New Comics! (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Avengers:  The Children's Crusade #9:  Wow.

OK, on the face of it, Heinberg wraps up everything here almost too neatly.  Ant-Man returns, Stature's death and Vision's murder are the catalysts for Iron Lad stepping on the path to becoming Kang, Wanda is off the hook, the Young Avengers partially disband, and the remaining members are accepted into the Avengers fold.  But, it didn't feel like it was "too neatly."  It all felt real, with each event, no matter how neatly it advanced the plot, flowing logically from the emotional reactions that the heroes had to preceding events.

Let's take Iron Lad.  I ended last issue hoping against hope that Heinberg would find a way to keep him on the team.  But, instead, within the first five pages, Heinberg makes him into the villain we all feared he'd one day become, and that transition feels real.  Heinberg so nailed the emotions that Iron Lad would be feeling -- his rage at the Avengers and Young Avengers not letting him take Cassie into the future to heal her -- that he leaves no question that Nate has crossed the line.  By killing the Vision, he goes so beyond redemption here that you aren't left wanting him to join the Young Avengers anymore because you realize he can't.  I've rarely read a more powerful sequence in comics than this one, and if you would've told me that Heinberg would've managed it in five pages, I wouldn't have believed you.

The aspect that was the most convenient was Cyclops letting Wanda off the hook for M-Day.  But, I'm hard pressed for Cyclops to have found any other way.  I'm glad Heinberg has Cyclops acknowledge the Billy was right, in his awesome tirade from last issue, that killing the Scarlet Witch wouldn't result in any justice being had.  Moreover, lately, it's almost laughable to think of Scott as anything approaching a moral authority.  This series, I believe, happens before "X-Men:  Schism," since Iceman appears at Cyclops' side, so Scott at least had some measure more authority, in terms of speaking for mutant-kind, than he does now.  But, it's still hard to follow his logic that the Scarlet Witch should be punished, but Magneto, who's part of his "Extinction Team" shouldn't.  Heinberg successfully made that argument last issue, which is why it was fairly easy to accept the fairly manner in which the Scarlet Witch's future was resolved.

But, Heinberg goes beyond the conflict about Wanda's future and actually, for once, makes it about her.  I loved the part where Wanda rejects the offers of Cap, Simon, Magneto, and Quicksilver to take care of her, finally (FINALLY) deciding that it's time she becomes her own person.  I've always been annoyed by the way that various "Avengers" authors have treated her as a fragile tool, a history Jamie Madrox himself notes when he comments on the likelihood that the Avengers will try to find her the next time Dormammu or Mephisto attacks.  She's always just been the powerful character who quietly saved the day, but whose fragility was what made her a sympathetic character.  Wanda appears to be playing a significant part in the upcoming "Avengers vs. X-Men" event, and I'm really intrigued where Marvel is going to go with her character, one who might finally be freed from her days as nothing more than a helpless pawn.

Lest we forget whose book we're reading, Heinberg brings us home in the end.  I almost got teary during the scenes of the five remaining Young Avengers sitting on the High Line.  I thought Heinberg did an amazing job with Eli here.  We actually see a superhero take real, honest accountability for his actions.  I thought it was a great speech, having him note that he's only seventeen years old and that he didn't want his mistakes to hurt anyone else.  Kate's comments were equally moving, talking about the loss of Cassie, the death of Vision at the hands of Iron Lad, and her lack of powers as reasons for her to leave.  But, it's Billy, who's always been the emotional core of the group that delivers the coup de grace, deciding that he was the enemy all along.  No one believes that, but Billy does, as we see over the next few pages as Heinberg and Cheung give us a play-by-play view of the last few months' of events in the Marvel Universe, as seen from Billy's window, where he's been licking his wounds.

But, heroes are heroes, and Heinberg doesn't leave us there.  Teddy and Billy's conversation is lovely, and, OMG, thank God they finally get some.  But, it's Cap's call to the four of them -- Billy, Kate, Teddy, and Tommy  -- to come to the Mansion to see the statue dedicated to Stature and the Vision (and someone else, who I didn't recognize) that really got me.  Again, from a narrative perspective, it's convenient.  Heinberg has pared down their roster and brought them under the auspices of the Avengers.  I wonder if they're going to appear in "Avengers Academy" or in their own back-up stories in "Avengers."  But, the important part is, again, Heinberg makes it feel real.  It doesn't feel triumphant.  It doesn't feel the way that they probably thought it would feel.  But, it feels real, because it's sad.  As Billy said, "There are no happy endings.  But you show up anyway."  'Nuff said.

I had some qualms with this mini-series.  It went on too long, lost its way a few times, and involved too many characters.  Heinberg doesn't really clarify how Dr. Doom manipulated Wanda into causing the events of "Avengers:  Disassembled" and M-Day or how he used the portal she and Billy opened to gain more power, not less power (as originally intended).  In fact, despite being the villain of the series and possibly revealing a major ret-con, Doom is totally absent here, meriting only a brief mention as the heroes debate where or not he actaully manipulated Wanda as he claimed.  I'm also not sure why Heinberg decided to swap out Stature for Ant-Man, who, I have to say, wasn't exactly such an amazing character that the masses were clamoring for his return. 

But, this issue was one of the best issues of any comic I've read in a long time, so we're good.  It's all good.  In the end, Heinberg used this mini-series to have our team mature and grow.  They learned some pretty hard lessons, but they also faced down the Avengers, Dr. Doom, and the X-Men, and won.  They kept the moral high road and they saved the world.  What more do you want from your heroes?