Noh-Varr vs. Young Avengers

If you haven’t read Kieron Gillen’s Young Avengers series, you’re only punishing itself.  That man writes at a level beyond human capability — along with a fantastic taste in music — and artists Jamie McKelvie & Mike Norton create stuff with panels I’ve never seen in a comic before.  But in Young Avengers #1 and #7, a battle gets mentioned I’ve never heard before:

So I decided to search for that fight, half wanting to piece together past events and half wanting to see Noh-Varr wipe the floor with everyone.  Luckily, I found it in Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #2-4, written by Zeb Wells and drawn by Stefano Caselli.

If you think the normal Marvel universe can be confusing, wait till you get into the intergalactic stuff. The three big alien empires — Skrull, Shi’ar, and Kree take up most of the comic book ink.  Noh-Varr’s a hybrid Kree/insect.  Seriously, just more with Spider-Man-like enhanced abilities rather than wings and antennas.  Nowadays, he hangs out on Earth to protect it from non-Kree alien forces, but before all that, he got brainwashed:

It’s going to be a bloodbath.  Honestly, I know only slightly more about Marvel alien races than the Runaways, who are Los Angeles-based kids of supervillains who team up to thwart the plans of their parents.  They have superpowers and whatnot as well.

While I’d explain the teams one-by-one, Noh-Varr’s currently fighting like twelve at once and it’s better for you to see it all for yourself as it happens as opposed to a huge paragraph with thirty commas. Just know that Noh-Varr’s stronger, faster, and far more skilled than his teenage opponents.

The Vision, like the X-Man Kitty Pryde, can phase through people/objects and unphase at will, essentially punching right through enemies if vicious and bloodthirsty enough.  Noh-Varr’s so badass that he just breaks off Vision’s arm with the hand still deep inside him.  That’s Wolverine-esque craziness right there.

Y’see, the problem with superspeed lies in the recovery time.  With half the team knocked out or disabled within the first moments of the fight, it’d be nice for the rest of the Young Avengers/Runaways to take a breather, refuel, get a massage before round two begins.  But y’see, that’s the problem with superspeed.

No one’s scarier with a robot hand protruding out of his chest than Noh-Varr.  The good guys (and our antagonist’s a good guy currently with a fuzzy brain), only survive due to our baddie’s recall. Supervillains have way cooler methods of extraction than the heroes.

On a side note, Noh-Varr’s ex-girlfriend list builds steadily every new series.  Women can’t get enough of this Kree/bug hybrid, even with those short shorts he wears.  The guy looks like he wrestles for his local high school.  But as the miniseries comes to a close and our two teams ambush the enemy ship, Noh-Varr gets his round two.  And he’s just as awesome.

People sometimes ask, aren’t superheroes for children?  Jason, with your male pattern baldness and salaried job, aren’t you too old to be reading comic books?  And I say, yes, maybe I am, but I never want to live in a world where I don’t enjoy an alien chucking a dinosaur across a spaceship.  I’m a dreamer.

With that, Noh-Varr lies in defeat, for he still had not removed the android’s body parts from his own body parts.  I imagine it’s a fear thing, like when Wolverine emerges on the page with his face half burned and only his pants still clinging on.

Oh, and read Gillen’s Young Avengers.  Noh-Varr’s a delight.