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By Carla Hoffman
We’ve spent the week talking to artist Jamie McKelvie and writer Kieron Gillen about YOUNG AVENGERS and their particular style and approach to the most unique, fresh look at the modern young hero in an ever-changing world.
Today, we wrap up by talking about the rest of the Young Avengers team and influences on their style, including Loki and his look as well as a peek ahead into upcoming issues and where the team might find themselves in adventures to come.
Jamie McKelvie: You only see Kate [Bishop aka Hawkeye] in Noh-Varr's t-shirt at this point, so you don't really see her sense of style, but feeding off of what David Aja designed for her costume in HAWKEYE, it's sort of very influenced by Emma Peel in the [British] “Avengers” TV show. So feeding off of that, I kind of looked at her style and because she has those connections in the fashion industry; for me her sort of style is very classy, vaguely expensive, and it's that kind of influence will be coming into it which you'll see with her.
Kieron Gillen: We often talk about music references in terms of style and stuff, do want to talk about who we thought for Kate?
Jamie McKelvie: There's a UK [artist], I think she's getting quite big in America now, called Jessie Ware, who kind of got a really strong sense of style to go with her music and she's one of the big influences on Kate for me.
My big influence for Noh-Varr is David Bowie, especially David Bowie in “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” I wanted to try and get that sort of alien-ness, but still being pretty cool. Of all the team, he'd be the coolest I would say, wouldn't you, Kieron?
Kieron Gillen: Yeah. I think he fits into the kind of niche on the team that Namor fit in UNCANNY X-MEN. Both Miss America and Marvel Boy are very cool, but Miss America clearly has other stuff going on. Whereas I think Marvel Boy, in some deep, fundamental way, really doesn't care. There's an ounce of sort of nihilism to him now and it's sort of about hedonism, and the fact that saving the world is actually pleasurable for him. He's the guy who enjoys a bit too much and that is both problematic and exciting.
I wanted to have these two characters, Marvel Boy and Miss America, as different models of people about the ages of the characters who have been doing this a bit longer than the other guys have. In YOUNG AVENGERS, they talk about the fact she's been doing this “for a while,” and of course the question is how long she's been doing it. Marvel Boy was basically the Wesley Crusher of his spaceship in the original [limited series]; he's David Bowie and Wesley Crusher in one gun tossing package.
Jamie McKelvie: There you go! That's a good description of him.
Kieron Gillen: But I wanted to and you've got to separate them and how are they different and Marvel Boy's a bit mental. [Laughs]
Marvel.com: Having your entire planet [the Kree home world] say “You suck” now...
Kieron Gillen: Yeah, he's that dude. He doesn't let people on to his interior, his internal life, I think.
Jamie McKelvie: Yeah.
Kieron Gillen: Yeah. I think that'd be a good way of putting it. I mean, Teddy and Billy are lovely kids, even Loki says they're lovely kids repeatedly. [Laughs] And Marvel Boy, he ain't a very lovely kid.
Jamie McKelvie: And Loki is Loki. There was absolutely no sense in doing anything to his design, it's so great. It's a brilliant, brilliant design that sort of sums up who he is. And also, we want him to look the same, really, because of reasons.
Kieron Gillen: I think he's described in the first panel there as “cosplay boy” by the guy who's serving him at the diner? I mean, speaking of characters that get cosplayed, there was like 15 at Comic Con gathered together for a photo shoot; all these Kid Loki costumes which is like amazing. So yeah, that's the guy I want to keep.
Marvel.com: In the pages that we’ve seen this week, we're getting a more intimate, pedestrian view of New York City and how they live within it. Obviously, we'll be seeing more places than just New York City, as we've already seen a sneak peek at another Earth in the MARVEL NOW! POINT ONE special. Any other exotic locales we'll be seeing the Young Avengers head off to?
Kieron Gillen: Asgard? We're going to be popping over to Asgard in issues #2-3, and most of issue #5 and most of the first arc is weirdly very much centered around New York. Basically, I wanted the first arc to be New York, primarily New York and we kind of explore it because there's that whole bit, there's a whole set piece set in Mary Jane Watson’s nightclub, which I've used in my IRON MAN book so well, so I'm very happy there's a go-to nightclub. But then as we go forward, we're kind of all over the place, as in issue #6 is kind of standalone separate story. But issue #7 onwards we'll be popping all over the world, they're mobile; in fact, I'm still writing those issues so I'm still kind of deciding where exactly they're going to be. But why not? These are young people and the world is their oyster.
Jamie McKelvie: It's a bit like “The Littlest Hobo.”
Kieron Gillen: Yes, like “The Littlest Hobo” but with hair gel.
YOUNG AVENGERS #1 debuts January 23.
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