Young Avengers Omnibus by Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, et al., Part Three

Young Avengers by Heinberg & Cheung

stories from Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers #1-3, Dark Reign: Young Avengers #1-5, Siege: Young Avengers #1, Uncanny X-Men vol. 1 #526, Avengers: The Children's Crusade #1-9, and Avengers: The Children's Crusade: Young Avengers #1

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 2008-12
Acquired: June 2025
Read: August 2026

Writers: Christopher Yost, Paul Cornell, Sean McKeever, Allan Heinberg

Pencilers: Takeshi Miyazawa, Mark Brooks, Mahmud Asrar, Olivier Coipel, Jim Cheung, Alan Davis

Inkers: Takeshi Miyazawa, Mark Brooks, Walden Wong, Scott Hanna & Victor Olazaba, Mark Morales, Mark Farmer, with Dexter Vines, Jim Cheung, Dave Meikis, Livesay

Colorists: Christina Strain, L. Molinar with Emily Warren & A. Street, Matt Milla & Jorge Maese, Justin Ponsor with Paul Mounts, Javier Rodríguez

Letterers: Joe Caramagna, Cory Petit, Chris Eliopoulos, Joe Sabino, Dave Sharpe

Last year, I read the first half of this omnibus in two parts (see other installments in the list below). Now, I am finally wrapping it up. 

At first, we continue to have a number of short stories that show what the Young Avengers are up to during various Marvel events: a three-issue Secret Invasion crossover with Runaways, then a five-issue Dark Reign tie-in, and finally a one-issue Siege tie-in.

There's very much a sense across all of these stories that the Young Avengers are treading water, being held in stasis until Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung can return for their next big story. Young Avengers Presents in the previous volume set up a number of possible character threads, but we don't really see any of them here. The Secret Invasion tie-in, despite that fact that the Young Avengers contain a Skrull hybrid during a Skrull invasion, comes across much more as a Runaways story that the Young Avengers happen to be guest starring in. I did, of course, appreciate getting to see some Takeshi Miyazawa artwork (a favorite of mine since his Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane days), but drawing a bunch of Skrulls actually is a bad mix for his manga-influenced art style, because his simple designs mean you can't tell them apart!

I had actually previously read Dark Reign: Young Avengers because it's by one of my favorite writers, Paul Cornell... but long before reading any actual Young Avengers. (Amused to note my old review calls Young Avengers "a series I've never had a desire to read." I was such a grump when I was a young comics fan.) I think I liked it both more and less than my old review indicates; obviously, I was better able to track all the characters this time around. On the other hand, its occasional moment of incredibly gruesome death feels very mid-2000s comics, and not in a good way. I think Cornell is up to something interesting here, but is it interesting enough.... that's a different question. The story feels like it goes in circles a bit, and again, the actual Young Avengers feel like guest stars.

I did like the new Enchantress; she's the only one of these characters I'd've liked to see more of. She's funny. I wonder if she was ever used again? I bet she was brutally killed off in some awful crossover to prove the situation was serious.
from Dark Reign: Young Avengers #2 (script by Paul Cornell, art by Mark Brooks and Walden Wong with Dexter Vines & Mark Morales)

The Siege tie-in comes across as particularly pointless, despite writer Sean McKeever (the other half of the Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane creative team, actually) doing his best to give us some character insight as the team works to take care of an Asgard that crashed in Oklahoma.

I guess this happens.
from Siege: Young Avengers #1 (script by Sean McKeever, art by Mahmud Asrar and Scott Hanna & Victor Olazaba)

Finally, though, we get the return of Heinberg and Cheung in The Children's Crusade—clearly all of the treading water was to keep the Young Avengers in their status quo so that their original creators could return for this. It's a big story: the Young Avengers decide to hunt down Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, who they suspect of spiritually (though not physically) being the mother of Wiccan and Speed—they are the souls of the children magically born to Wanda and Vision. But Wanda also caused a mutant genocide and disappeared, so neither the Avengers nor the X-Men are excited about the idea of her coming back. Who is excited? Magneto, who is Wanda's father, and during this era, reformed and a member of the X-Men.

Obviously one wears one's sexy bustier to market day.
from Avengers: The Children's Crusade #2 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & Mark Morales)

It's a big story... and the problem is is that it's not really a Young Avengers story. (Probably why it was originally released as Avengers: The Children's Crusade.) Oh, they instigate things, and Heinberg clearly works really hard to give them key moments throughout, but it's a Wanda Maximoff story, and to a lesser extent, an Avengers and X-Men story. While the Young Avengers kick things off, after that, all the key decisions come down to ones made by Wanda and the Avengers and the X-Men. Was Wanda wrong? Can Wanda reform? Can she be forgiven? These are the questions the story turns around... and they are questions that have little to do with Wiccan and Hulkling and Speed and especially with Stature and Hawkeye and Patriot and Iron Lad and Vision.

Moreover, when the Young Avengers do contribute to the story, it's usually by doing something stupid.
from Avengers: The Children's Crusade #7 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung and Mark Morales with Livesay & Dexter Vines)

from Avengers: The Children's Crusade #3 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & Mark Morales)

There's a kind of superhero tendency that annoys me, when superhero stories become entirely about the lore of the superhero themselves. A long, long time ago I wrote a review of Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu's Superman: Birthright, and while the tone of the review is probably undeservedly harsh (I was a callow youth, about half of my present age), I think one point from it is very important—superhero stories have to be about something beyond the heroes themselves. If Superman stories are only about Superman lore, then there's no point to Superman. Superheroes need to do heroic things. Unfortunately, Young Avengers has a great cast of characters, but aside from the clearly water-treading crossover stories, has mostly been about the lore of the Young Avengers. Do they do other things than explore their convoluted backstories or solve problems they themselves were responsible for? Well, alas, not really! I think they totally could; I think Heinberg and Cheung came up with some great characters here. But The Children's Crusade is far more about lore relating to a story I have never and will probably never read (House of M) than it is about the Young Avengers themselves.

This is probably why the character deaths here gall so much. If Stature or Vision died in a story about Stature or Vision, it would tell us something about them. Unfortunately, my second-favorite Young Avenger dies to prove that Doctor Doom is a bad person. And Vision dies for even less reason than that. I just feel like this story really did most of its supposed main characters dirty so we could see Cyclops snarl at Magneto, which is totally not what drew me toward this series to begin with.

I miss these guys.
from Avengers: The Children's Crusade: Young Avengers #1 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer)

I did sort of feel like Allan Heinberg wrote the whole story around giving Jim Cheung reasons to draw the Scarlet Witch's cleavage. (See also above.)
from Avengers: The Children's Crusade #4 (script by Allan Heinberg, art by Jim Cheung & Mark Morales)

It has its moments. The surprise return of Iron Lad is very good. I liked the flashback to the original four Young Avengers' first mission. All of the kid characters are always a pleasure to spend time with. Jim Cheung is overall a great artist. (Though he kind of draws all adult women with the same face.) 

I'm sure everyone who died here will be back eventually anyway. But I think I'm glad I could read all seven years' worth of the original Young Avengers run in quick succession; I think it would have been quite a disappointment to wait for The Children's Crusade in real time.

This is the third in a series of posts about the Young Avengers, Loki, and Hawkeye. The next installment covers Thor by Kieron Gillen. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Young Avengers by Heinberg & Cheung, part 1 (2005-06) 
2. Young Avengers Presents (2008)