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Review: Young Avengers by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie (2014)
Rating: ★★★★★
Genre: Graphic Novel, Contemporary, Superheroes
Categories: M/M, Queer characters
Content Warnings: N/A
Buy it at: Amazon (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3) | Barnes & Noble (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3)Description: After the previous team of Young Avengers fell apart, some of them have stayed away, and others are still out living that superhero life. But a new threat against the universe appears — an eldritch terror known as Mother, who has the ability to brainwash adults and is a parasite who is drawn to Billy’s reality-warping powers in the hopes of eating his soul, and maybe destroying the world in the process (all under the oblivious noses of adult superheroes). It’s Kid Loki who decides to get a new team together, bringing in the new members: America Chavez (a dimension-hopping lesbian Latina) and Noh-Varr (a disaffected Kree ex-soldier with a love for earth music), as well as pulling back some previous ones, such as Kate Bishop (rich girl with a bow and Hawkeye #2), Billy Kaplan (chaos-mage and son of the Scarlet Witch, Wiccan), and Teddy (a shape-shifting skrull-kree hybrid prince and Billy’s boyfriend, Hulkling). Joining them is David Alleyne aka Prodigy, an ex-mutant whose ability had been to learn everything.
I’m rereading a bunch of the Young Avengers content, which has won several GLAAD awards for the queer content it introduced. If you want to follow along, I made a Young Avengers reading guide over here to make it easier to understand the order, where to get the comics, and links to my other Young Avengers reviews (including reviews for marvel events & crossovers that I only posted on Goodreads).
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Review: Young Avengers: The Children’s crusade by Allan Heinberg & Jim Cheung (2011)
Rating: ★★★★
Genre: Graphic Novel, Contemporary, Superheroes
Categories: M/M, Superheroes
Content Warnings: Highlight to read: Brief scenes of racism and homophobia from background characters towards our heroes. Major character death.
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & NobleDescription: Some years ago, Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, in grief over the loss of her children, used her reality-rewriting powers to kill a bunch of her teammates and remove the mutant powers from almost all mutants, then disappeared. But Billy and his teammate Tommy have strong reason to believe that they were the souls of her children, transmigrated into new infants in utero of other people, and born again onto this world. After all, he’s a reality-rewriting wizard and Tommy is a speedster and they look identical.
Nobody except Magneto wants Wanda back—both the X-men and the Avengers think they’d have to kill her—but only by finding her can they answer these questions, and perhaps save Mutantkind in the process. …
I’m rereading a bunch of the Young Avengers content, which has won several GLAAD awards for the queer content it introduced. If you want to follow along, I made a Young Avengers reading guide over here to make it easier to understand the order, where to get the comics, and see my other Young Avengers reviews!
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Review: Young Avengers: The Complete Collection vol. 1 by Allan Heinberg & Jim Cheung (2006)
Rating: ★★★★
Genre: Graphic Novel, Contemporary, Superheroes
Categories: M/M, Superheroes
Content Warnings: Highlight to read: Reference to kidnapping/assault (possible sexual assault) of a minor. Brief scenes of racism and homophobia from background characters toward our heroes. Some sexism of lead characters to other lead characters.
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & NobleDescription: When the original Avengers disband, a team of teenage heroes comes together to fill the gap. Their first order of business: surviving the wrath of Kang the Conqueror and weathering the disapproval of the adult Avengers! Next, the newly-formed Young Avengers take on super-powered sadist Mr. Hyde, the extraterrestrial Super-Skrull, and a full-scale alien invasion, juggling their parents and their private lives at the same time!
I’m rereading a bunch of the Young Avengers content, which has won several GLAAD awards for the queer content it introduced. If you want to follow along, I made a Young Avengers reading guide over here to make it easier to understand the order, where to get the comics, and see my other Young Avengers reviews!
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Review: Beyond the Pale (The Last Rune #1) by Mark Anthony (1998)
Rating: ★★
Genre: High Fantasy
Categories: Fairies, Royalty/Nobility, Multiple Worlds, Witches/Wizards
Content Warnings: Highlight to read: Reference to previous child sexual abuse. Onscreen attempted rape. Some instances of homophobic dialogue. Some instances of ableist language. Only black character (also only POC) dies.
Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & NobleDescription: ER doctor Grace Beckett and small-town saloon owner Travis Wilder are both normal citizens of Colorado. They don’t know each other, and they’ve never dealt with magic…at least, that they acknowledge. But when evil attacks them in their separate towns, they find themselves transported to the fantastical world of Eldh, where they must make new, strange companions and gain powers that will help them save their new world.
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Review: Darkling by Brooklyn Ray (2018)
“I don’t know what to do. One day I’m doing a reading with Liam, the next he’s going down on me on the hood of a car and I’m sucking his soul out of his body. What the fuck, Jordan? What do I do?”
– Darkling, Brooklyn Ray
Rating: ★★★½
Genre: Paranormal, Romance
Categories: M/M, Trans, Witches, DemonsContent Warnings (highlight to read): Scenes of bloodletting and death (and resurrection) of an MC.
Description: A paranormal romance set in a small town where most of the characters are queer, witches, or (more often) both. In this world, there are clearly-delineated “types” of magic and the witches who practice them; the main character, Ryder, learns that he’s a necromancer, and has to tackle what that means for him and his circle-mate and best friend who is also all caught up in this strange magic with him.
Ryder is a witch with two secrets—one about his blood and the other about his heart. Keeping the secrets hasn’t been a problem, until a tarot reading with his best friend, Liam Montgomery, who happens to be one of his secrets, starts a chain of events that can’t be undone.