Skottie Young is back and he has brought the Little Marvels with him. The Little Marvels have always been a fun break from what is going on in the main Marvel Universe. Young’s past work on this series has shown he has the skills to deliver on this type of series and I am expecting no less. Will Giant-Size Little Marvel: AvX #1 be another home run? Let’s find out.
Creative Team
Writer & Artist: Skottie Young
Colorist: Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Story Rating: 9 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 10 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 9.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: Throughout Battleworld all the heroes and villains are dealing with their own set of problems. The land of Marville is no different as Magik uses her powers to summon creatures to fight the Avengers on the corner of Avengers Street and X-Men Way. Iron Man tries to apologize to Magik but she does not accept it because he used her Pony Pal toy as target practice. Captain America tells Iron Man that Magik has a point.
Iron Man tells Magik that if he really wanted to break her doll he would’ve done it in front of her face. Magik gets pissed that Iron Man called her action figures “dolls” and attacks the Iron Avenger.
Suddenly, Magik’s mom yells out that dinner is ready. Magik decides to head home and recalls her creatures. As Magik walks away Hawkeye comments hot it was. Black Widow asks Hawkeye what he meant by that and he says that her house is the hottest because it is on fire.
The next day Toad and Blob look for something to eat. Iceman tries to sell them something from his ice cream cart but they decide to get something from Captain America’s food cart. They are disappointed that Cap only sells hot dogs. Suddenly they smell the food that Wolverine is cooking up on the girll extension Iceman set-up on his cart. Thor helps his teammate out by cooking some ribs. Not to be one upped, Gambit arrives with his famous gumbo. Toad and Blob rush to get Gambit’s gumbo.
Not long after Iron Man arrives and takes everyone business with the food truck he just built. Cyclops tells Storm to make it rain and she does just that only on Iron Man’s food truck.
The Marvel heroes and villains line-up to buy food from the X-Men’s various food carts. As business continues to pick up Beast realizes they somehow ran out food already. Rogue points out that the Hulk ate their remaining inventory much to the X-Men’s anger.
Over at his food truck Iron Man tries to get Spider-Gwen to go on a date with him. Spider-Gwen rejects Iron Man because she finds a goatee on a kid’s face creepy.
Magneto suddenly uses his powers to disassemble Iron Man’s food truck and armor, leaving Iron Man with only his helmet on. Iron Man tells Thor it is “hammer time” and Thor smashes all of the X-Men’s food carts.
The Avengers and X-Men begin fighting it out all over the street into the late night. As Captain America and Cyclops battle it out one-on-one a MU Haul drives right over them into one of the nearby house.
The Avengers and X-Men wonder who their new neighbors are. Cyclops and Captain America notice twins outside the house. They both yell out “Dibs” on the twins.
The Good: Giant-Size Little Marvel: AvX #1 reminds me of a bag of chips. While Secret Wars and it’s countless tie-ins are made another like a three course meal Giant-Size Little Marvel: AvX #1 is something that you can easily digest at any time in the day. And in a sea of comics that are looking to tell “realistic” stories it’s refreshing to have a comic from Marvel that is just about having fun.
Skottie Young does a phenomenal job quickly making Marville stand out from all the rest of Battleworld. Opening this issue up by highlighting the serious tone the majority of Secret Wars tie-ins are taking helped add to how different this world is. It acted as a nice transition as we went from a dark, sharp look at other Battleworld lands to the colorful world of Marville.
Young choosing to give us a brief look through Marville before showing us the Avengers and X-Men in mid-battle was great. It gave made this comic feel more like we were getting an episode of an animated series rather than just your typical comic. And I loved how this opening conflict was over Iron Man breaking Magik’s toy and subsequently mixing up the terms action figures with dolls. It was an absolutely silly disagreement that sets the tone for the rest of the issue.
The dynamic between all of the characters involved was also nicely executed. The exchange not only between the Avengers and X-Men but also within each was great. My favorite exchange in this entire issue was between Iron Man and Spider-Gwen, with the latter calling out how creepy it was that the chibi-Tony Stark had a goatee. It was a great jab at Tony’s iconic look being carried over to this world that Young created.
Seeing the Avengers and X-Men continuously top one another during their food cart war was epically ridiculous. This war led to some great one-liners from various characters that completely fit with the silliness of these characters. While this second battle between the teams was short I did like how Young kept the animosity between the teams alive with the arrival of the twins at the end of the issue.
While the story packed plenty of fun the true star of the show was Young’s art. As I mentioned before, the world that young created in Marville was vibrant and colorful. The choice of making all the characters have a chibi-anime look also fit into the type of world that was created. The round head and body look adding to the silliness of the dialogue and reactions all the characters had while having their back and forth
The Bad: Nothing. This is must have for all superhero fans.
Overall: Giant-Size Little Marvel: AvX #1 easily lived up to my expectations and delivered something unique in the face of Secret Wars. I absolutely loved the world of Marville that Skottie Young has created. The animated look of the world and characters that inhabited it makes you want to not just watch these adventures but also visit Marville. And in a comic book landscape that is filled with creators looking to tell serious tales it is great to find a comic that revels in how much fun the medium can be. If you haven’t checked out Giant-Size Little Marvel: AvX #1 I highly recommend you fix that by buying a copy yourself.
