Broken Frontier

The civil war rages on as the Young Avengers are forced into action to save the lives of the Runaways despite Captain America’s orders to stay put.

Marvel’s newest teen superheroes, the Young Avengers, return to action as they are forced into a sticky situation to aid another group of teen superheroes not unlike themselves. Of course this other group I am referring to is the Runaways, and now thanks to the civil war brewing both teams are meeting each other for the first time. All I can say is expect a ton of fireworks here.

The issue begins in Los Angeles where the Runaways fall into another chance encounter with the Flag Smasher, while he is being approached by two SHIELD agents. A scuffle ensues and this alerts the attention of the Runaways who decide to get involved. The group doesn’t have the slightest idea about the superhero registration act becoming law, and before they can fully grasp the situation more SHIELD agents arrive on the scene. The Runaways are forced to flee and the incident gets plenty of attention on the evening news, including the attention of the Young Avengers. They decide to leave the safe house provided by Captain America and go off in search of the Runaways to help them elude SHIELD, and it doesn’t take long for the fireworks to fly.

I thought this story played out reasonably well given the different mythologies of both teams. Writer Zeb Wells gave a plausible enough explanation for the teams to finally have a reason for meeting, and we have Civil War to thank for this meeting. It’s important to note that both teams are relatively new in the MU, and both groups were formed from two completely ends of the spectrum. I just wished Zeb could have played up more on the comparisons, but this issue is mostly just set-up. Hopefully he will inter-mingle both groups more in the subsequent issues to rally play upon the similarities of the teams.

Now moving along to the art on this issue, the work of Stefano Casselli looked solid from start to finish. Again he’s relatively new on the scene and I am just starting to grow accustomed to his work in the medium. I do remember his stint on the new G.I. Joe title that was re-launched earlier in the year, and his work here fares well in comparison. I liked the way he handled all the characters and he skillfully managed to keep the action scenes engaging in every panel.

Overall this series is off to a good start for the most part. I think it was only a matter of time before Marvel found a reason to pair up these two new teams together for a single adventure, and there are a number of interesting comparisons to make individually and collectively. We’ll just have to wait and see how this story will play out in the grand scheme of Civil War, and if these two teams are brought together because of it then that’s probably a good thing.