America Chavez is the latest hero to be rescued by The Ultimates.
A member of the Young Avengers is the newest Marvel hero to join The Ultimates. The Ultimate Universe version of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are back in a new ongoing series, but this is not the same Ultimate Universe that longtime Marvel fans are used to. The Maker, an evil version of Reed Richards, has traveled back in time to create his ideal world by stopping heroes from reaching their true destinies. However, a group of superheroes led by Iron Lad (Tony Stark) have stepped up as a resistance. Though their numbers are small, the Ultimates are quickly adding to their ranks, and their newest recruit is another familiar face.
*WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Ultimates #2. Continue reading at your own risk!
The Ultimates #2 comes from the creative team of Deniz Camp, Juan Frigeri, Federico Blee, and VC’s Travis Lanham. It focuses on the Ultimates storming the White House for a showdown against Midas. There are flashback scenes that feature Tony Stark giving Captain America a holographic history lesson on the United States of the Ultimate Universe. We get quick cameos of recognizable Marvel characters like Galactus meeting Maker, mutants protesting at the Capitol for equality, Iron Man and War Machine fighting Omega Red, a Roxxon plant polluting the Savage Land, Punisher and his followers, and more.
But it’s what is in the lower levels of the White House that has the Ultimates’ attention. When Iron Lad blasts the floor, Midas (wearing Howard Stark’s original Iron Man armor) and the Ultimates fall below. It’s here that we discover Midas is keeping a superhero captive and using her energy to power the country. Midas has bathed in her cosmic radiation for an hour per day, and she’s never spoken a word during her imprisonment. We don’t know her identity, but she’s held inside a device and we can see the radiation creating the shape of a star. And there’s one superhero who can create energy bursts in the shape of a star: America Chavez. To celebrate America Chavez’s Ultimates debut, Marvel released a spoiler cover for Issue #2 by artist Inhyuk Lee.
As Midas beats and pounds on Captain America, Steve Rogers keeps repeating how he has to save America. This has a double meaning: yes, he wants to save America from Maker’s evil council and turn it back into the country it was always destined to be. But saving America Chavez is also the mission that the Ultimates are undertaking. Just as it appears that Midas is getting the upper hand, Wasp blasts the controls of the device holding America Chavez. Captain America then breaks Midas’ neck with his shield.
“A great injustice was done to you, but things will be better now,” Captain America tells America Chavez. “Can you remember your name?” As the Ultimates walk away on the White House front lawn, the issue ends with America Chavez weakly stating, “America…”
The question remaining is will America Chavez take up the Ultimates’ cause and join them? Or will she be an ally that comes and goes throughout this first year of The Ultimates series? The heroes only have 16 months before Maker emerges to reclaim what is being taken from him.
Long-time thread lurker, first-time thread poster! And long-time YA fan, too! Heinberg’s series is what brought me back into comics, and #1 was the very first book I ever purchased with my own money (a small accomplishment, but always something I’ve given sentimental value to).
Who is your favourite Young Avenger? Hard to pick just one, but I’d have to go with Hulkling, followed very close by Ms. America. Hulkling’s got a ridiculously cool visual, awesome powers that he knows how to rock, and has been through so much but has kept his head held high. He’s the perennial survivor, the guy who can deal with his mother being killed, his entire lineage being revealed, his boyfriend’s crazy life, and possibly being just a figment of an imagination. Hulkling rocks.
Who is your favourite writer for Young Avengers? The stuff that Gillen did was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but Heinberg’s first story featuring Kang was gold in setting up the characters, their relationship with the Avengers and the wider Marvel world, and giving them a threat that was both tangible but seemingly unconquerable. What I like about the YA is that more often than not we see that they have to face these huge end-of-the-world threats. They started off with Kang, stopped another Kree-Skrull War, battled Noh-Varr, clashed with Norman Osborn’s criminal army more than once, and defeated a trans-dimensional parasite. I can’t get enough of this team.
Who is your favourite artist for Young Avengers? I love Jim Cheung’s work, and the amount of detail he put between the huge scale brawls between the Avengers, Young Avengers, Kree, and Skrulls and the equally impressive and character sprawling scenes in Children’s Crusade is nothing short of impressive.
Who is your favourite ally to the Young Avengers? Magneto! His interactions with the team were priceless in YA:CC, and hearing him refer to the members of the team by their codenames brought a new found level of…respect, I suppose it could be called, to the team. It may sound strange, but when you’ve got the freaking Master of Magnetism speaking to you like an ally and trying to form a plan with you, you know you’re more than a drop in the big wide pool of heroes (or maybe a drop in the big wide pool of villains).
Who is your favourite villain the Young Avengers (or just one of them) have faced? The Mother parasite was definitely the creepiest villain I’ve seen in a long while, and she was a formidable threat on more than one occasion. The team’s conflict with her spanned months, crossed dimensions, brought a good percent of the team to their knees more than once, but ultimately ended up solidifying their unity and strength together. And really, isn’t that what a good villain should do?
Who are you favourite Young Avengers romance? (doesn’t have to end in them dating) Of course Teddy and Billy would be number one, but I just can’t help but think how great a Loki/Prodigy relationship would be. That kiss!
What has been your favourite battle/fight for a Young Avenger? Toss up between the Kree-Skrull War Redux (Kate Bishop kinda sorta getting a codename, Speed being a total badass and ripping aliens to shreds, Prodigy saving Captain America’s life, and the team outsmarting not just the Avengers but the two alien armies in the midst of conflict) and Ms. America getting a lot of blue and green on her hands.
What is your favourite scene out of the Young Avengers stories? Again, I can’t choose just one! The new costume reveal, Chavez’s origin story, and Eli’s grandfather showing he’s a true Super Soldier are all up there, but I’d have to go with Prodigy’s definition of what love is. Heartwarming, heartbreaking, heartmoving, heartemotingallovertheplace.
After Original Sin, who do you want the next arc to give focus too? I don’t think I’d want it to be too focused in on any one character. I’m enjoying what Ryan North has been doing with the small team working together to bring down the Hood, more stuff like that would be a lot of fun. Mostly, if the Avengers are the premiere super heroes, the YA should be the top line amongst the young heroes in the Marvel universe, and they should be proving they deserve that spot.
Who would you add to the current Young Avengers roster? Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Rockslide, Anole, a bit more matured Molly Hayes, Anachronism, and Zero-G would all be great additions to the team, to name just a few.
Originally Posted by Andru
I recently read Children’s Crusade and really enjoyed it. What is the general consensus on that story with you Young Avenger fans?
I kind of had a love-hate relationship with it.
I hated what was done to Wanda (pretty much since Byrne started running her into the ground in his West Coast Avengers run, where it seemed every other storyline was about her powers being out of control, or her being victimized by the villain of the week, or her having some gross emotional problems) in House of M / Decimation, which was actually something that even her retconned ‘reality manipulation powers’ simply couldn’t have done, so it was nice to see Children’s Crusade explain that away with the Doom/Life-Force explanation, and potentially free her up from that badly written nonsense.
And yet, I kind of knew that it wasn’t going to stick. Too many people at Marvel are too heavily locked into the ‘women can’t handle power without being cray-cray / evil’ meme, and within a year of losing that power and being absolved of responsibility for the Decimation, she’s in Uncanny Avengers with the exact same powers *she just lost,* and being blamed by people *who where there when it was proven to be Doom’s fault* for the Decimation.
I wanted to believe what Children’s Crusade was selling, but ultimately, it was unwritten as fast as Rick Remender could unwrite it. The only lasting thing that came of it was that Rictor got his powers back, which is less to do with how great Children’s Crusade is, than a credit to Peter David for actually respecting other writers enough to not crap all over their stories in a rush to re-instate some specious status quo.
As for the story itself, I felt like a few characters were written pretty one-dimensionally, and that the story suffered from entirely too many people being present (with, at points, all of the X-Men, all of the Avengers, all of the X-Factor people, Quicksilver, Magneto, Wanda and, oh yeah, even some actual *Young Avengers* standing around with nothing to do but eat popcorn). It was less a story and more of a ‘Flash-Mob in Latveria!’, at that point. Wolverine seemed particularly out of character. Cyclops pretty much flat-out stated that he’d rather kill Wanda than allow her to repower mutants, which was only one of several *insane* things that got said. Iron Man probably said something super-villainy as well, but that’s pretty much his entire characterization since Civil War, so no shock there.
And the early part, where Billy’s ‘spellcasting’ powers get similarly re-defined as ‘reality manipulation,’ with the usual canard of ‘oh, now we have to have a lively debate about whether or not we have to kill him?’ So tired of that.
After twenty some years of ‘female character X is too powerful, and women can’t handle power without getting all emotional, so she must die!’ now we’ve reached the glorious future, where it’s ‘gay character X is too powerful, blah, blah, blah, so he must die!’
I’d love a ten year moratorium on that particular plotline (or on Young Avengers story arcs based around Billy Kaplan’s powers as the threat-of-the-week). Let the lad actually be one of the heroes, and not the menace. If anyone wants to talk about killing Billy, let it be *villains,* and not people like Wolverine or Cyclops or Iron Man.
Source: Marvel Comics
