Giant-Size Little Marvel: AvX #3 - Marvel Comics

GIANT-SIZE LITTLE MARVEL: AVX No. 3, October 2015

Containing an astonishing number of cutesy cameos including Devil Dinosaur, Red Hulk, She-Hulk, Fin Fang Foom and Lockheed the Dragon, Skottie Young’s humour-filled narrative for Issue Three of “Giant-Size Little Marvel: AvX” must have absolutely delighted its steadfast 32,003 followers in August 2015. Certainly, the twenty-page periodical’s script would have pleased fans of both “The X-Men” and “The Avengers” alike with its inclusion of the “Beast’s Science Lab”, “The Danger Room”, “Asgard”, Captain America’s “Boot Camp U.S.A.” and Jarvis’ reimagining of the Hulk-Buster into “The Iron Twinz!”

Somewhat disappointingly however, so very many ‘guest star appearances’ and swift location changes, aren’t particularly conducive to constructing a terribly elaborate storyline. Thus, whilst the Fairbury-born writer manages to keep things moving along swiftly enough, courtesy of giving the reader a tour of “The X-Tree Mansion” and The Avenger’s not-so secret Headquarters, it probably isn’t until the twins encounter both Galactus and his equally cosmic-powered companion, Thanos, that the former “Marvel Mangaverse” illustrator’s script finally gets interesting. In fact, apart from “the blue X-doggie-cat-thing” transforming Zachary and Zoe into a humanoid mouse and hulking brute respectively, both tours of the two super-teams’ clubhouses and their accompanying “all-out brawls” are actually pretty clichéd.

Fortunately, once the “giant kid with a very impractical headpiece” and “the flying kid sitting in a flying recliner” do make an appearance, Young’s ‘Little Marvel’ (Battle)world suddenly becomes an infinitely more intriguing place to visit on account of its most recently-arrived inhabitants discovering that the place is ‘protected’ by an all-encompassing unbreakable force barrier. This potential hint at just where the cartoon series tangibly sits within Emperor Doom's multi-title Battleworld is just the sort of ‘hook’ the Inkwell Award-winner’s storyline arguably needed, and of course, the magazine’s cliff-hanger panel featuring Star-Lord offering the twins a place alongside “the Guardians of the Galaxy” rather helps ramp up the publication’s pleasure factor too.

So crazy a comic book will always rely upon colourful, well-articulated visuals in order to help carry its audience along with the zany antics on show, and Skottie Young’s incredibly dynamic breakdowns, portraying a fast-moving ice-made roller coaster one moment and then a Sentinel-invading Savage Land double splash the next, more than succeed with just such a task. Indeed the America illustrator’s drawings of Nick Fury being ‘splatted’ by Hawkeye, and Thor subsequently ‘smashing’ an ice giant in the head with Mjolnir are arguably worth this publication’s cover price alone.

Words and Art: Skottie Young, Colors: Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Letters: Jeff Eckleberry