Comments on: Young hearts run free https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free Lollards in the high church of low culture Sat, 05 Apr 2014 11:45:12 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: Alex S https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1268709 Sun, 15 Dec 2013 18:47:41 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1268709 When did Kieron say he didn’t want to write the book?

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By: MW https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264916 Thu, 05 Dec 2013 04:01:03 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264916 I always hear the occasional complaint about Gillen’s teens not acting like real teens, but honestly, as a teenager myself nothing about it seems off.

I admit that I never finished the original Young Avengers run (I’ve read the first couple issue of the first volume and Children’s Crusade), so I am not the most well equipped to speak to the continuity of these characters’ characterizations, but taken solely in the context of Gillen’s work, they feel real to me.

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By: Claudia https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264664 Wed, 04 Dec 2013 15:20:10 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264664 They stopped being sidekicks before ACC. In fact, ACC was both the search for Wanda AND for themselves. Every chance they got, the YA rebelled, they stated their own things while still acknowledging their legacies. They kicked back, they stood up and said ‘no, fuck this shit, we do what we want’, and they earned the respect they got. Which they did get. By the end of ACC, they had more than come into their own, they’d tasted loss, they’d confronted their demons and were Avengers. They didn’t need to rebel and fight the adult power anymore, because they’d already done that. And yet… We get a run where kids that should have matured and grown up regress to much more foolhardy mental ages. We get Kate (who is a mature, responsible, generous young woman who just lost her best friend to heroing) saying that every teen should go and get themselves killed. We get Billy and Teddy and emotional manipulation. We go from kids who were a family, a true team, united by common goals, ideals, tastes and had been through hell and back, to people who don’t really like each other much, new characters that are only around for sex or reasons unknown, no deep bonds or anything vaguely like some sort of kinship. We go from a dorky band of outcasts where even the cool kids weren’t all that cool (the delinquent and the lonely rich girl) who all felt for one another, accepted their quirks and helped them grow through the flaws – even Tommy – to… Miss America telling the geeks to shut up, she has to punch things, Noh only sticking aroud because hey, free sex! and David being an emotionally manipulative douche and the furthest thing possible from his former appearances. Not to mention a disrespect to Billy’s emotional problems that I find offensive on a personal level. These are not the characters I fell in love with. These are unpleasant, unrecognisable stand-ins. Gillen didn’t even want to write this book, he said so. I think it’s plain to see in his writing.

And it’s not because I can’t reconcile it with what I’ve built. I have brought nothing to this fandom except bad fanart, not even meta. It’s that I can’t reconcile them with who they were. These are not the characters I read about. Yes, ACC was a HUGE life-shattering event, but people do not change overnight and become nothing like they used to be. They’re like the hipster version of the old YA. Posers.

And, if I’m going to be frank, I do not like McKelvie’s art style at all. But that is a very personal thing, and not every artist is everyone’s cup pf tea. There’s only so many blank, disinterested, half-lidded expressions I can take, though.

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By: Hazel https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264630 Wed, 04 Dec 2013 12:51:37 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264630 Huh- it was unbridled sentiment about how much I’ve enjoyed the series, to be honest. Maybe it’s the Loki thing- I don’t have to think he’s allignment-good to think he’s a great plot device.

I wanna write back but I really don’t want this to come off as grumpy; I know that some people don’t like the new run and I’m entirely cool with that. I didn’t like Infinity, it’s just how the dice roll sometimes. So this is just… meandering thought, not a rant.

I’m not going to comment on what you’ve said about Kieron; our opinions wildly differ. But I also genuinely think you’ve missed some of the way that this series has been plotted- it’s not about Loki, it’s about internal enemies and each of the characters has had their own made clear. It’s dense and it is building into something that’s going to elaborately explode, no doubt- there are enormous numbers of unanswered questions but this is a team who revel in creating things that echo back on themselves, that circle the same room revealing more and more each time and where each separate emotional beat eventually becomes a thudding cacophony when the time comes to overlay each vellum of plot. And that time, I suspect, is today. My body is ready.

The mechanics of fandom-as-a-concept-rather-than-specifically-YA-fandom in downtime periods are kind of really interesting to me, as someone who writes about that sort of thing. Young Avengers had downtime- big downtime, in between its arcs and that gave the fandom time to fill in and flesh out through fanon characters who, to be entirely blunt, weren’t as complete as the fan works would suggest in the first volume.

That doesn’t mean Heinberg did it wrong, it’s just that the amount written about them in canon is massively dwarfed by the fandom creations. Fandoms used to poring over material are able to develop very specific and personal ideas and interpretations of the characters, especially when relatively little has been laid down in canon. That’s fucking awesome, obviously- I love it when fandom comes in and does this. And that’s always gonna make it weird when they come back as canon- whether it’d been Heinberg and Cheung or Bendis and Coipel or Immonen and Immonen or the Freakytrigger writers with some marker pens in the back room of a pub.*

There’s two major differences, that I can see, in the way this volume (so far) reads to the way the first one did. One of them’s about the way it’s being read, the other’s about what it has to be.

In terms of how it’s read, this has had the impact that the old one had once it had rolled up to its peak of mature fandom, every week, as it unfolds. That means the intense focus brought to bear on the gentle, fannish exploration of the older material is now a full-beam headlight blasting through each page each week; that’s a fuckin’ hard thing to enjoy a comic through, from a fandom perspective.

Second really big difference is that they’re not sidekicks anymore. The first volume, every major story arc was about the older Avengers- about Captain America’s ~emotions~ about sidekicks, about how the older Avengers could deal with there being younger, idealistic versions of themselves around, etc. They literally were little versions of older Avengers, then. Even The Children’s Crusade was about what they meant to the older Avengers, about linking them ever closer to the grown ups and if I was to be harsher than I want to be about that arc (since I like it a lot) about them destroying themselves to re-power their parents. If we’d applied the same close lens that this run has received to, say, Cassie spread-eagled, costume torn, in her father’s lap after sacrificing herself to save him then… hmm, not sure how well that would have done, to be honest. (It’s a beautiful scene but it’s a fridging, let’s be real)

The Young Avengers, by their very nature, were franchised reflections of the older Avengers. Which is a static position in which they couldn’t stay, without becoming abandoned and irrelevant. They needed this reboot, they needed to come out of the shadow of those older heroes, they needed to become their own distinct thing.

Of course, I would’ve liked more- I would’ve wanted Eli, I would’ve wanted Tommy, I would’ve wanted half of Power Pack to join, I would’ve wanted Kate to snog Scott Summers or something. And that’s why I’d be fuckin’ shit at writing it and Gillen and McKelvie have done this incredibly justice, in my opinion.

I don’t agree with a lot of the criticism that’s been leveled- I like Noh-Varr and Kate’s imperfect, lusty relationship, I liked David’s stupid, impulsive behaviour in the face of certain doom, I like well-intentionedly collapsing the universe, worms of doubt and the post-trauma switch between euphoria and aggression that runs through the sense of existence here. Remember, these guys have been through HORRIBLE things, all of them, recently and adults have not only been no help but actively occasioned it, especially during Civil War- to grow into their own people, they needed an escape event and a plate to step up to.

In a lot of media with a year+ break, you’d not expect it to really come back, except as specials maybe (which was kind of where Young Avengers was, to be honest) but with comics obviously everything is always up for grabs to come back. And a come back after a gap does mean a little reboot; the equivalent of boshing up the Dr Who theme and adding a bisexual alien casanova. It might just work or it might fall on its ass and in the same way there are surely people out there who hated Ecclestone’s Dr Who, there’ll always be people who hate a comeback, can’t reconcile it with what they’d built themselves. That’s a huge bummer for them and I understand your unhappiness (I was a massive Tolkien fan who hated the Peter Jackson films; sucks to be me) but it is, unfortunately, just part of the organic unfolding of this kind of long-form medium.

Which, y’know, I’m 10000% not saying that it’s the fandom’s fault that a few people who were stalwarts of volume one haven’t liked this. It’s legit to not care for something, even if you liked the first stuff. And it’s sad to not enjoy something you were hyped for. But just because I spent years trying to get the images of Peter Jackson’s films out of my head so I could re-read Lord of the Rings with joy, it doesn’t mean it deserves erasing for everyone.

(I liked Noh-Varr’s beard- it was hott! But I am a sucker for characters with a history of carving rude words into blocks and rebelliously emoting about girl groups.)

I’d say that drama and feels are Russell T Davies, not Moffatt. :)
Anyway, I hope that you’re not turned off the series and you’ll give the next round a chance, when it comes. And that you’ll give Kieron and Jamie and Matt a chance, too- and ESPECIALLY the party issues, because damn there is going to be some fucking amazing work in there.

*Actually this is the plan for the new DC reboot.

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By: Andrew Farrell https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264625 Wed, 04 Dec 2013 12:36:54 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264625 Claudia, you get that ‘like it is’ doesn’t really mean anything? That there isn’t a true world of these characters that Heinberg and Cheung opened a magical portal to, and now the portal’s closed and Killen and McKelvie are frankly just making stuff up?

They’re Marvel-owned characters – if they’re still around in 30 years they’ll have had 10 different non-reconcilable takes on them, and whoever picks them up will be able to take the aspects that work best for their story and ignore the rest.

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By: Claudia https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264562 Wed, 04 Dec 2013 10:38:52 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264562 I… Is this article endorsing the run, or does it hate it? It seems rather bipolar about it.

Tbh, for me, these aren’t teenagers so much as cardboard cut-outs of teenage stereotypes. They are there to perform a function, to METAPHOR! at useless intervals, and generally not be actual, three-dimensional characters. The DRAMA and the FEELS and METAPHORS! are the flashy, hollow writing of someone who doesn’t really have anything of note to bring to the table. Like Moffat for the comic book set. Which is thoroughly sad. It’s sad that the only thing Gillen sees is his chaotic, green-clad writer’s pet. There are so, so many things wrong with this run, starting with the fact this is NOT Young Avengers. It is Journey into Mystery 2, now ruining your favourite characters to tell a pretty terrible story. In METAPHOR, because we can’t write it like it is, that would be too intelligent.

I can’t wait for this to be over, so fandom can collectively throw it all in the bin and pretend it never happened.

And can SOMEONE please retcon that Kree can’t grow facial hair?

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By: Andrew Farrell https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264536 Wed, 04 Dec 2013 09:18:25 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264536 No fair point, they are having a double-sized party, which as you say given the people involved makes a lot of sense.

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By: Freaky Trigger (@freakytrigger) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264531 Wed, 04 Dec 2013 08:53:44 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264531 Young hearts run free: It’s the 13th issue of Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie’s run on Young Avengers tomorrow…. http://t.co/EgNxBhd6Ew

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By: Hazel https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264517 Wed, 04 Dec 2013 08:06:15 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264517 Wait, hang on- I thought #14 and #15 were the after party?

Altho yes, sorry, that should have said ‘start of the end’ -it’s the last of the main arc, ostensibly although given who the creative team is, it would obviously be very foolish indeed to disregard the party as fluff.

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By: Andrew Farrell https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264435 Wed, 04 Dec 2013 01:30:29 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264435 …except that it’s not the end of the season tomorrow? There’s still 14 before the after party.

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By: @piratemoggy https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2013/12/young-hearts-run-free/comment-page-1#comment-1264407 Tue, 03 Dec 2013 23:20:56 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=25624#comment-1264407 Anyway, here you go, probably the last of my irregular things about Young Avengers- Young Hearts, Run Free: http://t.co/6ouvF3b8qY

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