Young Avengers 12, Avengers AI 6

Young Avengers 12
Gillen (w) and McKelvie and Norton (a) and Wilson (c)

The Young Avengers are preparing for an unprecedented attack on 616's Earth without the aid of any of the adult superheroes as they continue to be unaware of the problem, thanks to Mother's interference. In response, the YA have assembled a legion of young superheroes to fight off the invading hordes while they press into Mother's home dimension to battle her and their assorted specific enemies. The biggest and most consequential fight of all of this is Billy fighting against Mother, using all of his not inconsiderable power to try to hold her back while the others do what they can to save Teddy. In the midst of all of this, Loki finds out that he's fallen victim to the same sort of mind games he put into Teddy's head early in this series that rather set off this chain of events; the reality warper (in this case, Loki) created his biggest fantasy (Leah) and made it his worst enemy (imbuing her with his missing power).

Another great issue and another fantastic twist all while being a solid lead-in to our arc finale, which will certainly need the cool down two issues we'll get to (still sadly) end the series. I read and re-read the end of this issue a few times to make sure I was getting it all and to yell at myself for missing it all again. I talked about things like this a little while ago when we learned in X-MEN LEGACY that Legion's battle against Cyclops was all a ploy to lure Luca out and was, in fact, still totally in line with the mission he'd set for himself to start the series. The hints are there throughout the series and of course Loki created this Leah just like Hela created that Leah and of course that's where his missing power is and of course it's all spawned from his guilty conscience and of course it's genius and wonderful and thought-provoking. So much here and there still feels like there's so much to cover in this series and so very few issues to get to it all. Even here, the complicated Kate-Noh-Varr/Noh-Varr-all other lovers dynamic still get a nod, David's complicated feelings towards this team, towards being in control, towards Billy and Teddy, and everything else come out a little, Miss America's shady past has a very small light shined on it, and so on and so forth and yet we didn't even talk about that because Loki created Leah and inspired their own downfall while powering her up to defeat him and the team. Geez, this is a good book.

Avengers AI 6
Humphries (w) and Schiti (a) and D'Armata (c)

The war with AI is growing more certain by the moment and Maria Hill sits down with Monica Chang to put her on a new team, one built to take down potential robotic threats. Meanwhile, Vision aims to out-duel Dimitrios in a new game, one based around Pym's video game. The art gets decidedly more video game-esque as Vision defeats Dimitrios by showing him something Pym and Vision worked up together, hoping to prove that the world is in better shape if humans and machines work together as opposed to fighting for dominance. It doesn't convince Dimitrios, but it allows Vision to leave and to gain strategic advantage over the AI. Back in Pym's lab, Pym and Doombot find the source of a buzzing that's been bothering Hank and Hank is able to decode it and realize it's a secret message from Victor, meaning that he's still alive. Finally, Alexis pays a visit to Dimitrios and it's revealed that he's one of the First Six and is the brother of the mysterious Alexis.

The story here isn't necessarily a bad one, though it continues to be a little convoluted for my liking, both over-explained and under-explained. We're still not totally sure of the history of the Diamond or of Dimitrios (things that will likely be explained soon) but we're also getting a lot of motivation, which isn't that hard to understand yet it sometimes comes across as really watered down. Anyway, Humphries really emphasizes the idea of the team here while also separating them; everyone gets at least a few pages in this issue but only a maximum of two of them appear together at any time. It's a team that is working towards the same goals but doing what they do best to achieve those goals and being able to split up the time effectively is both important for Humphries and pretty well executed. Vision gets the most time, both in a fun little section with he and Hank and in his fight against Dimitrios, which has to take a little bit longer and strays a little too far into the cutesy for my liking (there's a huge emphasis on creating it like a video game with art to match which is both entertaining and a little grating). Valerio Schiti, stepping in for series regular Andre Araujo, provides good art and Frank D'Armata's colors continue to be impressive. Not a bad book but one that does tend to drone a little as motivations get rehashed.