Giant-Size Little Marvel: AvX #1 - Marvel Comics

GIANT-SIZE LITTLE MARVEL: AVX No. 1, August 2015

Whilst “Marvel Comics” have printed several cataclysmic confrontations between Professor Xavier’s former students and the “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” during their seventy-five year-old history, with the 2012 multi-issue “AvX” crossover event probably proving to be the most commercially successful, the two super-teams have never before battled one another simply to determine which can serve the best ‘street food’ to the likes of Toad and the Blob. Skottie Young’s narrative for Issue One of “Giant-Size Little Marvel: AvX” however, is based upon just such a humorous supposition and for almost the entirety of this twenty-page periodical wonderfully portrays all manner of toddler-like superheroes continually vying for the ‘gastric’ attention of Mortimer Toynbee and Frederick Dukes.

Such a less than serious tone of juvenile ‘one-upmanship’ really does create some delightful ‘laugh out loud’ moments within the Fairbury-born writer’s narrative, and only the most cold-hearted of this publication’s 66,401 readers wouldn’t have found either the miniscule Thor out-trumping Wolverine’s burger-based X-snack with his “finest Horgon ribs straight from Asgard”, or Daredevil blindly ordering “the diablo nachos” from no-one in particular, charmingly endearing sequences. Indeed, the Inkwell Award-winner’s storyline is chock full of similarly amusing moments and even goes so far as show Tony Stark ‘hitting upon’ Spider-Gwen only to be told in no uncertain terms to desist on account of ‘a kid with a moustache and goatee being creepy.’

Unsurprisingly, these childish “food truck hopping” shenanigans soon escalate out of all proportion, particularly when a rather portly Hulk scoffs all of the X-babies food, and Storm is soon found focussing a highly localised rain storm to drench Iron Man’s technologically advanced “we have it all” meal van customers, whilst Magneto subsequently disassembles the playboy’s armour suit in order to reduce a seriously peeved-looking ‘billionaire’ down to his pink undies; “You think that’s funny? Let’s see if you’ll laugh at this. Thor. Hammer Time.”

Young’s pencilling throughout this ‘tongue-in-cheek’ adventure is absolutely’ spot on’ and genuinely makes every panel depicting the various infantile characters a real delight to the eye. In fact, the American illustrator’s breakdowns are arguably faultless, with his breath-taking double-splash of the “two biggest factions in the Marvel Universe” fighting as a result of a mischievous Stark deliberating melting Magick’s evil pony pal action figure with his “new hand-blasters” proving to be the comic book’s highlight.

The regular cover art of "GIANT-SIZE LITTLE MARVEL: AVX" No. 1 by Skottie Young