marvel app for its dysfunctional purchase downloading and burbling ‘Kid Loki is THE BEST why did no one TELL me that comics were GREAT?’ Tom enthused about how heartening it was that young people were reading Marvel again- ‘I’m twenty five!’ I protested, ‘that’s REALLY OLD’ and then proceeded to have some kind of showdown altercation with a table. Or maybe a door. Or a fellow patron. A grown up showdown, no doubt.
I was and still am absolutely livid that no one told me how great Journey into Mystery is before- my emotional core has been utterly destroyed by it but I want to curl around it and clutch it to myself as though it were my child. Finally, I totally get why people care so much about Marvel and superheroes- I’m reading the whole of Thor, as though this can somehow provide attrition for my years of ignorance but honestly, it’s the gateway drug that’s the masterwork. more »
Hazel in FT /The Brown Wedge • No Comments
14 June 2012
Actually, I’m not sure this is totally universal to the site; some of our most esteemed contributors fall into the strangely misguided category of ‘mustard hatas.’ Even so, I would hope that even the most vehement detractor of the second most important food group would say that there is something brilliant about cress-that-is-actually-mustard.
Behold, the pale army
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Hazel in Pumpkin Publog • 8 Comments
12 April 2012
I shall quietly grumble about this no more. The time has come for a wobbly to be thrown ungracefully across the laminated floor tiles of the internet about a terrible injustice being done to our nation’s fauna and flora.
As the hedgerows are decimated, another important ecosystem is dying. An unsavoury and slightly scary one and one I would not want to put my face near (then again I’m not that keen on having my nose bitten off by a badger, either) but one that is necessary for certain aspects of modern life: the pub carpet.
I salute you, festering menace
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Hazel in FT /Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
10 April 2012
(Apropos much social media rumbling on Erotic Choose Your Own Adventures and the appearance of whatever Heineken think this is)
1. You enter the club and head to the floor, roll a 3 or higher to light a fire and make it hot (proceed to 3 or if roll too low, 2)
2. The club can’t even handle you. You see them watching you, roll a 6 to go all out and proceed to 7.
3. Decide whether to take pictures or shots by rolling two dice; if the total adds up to 7 then it’s shots and straight to 5. If it doesn’t add up to 7 then console yourself at 4.
4. Apologise for party rocking. Rate your sincerity by rolling one die- if 4 or higher then you head to the bar at 5, if 3 or lower proceed to 7.
5. Determine how many shots you need to take by rolling the die. If number is 5 or higher then proceed to 6, if 4 or lower proceed to 2.
6. Dirty Bit.
7. You encounter David Guetta. Decide if he will turn you into a nubile robot by rolling two dice; 6 or higher and you will be asking Where Them Girls At as the optical processing systems are not yet advanced enough to give you clear vision, a total score of 5 or lower means an accident during the splicing process leaves you wondering Who’s That Chick.
Hazel in FT • No Comments
5 February 2012
Together at last
It’s been awhile since we last reported on wonderful things you can eat almost for free but as the
Cooking For People Who Don’t blog carnival is on food security, it seemed a good time to revive the series. And as it’s arctic and your correspondent just staggered back from Sainsburys through settling sleet, my own revival happily coincides with some of the best things in life that are cheap.
This entry is sponsored by the letter ‘s’ and could possibly come under the catch-all of ‘stew;’ what I’m actually here to talk to you about, though, are SWEDE and SAUSAGES. more »
Hazel in FT • 10 Comments
24 December 2011
An online shop only describable as ‘prepared for a nuclear winter’ has left us with a severe surplus of meat products. Rather fuzzy headed this morning, it seemed to me an excellent time for a bacon sandwich. Other Half didn’t get downstairs in time to intervene in my more experimental cooking tendencies, however, leading to me deciding that just yr regular meat and bread wasn’t sufficient for this level of fine dining.
Fortunately it turned out to be an excellent breakfast, so if you’re feeling the worse for the season tomorrow and the mere idea of what follows doesn’t make you boak perhaps it is a thing you would like to put in your mouth.
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Hazel in FT • 7 Comments
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When the previews for Young Avengers #4 came out, there was quite a lot of hand-wringing from the Tumblr zone about Noh-Varr’s line in this panel. 
