YMMV / Young Avengers

• Angst? What Angst?: Teddy seems to come to terms remarkably fast with his foster mother's death and the revelation of his identity. However, vol. 2 makes a point of exploring the effects of such events on him. And when David kisses PatriNot, Tommy is surprisingly blasé about it other than some mild confusion over his location.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Many were against the idea of Young Avengers at the time it was announced. It starred teenage versions of famous heroes, including a new female superhero taking over the mantle of Hawkeye after his death in Disassembled, was written by a man who had no experience in comic books (being primarily a television writer in works that many comics audience likely wouldn't watch, like The O.C. and Sex and the City), and to a lot of people it just screamed "gimmick". It then turned out to have been considered one of the best, freshest ideas of 2005, earned a large following (especially with young readers, their target demographic), gave the starring characters fandoms of their own (especially notable was Stature, before then Cassie was just known as Scott Lang's daughter; also don't forget having the openly gay couple Wiccan and Hulkling was very progressive back then and was widely praised), and Kate Bishop herself would turn out to be the Breakout Character of the series, even headlining her own many years later. Case in point, when the series was announced to return in 2019 as part of Marvel's Fresh Start relaunch, the reception was very positive, and many are hoping that the series will be adapted into a movie franchise in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Base-Breaking Character: Loki, Billy, and America are the biggest, and Kate to a lesser extent. Loki and Billy are either great characters to read or a Creator's Pet and Spotlight-Stealing Squad respectfully, America is either a fun addition or a complete Jerkass, and Kate is either the best or worst thing about the Hawkeye series.
• Broken Base:
  • The letter column at the back was choc-a-bloc each month with complaints that the book was saying it's okay to be gay. And equally choc-a-bloc with praise saying what a godsend it is to LGBT teens.
  • And there are those who debate whether it was a good idea to change the sexuality of Prodigy and America. Was it shallow Author Appeal that contradicted canon? Did it give the characters more depth and improve their interactions with others? Should the book be faulted for the characters' sexuality becoming their defining traits in recent times, or should the blame be passed on to other writers?
  • Kate and Noh-Var's hookup either makes them unlikable, or it's just a sign of them being two happy, healthy young adults having fun. Even those who dislike it are splits; either they're too casual about it (especially Kate), or Kate's mini internal-shaming sends a bad message to how to react to having one night stands. In other words, it's sex positive and that's bad, or it's not sex positive enough.
  • On the same note as the two above, Billy and Teddy's relationship: Either its a great portrayal of a healthy, loving gay couple, or they're dull and boring because they never have any troubles. Then Gillen's run gave them some problems, and people are split on if that made them more interesting or less interesting.
  • Even before this, The Children's Crusade mini had alienated a bunch of fans for its needlessly harsh treatment of the team, especially since Heinberg had no intention of picking the characters up from where he left them. And before this, there tended to be a split between fans as to whether Heinberg was the only writer worthy of handling the characters or whether the material published between YA Vol 1 and The Children's Crusade was as good as the stuff he put out.
  • The initial run also had flack for Patriot's drug addiction story arc. Either it was rather well-handled and turned him from a Jerkass into a Jerkass Woobie with a tinge of I Just Want to Be Special, which made him much more likable and relatable, or it was incredibly uncomfortable to have the black guy be the one to deal with drug addiction.
• Complete Monster:
  • Volume 2: "Mother" is an interdimensional parasite that consumes her victims by drawing them in with the image of their deceased loved ones, particularly their parents. Mother assumes the form of the deceased mother of Hulkling, using her influence to assimilate the Avengers and thousands across New York to devour the Young Avengers before she's repelled as part of Loki's plots. In anger out of having been deceived, Mother decides to annihilate Earth and its entire reality as a warning to the rest of the multiverse, twisting Hulkling into a "throne" while he's alive and conscious and sending dark counterparts of the Young Avengers to destroy all they find.
  • The unnamed warden^note appears in Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways and Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust's "Master of the Cube" of the "Cube" is a government-licensed Torture Technician who admits, since a child, he's always had an obsession with playing private, sadistic games. Now able to exert his childhood fantasies over a classified superhuman prison facility, the warden subjects many hundreds of prisoners to paranoia agents and torture for his own glorification. When some of the Young Avengers and the Runaways fall into his hands, the warden is positively gleeful that their unique physiology means he'll be able to effectively torture them for days. The warden's prize accomplishment is what he does to Noh-Varr; after cutting him off from the Kree hivemind, the warden "stomped around in his head" until Noh-Varr becomes a conditioned killer, still somewhat aware of what the warden is forcing him to do.
• Epileptic Trees: Tommy being bisexual was something many fans assumed, ever since his Ho Yay laden introduction to Prodigy. Became Ascended Fanon in 2021 when Tommy, after years of being a background character, showed up in X-Factor and started a relationship with Prodigy.
• Fandom Rivalry: To some extent with Ant-Man's fandom, after his current series had Cassie Lang regress back to her pre-Stature characterization (including de-aging her to 15, which many feel is a blatant retcon). Many a Young Avengers fan were hoping her revival in his book would mean some kind of Hawkeye-esque team-up between Cassie and Scott, as a father/daughter superhero team. Unfortunately this wasn't the case.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With fans of New X-Men, Runaways and Avengers Academy. Vol.2 added Journey into Mystery (Gillen) fans with introduction of Kid Loki to the team and by virtue of being written by the same person. And of course the last two issues of vol.2 took advantage of this with the Young Avengers inviting all other teen heroes to a huge party.
  • And with fans of Matt Fraction's Hawkeye series, thanks to both being quite different in style from usual Marvel standard and sharing the character of Kate Bishop. It helps that Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen are good friends.
  • And of course, the Loki: Agent of Asgard fandom, in large part because it essentially spun out from Gillen's run.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Wiccan's original name was Asgardian and based on Thor, but changed it due to possible jokes about a gay superhero whose name sounds like 'ass guardian.' Then lo and behold, Charmin used the joke on an ad on Twitter for Thor: The Dark World which has a large section of gay fan fiction.
  • The "new readers wanted" ad Loki handed out in the promotional one-shot had an interesting curse attached: "Be there or be involved in a string of massive corporate crossover events for your entire run"... well, apparently he wasn't there enough because his new solo series existed entirely over the course of three "massive corporate crossover events" - Original Sin, AXIS, and Secret Wars (2015). Not that this isn't a totally Loki thing to happen.
  • A summary for the #1 of the 2013 series says "Legacy isn’t a dirty word... but it's an irrelevant one." Four years later, we have the Marvel Legacy event, which is all about legacies.
• Ho Yay:
  • Billy and Teddy went straight past this to Official Couple, but the first issue gives us the semi-infamous picture of Iron Man with his arm around Captain America's waist in midair.
  • Speed and Prodigy get this in vol. 2. They meet at their mutually terrible day job and befriend each other for all of about a day before Speed is kidnapped by the Patri-not. David tracks down Tommy's teammates and goes on a weeks-long cross-dimensional quest to get him back, only succeeding when Patri-not kisses him and then swaps out, mid-kiss, for Tommy. Tommy says they're moving way too fast, and then a crowd shot in 2015's Secret Wars: Secret Love shows them kissing again, making them (probably) a canon couple.
  • Iron Lad has some with Billy in the post-Avengers: The Children's Crusade comic that explains why he showed up again to interfere with the timeline. First there's a flashback, during which Billy's response to Nate defeating Electro is to hug him from behind, which Nate looks rather pleased about. A few minutes later, Nate almost dies but Billy resuscitates him with CPR. Nate apologizes for coughing into Billy's mouth, to which Billy replies that it wasn't as if he [Billy] didn't enjoy it. The scene then switches back to the future, wherein Kang encourages Iron Lad to go back in time to change things by telling him that Billy was murdered by the Avengers. Nate immediately decides to repay Billy for saving his life despite the fact that he's warned that doing so puts him closer to becoming Kang. As soon as Nate's gone...
    Future Billy: You didn't have to lie to him.
    Future Kang: Probably not, but it had the desired effect. Besides, I knew he'd do anything for you.
  • Kate and America is pretty popular, in fact probably the most popular Kate/Anyone pairing, thanks to their few interactions in Vol 2 having America sightly tease Kate, and calling her Princess regularly. The final issue having America come out as gay herself and claim that Kate's 'not that straight', really helps matters.
• I Knew It!: Wiccan and Hulkling's reveal as being a couple was done sooner than planned, because all the fans could tell they were in a relationship anyway..
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Some people use "Thinkfast" to refer to Tommy/David.
• Jerkass Woobie: Loki. The entire conflict is basically his own self-loathing and guilt personified, and it all started because of his gambit to steal Billy's power.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Prodigy. He comes with one canonical, if sunk, ship from his previous series (Surge), gets a lot of Ho Yay with Speed and once he reveals his bisexuality, with Teddy, Foe Yay Shipping potential as Loki's rival and there is a small percentage of fans who were shipping him with Miss America on the basis of one scene from issue #8 (though that probably got sunk when it's revealed that America is a lesbian) and with Kate on the basis of a small scene from issue #11.
  • Loki. The fact that members of Ex-Men were really duplicates created by his subconsciousness lead some people to believe he is attracted to every single member of the team.
• Memetic Mutation: Loki and his flying, talking wieners.
• Misaimed Fandom: Gillen noted in horror how many people told him that they love the uniform worn by one of the alternate versions of Kate Bishop in issue #9 of volume 2, despite the fact it's clearly a Nazi uniform.
• My Real Daddy: Because of her big promotion to the main Young Avengers team and the increased focus on her and a huge surge in popularity, fans are probably more likely to associate Miss America with Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie than they are Joe Casey or Nick Dragotta.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Vol. 1 has a subtle moment, when the world is catching up to changes in the timeline. A very expectant Jessica Jones' outfit changes into her old form fitting superhero uniform, causing her to realize that she isn't pregnant anymore.
  • From Volume 2 Issue 4, in how Loki convinces Billy to loan him what's left of Billy's powers for ten minutes. Just the thought of Teddy being forced to go through what Loki's suggesting is enough for Billy to agree despite his misgivings.
    Loki: Do you want your boyfriend to snap your neck to save everyone's lives, Wiccan? Because he doesn't.
  • In Issue #6, the last few pages give us a thing in Patriot's old costume, that walks like a zombie, mind rapes Speed before taking him somewhere and reveals the costume is actually empty, taunting Prodigy to put it on, before it disappears. It's quite creepy.
  • In Issue #10, the Mother catches and eats the narration panel. The panel begs the readers not to abandon it and calls them monsters and cowards in its final moments.
  • Come Issue #11 Teddy has been imprisoned by the Ex-Men and the Mother, who has used his shapeshifting ability to force him to assume the form of a throne for her.
• Padding: Some people felt Gillen's run took longer than it should to wrap up all of its plot points, especially towards the end.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: "Amerikate" for Kate/America and "Wickling" for Wiccan/Hulkling.
• Rainbow Lens: Wiccan (who is gay) attempts to tell his parents that he has superpowers. They misunderstand and assume he's trying to come out to them, and tell him that they knew and that they accept him.
• The Scrappy: Many readers won't forgive Patriot for screwing up Wanda's attempt to save the mutant race, leading to Avengers vs X-Men, a story built atop a massive Conflict Ball that both Avengers and X-Men fans tend to take issue with.
• Ship Mates:
  • As Billy/Teddy is generally well-liked by fans of the book, its common to see it as a side-pairing to any other pairing that doesn't involve the two (which itself are extremely rare given no one wants to break up the Super Couple of the book). Almost every Kate pairing, particularly Tommy/Kate and Amerikate (the two most popular Kate pairings), tends to feature the two as a side pairing of some kind.
  • Weirdly enough, Tommy/Kate shippers also tend to be rather fond of Amerikate, though usually in a platonic manner. Though the other way around not so much, Amerikate shippers tend to be more positive towards Tommy/Kate shippers than they are to Noh-Varr/Kate shippers due to how Noh-Varr treated Kate, and Die for Our Ship treatment towards Tommy is incredibly rare (though not non-existent). It helps that Tommy/Kate shippers are open to OT3 treatment, and have no problem also shipping Eli, Noh-Varr, David, or America in as a third wheel.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Issue 8 of vol.2 - it has several strong moments that would each end up being a cliffhanger in another story - attacked by monstrous versions of Noh-Varr's first love, Exterminatrix, then landing in a dimension where stars are built into a giant image of Billy, then team getting separated after Mother's attack, then the return of Journey into Mystery (Gillen) character, Leah and finally David kissing Teddy.
  • Though, this is easily topped in #13, with Loki confessing the fact he's not really Kid!Loki but the amalgamation of him and Ikol after the latter killed the former, the Ex-Men and Leah being revealed to be figments he conjured up due to his new-found guilt complex, Teddy getting past his existential issues and embracing Billy, complete with The Big Damn Kiss that gives Billy what he needs to, temporarily, become the Demiurge, finally defeating Mother.
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • At least at first, Kate and Eli's attraction was an Informed Attribute; they argued a lot, and it was stated by Cassie this was due to Unresolved Sexual Tension...but it really just looked like they didn't like each other. This seems to largely get dropped, though it gets picked back up after the two have spent more time together and actually have real chemistry.
  • A more obvious example would be between Cassie and Iron Lad. Their first meeting and their Big Damn Kiss took place over the course of a single night. Not only that, they only met each other a total of two times, the second would be during The Children's Crusade, and yet that was apparently enough time for Iron Lad to have a Face–Heel Turn after Cassie's death.
• The Woobie: Sometimes you just want to wrap Wiccan in a warm blanket and carry him home.
  • As of vol. 2, Hulkling is certainly getting up there in woobie points.

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