Young Avengers is just fantastic.As the team travel between dimensions trying to escape a threat to all reality, one of them suddenly grows a beard. It's random, hilarious and it's a testament to Kieron Gillen's writing that it just works. Young Avengers continues to balance humour and action in its second volume, while also branching out into increasingly complicated territory with a plot that belies the often comical nature of the book.The first issue is dedicated to introducing Speed and Prodigy (who looks like a young Tinie Tempah) with great artwork from fill-in artist Kate Brown. After crossing paths in a breakfast bar (dining out is a Young Avengers trademark), the inter-dimensional adventures come thick and fast. The artwork by McKelvie and Norton is as good as the first volume, meaning more eye-catching panel layouts and an innovative use of a caption box. It's this consistent quality in both writing and artwork that makes Alternative Culture essential reading for fans of the series, and a great reason for new readers to get started at the beginning. Not feeling it as strongly with this volume. Maybe I'm just feeling down or bloaty, so it may entirely be on me not on this collection, but all the inventive fresh stuff feels kinda stale to me - maybe because it's stuff I'm not that invested in. Like the arcane music references - just don't really care, tho I'm aware many will think this is the shit.Or the tumblr ripoff they're using for most of the intro pages - yay, it just feels a bit tedious to wade through all that layout for a few tidbits of info I needed to keep up.OTOH, some of the artwork is great and keeps pushing boundaries I'm happy to see shoved around. And a few fun moments scattered. Hilarious, totally appropriate temp jobs for our almost-forgotten heroes. And some great empathy we get to feel for each of them in their circumstance. Totally appropriate scene changes through shattered panels, and lots of weirdness in each scene.But by near the end it feels like we didn't get any closer to resolution (which the characters actually make a comment about), and we've had some superficially fun misadventures but nothing to remember later (save one or two asides).But holy shit is Young Loki a badass. That near-end sequence almost makes up for the lacklustre series of issues that came before. And at least the new villain is suitably inscrutable.Gimme another issue like the last one in this book and I'll keep reading. Finally see the heat cranked up, and a satisfying amount of squirming ensues. Let's hope the final volume cranks up the pace!
What do You think about Alternative Culture (2014)?
Para ser unos adolescentes toman muy buenas decisiones... al menos, la mayoría del tiempo.
—tmos341418
Young Avengers, stop being so amazing I can't handle itttttttttt
—kryss
