If last issue was the emotional good-bye, this issue is the plot wrap-up, where truths are revealed. (To be fair, Noh-Varr gets in a few pages of emotional good-bye, saying how good Kate was for him. We get a real sense of how much he cared for her. Even if she doesn't get to see that emotion, at least we do. It's a nice moment. But, it feels sort of like the last six pages of last issue rather than the first six pages of this one.)
In a way, this issue is all about David (though Loki would say that it's all about him). David sends Loki into the night realizing this series' most important truth: "Saving the world from yourself is the first, most necessary step." (Loki really should get that emblazoned on a throw pillow.) Later, Prodigy uses his genius to deduce that Patri-not is one of the Young Avengers sent from the future to make sure that everything happens in this series exactly the way that it happens. Tommy was the bait to get the Young Avengers to travel the multiverse so that Billy could discover that he was the Demiurge and so that Loki would decide not to steal his powers. It worked, though Gillen leaves unanswered the question of why it was necessary in the first place. What happened in the future that leaves the outcome of the present in doubt? (I'm guessing that it has something to do with Loki.)
The saddest part of this issue is the revelation that David is pretty sure that he's the one who gives up his humanity to become Patri-not. It's not necessarily because of the fact that he may be right (which is obviously in and of itself sad), but also because he assumes that he would be the one to make that sacrifice. It underlines the sense that David is a tragic character, at least in his own mind. He doesn't get the guy and he has to give up his humanity at some point. Tough breaks. But, Gillen doesn't actually make it that simple. Patri-not refuses to confirm David's hunch, so it's unclear if David really is a tragic character or if he's just being a little adolescent in assuming that he is. After all, he's a little too young to be ruling out the possibility of a happy ending, just because he didn't get the boy this time. But, I can understand why it doesn't feel that way to David, particularly since he may wind up being right that it is/was him after all.
I'll be honest in saying that I found the gaying-up of every character, including Kate and Noh-Varr, a little over the top. I mean, I totally bought the idea that Loki would make a pass at David. As Loki himself says, he's the patron god of certain sexual acts, so he's not exactly limited to a rigid definition of sexual identity. Plus, David is probably the only person who accepts Loki for who he is and doesn't hold that against him. If Loki was going to make a pass at anyone, it would be David, even if he rebuffs the offer, since good guys are his type. Plus, the idea of the gay Avengers is appealing, obviously. But, we want such a team to come together of its own, not to suddenly turn previously straight characters like Kate and Noh-Varr bisexual. In a way, it almost cheapens America, Billy, David, and Teddy's sexualities. It's not the totality of who they are, obviously, but it's part of who they are, in a way that it hasn't been part of who Kate and Noh-Varr are. Changing that identity on the part of Kate and Noh-Varr makes it feel rushed to underline a point that this series already had made. In the end, it's a weird way to end the series.
Though, to be fair, the actual end is, indeed, all about Loki. He takes a photo of the Young Avengers walking through one of America's dimensional doorways and then posts a photo of the team in earlier days, looking at it wistfully. In that way, he's acting as a surrogate not only for Gillen, whose love of these characters is clear to anyone who reads the letters column, but also for the reader. As an adult, one of the tragedies of adolescence that I now recognize is your belief (usually woefully) that it'll last for ever. As we've learned, Loki actually isn't an adolescent and his sadness comes from an adult sense that this moment that he shared with these people is over, never to be regained. The reader and Gillen share this moment with him as we're all left to wonder what's next.
This series has been a bright shining sun of wonder in an otherwise predictable environment. I can't possibly begin to express my appreciation for what Gillen and McKelvie did here. I'll simply say that it's one of those comics that reminds me why I read comics, why they tell stories that can't be told in other media. I look forward to re-reading this whole series one day and being remind all over again about truths that I had forgotten. I think that's exactly what Gillen hoped would happen and I congratulate him on a job well done.
*** (three of five stars)
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