• Reviews

    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).

  • Reviews

    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 & Noble

    Description: 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!

  • Reviews

    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 & Noble

    Description: 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!

  • Reviews

    Review: The Magpie Lord (A Charm of Magpies #1) by KJ Charles (2013)

    Rating: ★★★★★
    Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Mystery
    Categories: M/M, Wizards/Witches, Nobility
    Content Warnings: Highlight to read: Magically-induced attempted suicide, offscreen/pre-novel suicides, reference to previous rapes by now-deceased characters.
    Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

    Description: When Lord Crane, Lucien Vaudrey, is being forced through dark magic to attempt to take his own life, he hires a magician to help protect him. The magician, Stephen Day, has good reason to hate Crane’s family, but Stephen is devoted to his duty to protect people from harmful magic. Still, Crane is nothing like his father or brother, and as the case becomes even more complicated and unpleasant than it seemed, the two are drawn closely together.

  • Reviews

    Review: Once Upon a Haunted Moor (Tyack & Frayne Mysteries #1) by Harper Fox (2013)

    Rating: ★★★★
    Genre: Mystery, Paranormal, Romance
    Categories: M/M, Ghosts/Spirits, Psychics
    Content Warnings: N/A
    Buy it at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

    Description: Gideon Frayne, a policeman in the little town of Dark in Cornwall, has spent nearly two weeks looking for a missing child with no leads and no suspects. When his higher-ups send in a handsome TV psychic, he’s as annoyed by the possibility of a con man playing with the hearts of the victims as he is attracted to the stranger. But Lee Tyack has true sight, and between his psychic visions and Gideon’s knowledge of the town and its inhabitants, maybe they’ll solve the crime—and solve Gideon’s loneliness, as well.