Dark Reign: Young Avengers #2
Young Masters, Part 2
Now
There has been a team of superpowered teenagers fighting crime in town and have been calling themselves the Young Avengers. The violent actions of the group — consisting of Coat of Arms (Lisa Molinari), Melter (Chris Colchiss), the Enchatress (Sylvia Lushton), Executioner (Danny DuBois), Big Zero (Amity Hunter), and Egghead) -— have attracted the attention of the real Young Avengers — Patriot (Eli Bradley), Hulkling (Teddy Altman, Wiccan (Billy Kaplan), Stature (Cassie Lang), Hawkeye (Kate Bishop), Vision (Jonas), and Speed (Tommy Shepherd). Thanks to a locator spell cast by Wiccan, the team confronts their imitators at their hideout, the so-called Invisible Mansion located in Central Park.
The relative newcomers can’t tell if the real Young Avengers have come to fight them or ask them to join the official team. At Coat of Arms’ urging a fight soon breaks out between the two groups anyway. Members of each team square off against their opposite with Stature fighting Big Zero, Hawkeye against the Executioner, Vision battling Egghead, Wiccan matching his magic against the Enchantress, Speed against Coat of Arms (who both recognize one another), and the Patriot facing a reluctant Melter. Ultimately, it is the Enchantress who stops the brawl by casting a spell that repels all of the combatants. The Young Avengers are surprised by how powerful and combat ready their impostors are. Eli takes point since he didn’t give the order to attack and tells the Melter that they hadn’t come to fight, but to discuss their use of the Young Avengers name.
Melter gets defensive right away, thinking that they are going to try and take the name away and justifies their use by pointing out that there are already many other Avengers teams out there.[1] As they discuss this, Speed and Coat are catching up on old times and he learns that Lisa formed her team as part of an obscure art project. As to how the Young Avengers learned about their imitators….
Hours Earlier
The Young Avengers had gathered to watch the news coverage of Norman Osborn’s Avengers team. The report also mentions a team of new Young Avengers that have been sighted in Brooklyn. Eli is furious to hear about both teams and wants to do something about it. Kate suggests that they start by confronting this new team of teenagers. As the Young Avengers gear up, Kate points out the hypocrisy of them trying to shut down this new team, considering how hard the real Avengers tried to shut them down.[2] Regardless, they all agree that they need to do this. With that Wiccan tries to teleport them to the groups location, but it took more than one try to get the spell right.
Now
Rather than outright forcing these imitators to split up, Eli tries a different approach. If they are going to call themselves Young Avengers they need to be more disciplined and professional. He then asks if Norman Osborn had anything to do with their formation. Lisa speaks for the team and explains that in his own way, Osborn did indeed have a hand in creating her group…
Days Earlier
Before she became Coat of Arms, Lisa Molinari was an artist who procured costumes and equipment from a Greenwitch Village organization called Crowley Fabrications. They provide these things for art installations for people such as herself. She was awestruck when one of her pieces was visited by none other than Norman Osborn whom she had followed since his beginnings as the Green Goblin. She is delighted to learn that Osborn is a fan of her work and has bought some of her pieces. He is very fascination in her work exploring the superheroic condition. He then tells her that if she ever wants to have a chat and hands her a business card with his phone number on it. Delighted, she uses her phone to show Norman a triptych of paintings she composed based on the Green Goblin she named “Pop, Crackle, and Snap”. The third painting depicts the death of Gwen Stacy at the hands of Norman Osborn.[3] Norman responded with explosive anger, swatting the phone out of her hand. He then warned her that now that he is in charge he could make her vanish and nobody would care. He then told her this meeting never happened and stormed out of the gallery.
Now
Coat of Arms explains that in that moment she made the Green Goblin briefly come out again and it convinced her that in order to create the art she sought to make she would have to get closer to her subjects.
This stuns the Young Avengers to silence for a moment. Eli decides to ignore this tale and tells them that if they really want to be Young Avengers, the newcomers will have to try out for membership or else they will have to come up with another name. The real team will be back in a day to hear what their decision is and they will go from there.
As the Young Avengers leave, they wonder how their counterparts will decide. That’s when Stature brings up how Speed and Coat of Arms seemed to know each other. Tommy explains that he and Lisa had met in juvie together back in the day.[4]
Back inside, the group is about ready to reject the Young Avengers offer when the Enchantress secretly uses her magic to subtly influence them into going along with the plan. Nobody sees her do this but Melter, who keeps silent. When the couple are alone in their room, Chris brings it up as well as his desire to just pack up and leave. Sylvia, however, wants to nothing more than to be an official Young Avenger and convinces Chris to stay and try out for the team with everyone else. That night, while Sylvia is asleep, Chris thinks about what it would be like to be a real hero. He envisions himself in a parade with the rest of the Young Avengers. As he waves to the crowd, he doesn’t see that he is walking toward a puddle of blood and scattered groceries. It is too late before he does and he slips and falls.
Meanwhile, the other members of the Melter’s team are thinking about the offer they have been made. Coat of Arms has returned to her room and has started sketching out a comic book page where their team is fighting the Green Goblin. At the same time, the Executioner has called his mother to ask for some more money. He tells her that he is joining the Young Avengers and they need the money to fund their enterprise. He brings up Hawkeye (who he has creeped on social media) and makes it sound as though the two of them hit it off and that there is a romance brewing between them. He also makes it sound like that she needs training to become more disciplined. He considers himself the one for the job, telling his mother that this is how she raised him. Danny’s mother as it turns out is the villain known as Princess Python and as she talks to her son she has just murdered a man to steal some expensive jewels.
Recurring Characters
Young Avengers (Patriot, Hulkling, Wiccan, Stature, Hawkeye, Vision, Speed), “Young Avengers” (Coat of Arms, Melter, Enchantress, Executioner, Big Zero, Egghead), Norman Osborn, Princess Python
Continuity Notes
At the time of this story there are three teams of adult Avengers currently active. There are the Ronin’s New Avengers (formed in New Avengers #1), Norman Osborn’s Dark Avengers (formed in Dark Avengers #1), and Hank Pym’s Mighty Avengers (formed in Mighty Avengers #21).
Captain America and Iron Man tried their best to shut down the Young Avengers when they first formed in Young Avengers #1. However, they ultimately gave up in issue #8 of that series when it became clear that the team was going to continue operating no matter what.
For years, Norman Osborn operated as the criminal Green Goblin dating back to Amazing Spider-Man #14. He was responsible for the death of Gwen Stacy (then girlfriend of Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man) in Amazing Spider-Man #121. The reason why Norman reacts so explosively here is, per Amazing Spider-Man #509-514, Norman believes that he once had an affair with Gwen that spawned twin children. However, it was later revealed in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 5) #73 that this was all a massive fabrication by his son Harry to get revenge against Peter Parker and his father from beyond the grave (Harry died in Spectacular Spider-Man #200).
As we learned in Young Avengers #9, Tommy Shepherd is a bit of a bad boy and landed himself in a juvenile detention center until he was freed by the team.
Topical References
Coat of Arms is depicted as owning a first generation iPhone that was released around the time of this story’s publication. Its depiction here should be considered topical as it is now an obsolete technology.
When commenting on Big Zero’s fascist tattoos, Hulkling quips that she might be a fan of Cabaret a 1972 film is adapted from the 1951 play I Am a Camera which was adapted from the 1939 book Goodbye Berlin. The story of the film is set in Berlin in the early 30s during the rise of Nazism. The musical was the first of the genre to be given an X-rating due to its depiction of bi-sexuality. Since its troubled release, the film has quickly been placed in various top 100 films of all time and has been embraced by the LGTBQ community, and elevated star Liza Minnelli as a gay icon of the time. Since Hulkling and Wiccan are gay this a pretty on the nose comment by him and it’s kind of cringy now. Regardless, this wouldn’t necessarily be considered a topical reference given the film’s status as a classic, its connection to the queer community, and that you’d be hard pressed to find a contemporary example that would fit the comment.
One of the Young Masters refers to the Young Avengers as a retards. This used to be a clinical term used to describe someone with a neurodivergency that affects cognitive development. It is no longer used partially because the word has since been coopted as a pejorative (as its use here is) and has fallen out of common use and is considered offensive to some. That said, the Masters are all edgelords so them using that word here isn’t too surprising really.
