We have finally reached the beginning of the end. After all the teen heroes of the Marvel Universe banded together to defeat Mother’s otherworldly companions that poured into our dimension, it’s time for the after party to begin in the second to last issue of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s ‘Young Avengers’. That’s right! It all ends with issue #15, but before it’s all over, Marvel’s throwing a huge party featuring a number of our favorite heroes and artists.

After it was reveled that the evil exes were projections of Loki’s guilt and all of this madness has essentially been his fault, the rest of the Young Avengers handled business in order to restore the natural order of things. However, when they returned to New York, they were minus one God of Mischief. Fast forward to New Year’s Eve where all the young heroes are gearing up for the party of the year.

In this issue, we do a lot of jumping around to see what everyone is up to. First, we catch up with the lovebirds of the team as Billy and Teddy reconcile and reaffirm their love for each other. Then, we finally get some backstory for Miss America Chavez where we learned what made her want to be a superhero. And just before that expected cliffhanger, Hawkeye closed the door on the Marvel Boy chapter of her story while another chapter seemingly reopened out of nowhere.

Regarding all the guest artists, the pages they each contributed looked great. It’s hard to pick just one that stands out, but I might have to go with Annie Wu and Jordie Bellaire drawing Kate Bishop’s story as my favorite. Wu does such a good job with Kate over in Matt Fraction’s ‘Hawkeye’, so any time she gets a chance to do Lady Hawkguy, then I’m totally into it. Of course, McKelvie’s pages look great too. I feel like his style has become eternally engrained in the Young Avengers mythology because of the work he and Gillen have done with this series.

Moving on to a favorite slice of the party, I must say that I was drawn to Miss America’s flashback. Fans have been clamoring for more America, and we got just that. Even though ‘Young Avengers’ is ending, I hope that we don’t see the last of her because I want to hear more about the little girl who lost her moms way too soon and wanted to be a hero just like them (and a certain Demiurge).

Finally, one of my biggest concerns in my last review of this series was the fate of former team member Speed. It’s been many months since we’ve laid eyes on him after Not-Patriot made him disappear. Now, with only one issue left, we should finally get some answers that we’ve been waiting for. Hopefully they’re quite satisfactory and don’t end up breaking the internet with feels. Or the exact opposite and it does end up breaking the internet with feels. I know that those two that made this book happen are feels terrorists, so they’d be all about that. Either way, I want to know where the hell Tommy Shepherd has been and I’m looking forward to finding out in the final issue.

I gotta say, I am not ready for this book to be over. It’s been a great year that was just topped off by getting an excellent ongoing series featuring my favorite team. I hope that the last issue does them justice. But if this issue (or the whole run for that matter) is any indication, I should be able to close the book and feel something resembling satisfaction.

Final Score:

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YOUNG AVENGERS #14
Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson, Emma Vieceli, Lee Loughridge, Christian Ward, Annie Wu, & Jordie Bellaire