Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #2 – “DYS”! In the previous installment, the wheels are in motion in many different directions! A woman named Kate is in outer space with an alien named Noh-Varr and then their ship gets attacked by Skrulls! A boy named Billy pulls who he thinks is his boyfriend Teddy’s mother from another dimension, but she’s definitely not that at all! Loki caught wind of Billy’s occult endeavors and tried to stop him with death, but Miss America intervened and chased him away.

Wait, I guess that’s not too many different directions! It seemed like it to me at first because I only know how to count to three.

The recap page is a cringey social media interface – Yamblr. It has trending topics like “SO MANY FEELS” and “bacon divination”. Recap blurbs end with hashtags like “#slightly uncomfortable fourth wall breaking” and “#can’t quite put my finger on it”. Kids these days, man. Or any days, for that matter.

Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #2 [April, 2013]
Written by: Kieron Gillen
“DYS”

THE MORNING AFTER A MIRACLE (aka Billy brought back a Teddy’s Mom Demon), Billy barges into Teddy’s room at noon to wake him up. He’s been awake for hours, but he’s too scared to get out of bed. What if there are monsters under the bed ready to nip at his ankles?! Eek! That shit would be bacon divination!

He’s scared because “either I get up and my mom’s there… or she’s not.”

Yes, both terrifying options. Small talk with Mom? What kind of topics are going to come up? “Hey, you burned to death in front of me once, do you want a muffin?” or “Hey, your limbs are stretchier and gooier than I remember. Everything ok?

Billy looks sad for his boyfriend buddy. He’s about to give him a nice ol’ caress, but then he gives him a gentle ol’ caress! See what I did there? Billy holds his hand. They share a stare. “Come downstairs,” Billy says with a glint in his eye that also says “…or else.”

Foster Mom is at the table knitting. Foster Dad is at the table reading a newspaper. They seem fine to me and not at all suffocated, so they are obviously pod people. Teddy’s “mom” is making breakfast. She tells Teddy that she’ll allow his late sleeping just this once, and that Billy can’t talk at the table. Demon or no demon, it’s awfully presumptuous to bark commands at these kids as if she’s ever been in their lives. I’d be like “go suck a dick, lady, who do you think you are? Someone’s mom??”

Yo, I got two things to say to you, Mom. *lifts left middle finger* *lifts left middle finger again*

Billy raises an eyebrow. “How do you know about that?” he asks her, referring to Teddy on the rooftop. She tells Billy to cork it and eat his breakfast. Rude. The least she could do at this point is, you know, leave their lives forever.

“And as much as I am grateful to Billy for bringing me here, you’re far too young to have any boyfriend. Perhaps in a decade or two…”

Billy gives Teddy’s dear old controlling narcissistic mother the side eye and turns to his pod parents. “Ms. Altman is right,” says Pod Mom, smiling. “You have so much potential, Billy, and you can’t waste it like this.” Pod Dad chimes in: “We only want what’s best for you, son.”

Well, this is a great way to get a shitty, self-destructive and rebellious kid. Billy has already had it with this woman. He lifts a magic hand and starts saying some words without spaces! “backwhenceyoucamebackwhence–” etc.

“No, Mr. Kaplan. I don’t think so,” says “Mom”, stroking her chin. She somehow counters his mage-like magic magician-like mayhem and sends him toppling backward. “Don’t think you’re bad just because you failed,” she tells him, crossing her arms and giving him a look of tired disapproval. “You tried, and that’s all we ever want. Your parents are very proud of you.”

MY REAL MOM DOESN’T TURN INTO A PUDDLE OF STRANGE LIQUID WHEN I UPPERCUT HER FACE!

Pod Parents continue to ape what “Mom” is telling the two boys while “Mom” presents a giant white square that looks like a very clean piece of paper. “I think you should both go to your room and cool off. It’s a new room. I made it just for you.”

Cool man, I– wait a minute! That’s not a room! What the hell is going on?! Is this Crazy Town?! Pod Parents start dragging Billy toward the white square on the floor. “Mom” goads Teddy into joining, but then Billy starts goin’ Crazy Town and punches the three adults into goo. Hulkin’ Teddy lifts Billy over his shoulder and walks away, but because this is only Issue #2 out of a five issue storyline, it’s not this easy. The goo starts reforming into a smiling woman-shaped Mom-like thing! Gah!

Teddy turns into a pterodactyl and busts through the wall to the outside, carrying Billy into the sky. Pod Dad, arms akimbo and grinning, stares outside of the 4ft hole his son created. “Kids, eh, Ms. Altman? Always trouble at that age.”

“Mom” phases the wall back into place as if she were reversing time. “We were all young once. They’ll learn.”

Off to Avengers Mansion. This is a task for a few of Earth’s Mightiest McDonald’s Kids Toys! Captain America! Tony Stark! The guy with the bow and arrow! Spandex lady! Jump man!

“Hulkling and Wiccan,” Billy calls into the buzzer. Security cleared, go ahead and ruin the Avengers’ day off. The one day off they get in a decade and a couple of snot-nosed chucklefuck teenagers are going to spoil with with “my mom is a walking lump of ooze”. Teddy’s all like, my mom may be some creepy evil alien entity or something, but at least the Avengers Mansion is sorta cool! Priorities.

Billy spills the beans to the room: scary occult powers, mothers back from alternate dimensions, someone figure this out for us please.

He calls the Scarlet Witch “Wanda” instead of “Mom”, and I’d like to know why she dumped this kid off into foster care instead of raising him herself. Very selfish, working to save the whole world instead of raising one reckless little Magic Boy.

Scarlet Witch agrees to help them out. They know exactly how to deal with this! Evil alternate dimension monsters LOVE grilled cheese sandwiches! We just put one on a hook and hover the fishing rod over–

“Here you go, Ms. Altman.” Scarlet Witch and the rest of the Avengers are at Teddy and Billy’s place, throwing the kids back into their care. “Hope they didn’t scare you with their running away.”

Don’t worry, the boys are in good hands. Well, not hands, but whatever it is, it’s good!

Pod Dad has glued the kids to the wall with his arm spooge. “CAPTAIN! CAN’T YOU SEE? HEL–” screams Billy, but Cap cuts him off. “Be a grown-up, William. This is beneath you.”

OK, bye bye, Avengers! Thanks for helping! Don’t let the door hit your fantastically toned asses on the way out. Pod Parents latch onto the kids and start dragging them toward the large white square again. We see Billy get thrown into this void with a two-dimensional black rectangle trap. He mimes around in it. “I’ve made a mess of this. So bad. What can I do?”

Billy sad-sacks into the corner of the cartoonish rectangle he finds himself permanently trapped within. OR IS HE?! Is he? I’m asking. Oh, maybe I should keep reading.

Some dude kicks open the corner of this 2D rectangle. “Now, let’s make a suitably hasty escape.”

“Loki?”

It’s Loki.

“What’s going on?” Billy asks.

“Nothing much. You just let an interdimensional parasite in despite my best efforts to try and stop you.”

Aha! Interdimensional parasite! Of course! Loki’s gonna help, he’s gonna make everything all sorts of right as rain again! They climb around more void rectangles looking for Teddy, who must be around here somewhere… hmm, you know, barely anyone gets out alive within these here rectangles. Heh heh, but we’ll find him. Promises!

A Son-of-Thor always keeps his promises! Loki finds the right box and Billy hoists his hefty boyfriend right out of it. “Loki, we owe you,” Billy breathes gratefully. “Sure you do,” Loki responds. “Do you have your wallet?”

Bizzapp. Grrrrziiippp. Frzzz. Loki transports the three of them hella away from there and into one of those diners Loki loves so much. Brrzoort. Frpp.

“I’ve returned with coin-possessing friends to settle my tab twice over and gift you most handsomely with for your service, patience, and sausages,” Loki tells the diner guy effusively. He sounds like he means it!

75% tip and I give you a big bear hug.

They take a seat and get down to brass tacks. No steel tacks here! Not even stainless steel tacks! This creature takes advantage of youngins with magical powers. i.e. Billy, the dumb kid we see before us. Loki has a few ideas on how to get back their parents from the Hell grip of Interdimensional Parasite Lady. “But you’d have to trust me,” Loki tells them, which is a major caveat. Teddy and Billy look at each other like they’d rather trust a scorpion with the fox’s grapes. Or something similar that actually resembles an Aesop fable.

Teddy and Co. (Billy) ask for a moment alone, which Loki allows with great pleasure so that he can go to the counter and order, and I quote, “bacon engulfed in a floury roll with the ketchup condiment”.

After seven seconds of deliberation, Teddy and the rest (Billy) agree to allow Loki to help them. So now what, Mr. Smartypants Man? What are the ideas?? Hmm? Gonna hit Mom with a frying pan? Gonna lay a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a dumpster for her to climb in? Spill.

Billy gives him some leads. When he was casting a spell, he felt something “lurch” (in his pants lol) and he heard a strange word in a strange language (in his pants lol?). And it sounds an awful lot like that language Loki uses. Interesting! Let’s go to Asgardia about it, which apparently exists outside of Broxton, Oklahoma. I don’t know why. Maybe you do. Loki doesn’t want to, because “his people” are going to “have a problem” with “him” just like how “Teddy and Billy” have a “problem” with “homework”.

“He sure is squirming a lot,” Pterodactyl Teddy comments as they arrive in Asgardia. “They do crazy Norse torture stuff, I bet.”

They look for a way in and are instead presented with a large, blue fireball hurtling toward them. It speaks! “I should thank you. This troublesome rodent has escaped his father long enough.”

This giant blue guy that emerges from the fireball is named Laufey. Laufey, as the kids understand it, is supposed to be dead! Loki looks like he ate an entire watermelon and pooped out a pineapple.

Final Thoughts

Things start to get boring when you bring the giant blue Asgardians into the mix! Where’s Miss America at? The people demand more Miss America!

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #1 – “Style > Substance”!

This series interested me after reading its preliminary story in the Marvel NOW! Point One one-shot. I’m a complete sucker for coming-of-age stories, and watching kids come to terms with their powers is one of the more interesting plot devices. See Ultimate Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, and Invincible.

I’m not sure how much real coming-to-age is going to happen here, but I’m here for it anyway. Kieron Gillen looks like he likes kids! Maybe a little too much!

Young Avengers (Vol. 2), Issue #1 [March, 2013]
Written by: Kieron Gillen
“Style > Substance”

“I’m in a bed. It’s not mine. This is new.”

“I can hear the shower. He’s in the shower. Him.”

A young raven-haired lass has slept over a boy’s house. Her parents are gonna be so pissed. She’s probably eight kinds of pregnant now, which is a shame because she’s probably supposed to be a superhero and you can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound with a fetus rattling around in there.

“Do I just get the hell out of here? Do we go for breakfast? Where does he keep the coffee? What did he say his name was?”

I suppose this woman is older than a teenager, since most teenagers don’t sleep with people they don’t know at all. Possibly. My friend Pete might’ve, but Pete was terminally horny.

She opens a curtain, expecting to see the sunrise over a city! Perhaps a cozy little town! Perhaps a dead animal rendering plant! It’s none of these things. She’s in outer space.

“Oh, wow,” she smiles. “The ride here did seem kinda long.”

A buff man with abs and pecs that have been lovingly penciled in by Jamie McKelvie and Mike Norton has left the shower. “Did I wake you up, Kate Bishop of Earth?” he asks, toweling off his delicious abs and pecs, etc.

This man is named Noh-Varr, and I don’t remember if I met him already in a past life. He’s Marvel Boy… well, he used to be Marvel Boy. I don’t think I know no Marvel Boy. “You kicked all our asses that one time!” Kate says with a glimmer of recognition. Noh-Varr puts on some music and starts dancing. Based on the music notes hovering in the air, it must certainly be Ringo Starr’s Stop and Smell the Roses album where he’s on the cover looking like the greatest sex offender who ever lived. He explains that his people didn’t want him near Earth anymore. The Avengers agreed with this. It was a whole thing.

Stop and smell those roses, Kate Bishop of Earth! Best drummer alive right here, baby!

Nah-Vorr comes from a world with transcendental peace and universal enlightenment, but the music there sucks. I would kill myself, personally, if I had to live in a world where music sucks. Music is all I’ve got.

Kate enjoys exactly four more seconds of this hot, almost-nude dancing alien, and then the ship gets attacked by Skrulls! “I have no powers and not nearly enough training, but I’m doing this anyway,” Kate thinks as she runs the helm of the ship and starts steering. Noh-Varr shoots some badass plasma guns. We have begun, ladies and gentlemen. “Being a superhero is amazing. Everyone should try it.”

CUE OPENING CREDITS. CATHERINE ZETA-JONES AS LORELAI. BILL MURRAY AS “FANCY PANTS” JOE. DAKOTA FANNING AS JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT. FEATURING VERMONT SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY AS HIMSELF WEARING A DIAPER.

In New York City, a woman is in the middle of getting hella mugged by two scoundrels. One guy has a knife, the other guy has a gun. She has a purse. Who’s gonna win? It’s Spider-Man. Spider-Man’s gonna win.

The guy with the gun shoots Spider-Man in the shoulder and he falls to ground flat on his face. “I’ve killed Spider-Man?” the guy asks his friend, completely dumbfounded.

…

“Nah,” Spider-Man says as he stretches his forearms out to four times their original lengths and punches these two right in their ugly kissers. This ain’t Spider-Man at all! Just some punk in Spider-Man clothes! The woman is kind of upset. She thought she was getting saved by Spider-Man, but it’s Stretchy-Arm-Man instead? What a fucking ripoff.

“Let’s just hope no one with a cameraphone was looking this way,” Not-Spider-Man says, alone on the roof, as he transforms back into some Hulk-looking young man with a fringy bowl cut. “That would be problematic.”

In Chelsea, UK, this Hulky Boy sneaks back into an apartment through the window. His boyfriend flicks on the lightswitch. “How could you?” he asks, obviously sitting on his bed waiting up. The walls are adorned with posters of Captain America, Earth’s Worst Superhero.

We went over this! I’LL by Hulking and YOU’LL be Wiccan! It’s only fair!

Hulk Boy’s buddy is mad. Mad as the dickens. Superheroing has NOT been sitting well with them, perhaps because they accidentally blew up the Hoover Dam or killed 17 kids at a middle school chess tournament. “How many people died since we decided we could be Avengers? How many, Teddy?” the one named Billy asks him. “How many friends have we buried?”

Teddy’s all “I ‘unno. A trillion”, but he instead grimaces and tells his friend to shut up. Billy’s lucky! His mom is the Scarlet Witch! Teddy’s dad is Powdered Toast Man! Billy has foster parents who love him! Teddy drew a face on a piece of driftwood and hugs it to sleep every night! Billy’s parents don’t mind that his boyfriend sleeps over every night! Teddy has to get permission from his piece of driftwood and it’s never a “yes”!

“Oh – and you’ve got awesome reality-warping magical powers. And you’re cute.”

Billy is taken aback. He’s taken aback cutely. Teddy is crying because he’s some alien shapeshifter kid who sucks and would do anything for Billy, and maybe Billy should lighten up and let him Avenge! Let him Avenge, Billy. Avenging is in his blood! Also platelets!

“The only mom I ever knew got burned alive in front of me,” Teddy says tearfully, throwing himself a surprise pity party. He says a bunch of other stuff that makes Billy go “fine, fine, fine, ok, you’re right, I’m sad now, thanks a lot”. He’s going to make it up to him by being a better boyfriend and make him eggs every morning and not get burned alive in front of him. It’s the least he can do. “It’s all I ask,” Teddy responds with a sultry grin.

They kiss. I’m gonna post it here.

Captain America and Iron Man should try this sometime. There’s too much will-they-won’t-they going on with those two.

Billy’s going to leave now before Teddy’s driftwood catches them fucking in Teddy’s bedroom. He heads home to his own bedroom where he opens the closet and finds his ratty costume hanging front and center. “I didn’t think of what he’s been going through. How little he has… But if I’ve got the power to help… I’ve got the responsibility to see if there’s anything I can do…”

Billy sits on the floor with lit candles and absolutely NO Satanic symbols, which is bullshit, and he uses his magic fingers to populate a handful of holographic viewscreens showing various memories of kissies and beat-em-ups. “Allpossibleworlds allpossibleworlds allpossibleworlds,” he chants, but I’m not sure was “allpos sib lew orlds” means, unfortunately. Sorry all.

At a nearby diner, Loki (who I have met before where he was also in a restaurant) is trying to charm his way out of paying for the thirteen pounds of food he had stuffed down his alien gullet. Loki insists that he’s the god of mischief whose brother is Thor and he shouldn’t pay one cent of American currency for this greasy meal. The owner calls him “cosplay boy”. All of Loki’s leftovers hover in the air. “The Wiccan child,” speaks a floating sausage. “The time cometh.”

Loki disappears in a haze of green static – kinda like when Scottie beams me up – and appears on top of Billy roof. “He’s doing it. Can’t have that.”

Loki needs his brain to do brain things, Miss America. So he says.

He’s about to do something magical with his own hand, but Miss America shows up to distract him. “Drop the magic hand gesture,” she says, striking an intimidating pose. Loki tells her, in the nice way he tells people things, to rise up off his nutz while he kills the Wiccan. Miss America’s not going to have that on her watch. Put up your dukes, Asgard Nerd.

“Big talk for a nearly indestructible superwoman who can throw tanks to the moon!” Loki cries petulantly. When Miss America advances, he poops a little bit in his tights and tells her to hold it. Then he disappears and reappears behind her, but this kind of dirty fighting isn’t going to fly. You ain’t slick, Loki. You’re a fucking clown. Miss America punches the roof and the shockwave lands Loki on his back. “I can explain,” he gibbers after she lifts him by his scarf. But then he smirks and speaks in some rune language and Miss America probably dies. We’ll check in later.

Billy appears to be finding a universe among the infinite universes where Teddy’s mom didn’t burn to death in front of him? Good luck, son, that will be like trying to find a universe in a haystack of, like, other universes. Something happens that makes Teddy perk up and run out of his bed like a gunshot. He makes his way to the roof of Billy’s building? Do they both live in the same building?

Teddy bursts through the door like Kramer. “Who are you? And why are you holding Loki by the throat?” This quick distraction allows Loki to disappear right out of Miss America’s iron grip! She’s all like “well, fuckshits”.

Teddy demands to know who she is. DEMANDS IT. “And don’t say ‘a friend’,” he warns her. “I wouldn’t say that,” she responds before flying away.

Well, fuckshits! Don’t worry, Teddy. Billy’s got a grand ol’ surprise for you. It’s gonna be super keen. Really nifty stuff. Billy nonchalantly shows him a slightly sad blonde woman. “I was browsing dimensions. By sheer chance, I found one a second before she was killed and… I pulled her out.”

Yay! They hug! Nothing could go wrong here, right?

Later, Teddy’s mom checks on his sleeping son, then returns to the kitchen where Teddy’s foster parents are enjoying their 3am cups of coffee.

“I’m sure we all agree they’re too young to be living together,” Mom says with a kind look in her eye, referring to the sin of homosexuality and whatnot. “In fact, I’m not happy he’s in a relationship at all. He’s far too young for romance when he should be thinking of his studies.

The foster parents are taken aback. They give Mom the ol’ side-eye. “We’re happy that Billy and Teddy are happy. What kind of parent are you?” shrieks Foster Daddy.

Here’s what kind of parent she is!

Egad! Not the Strawberry Pudding Monster! A blub blub blub!

Final Thoughts

Stakes are high already! So many open storyline threads! I like what I’m seeing! I like it when you people are like “what the hell are you doing” and also “why are you doing what you’re doing”! I also really like it when foster parents get killed! Wait! No I don’t!

I’m pretty hopped up on caffeine right now.