microphoneheartbeats:yourtickettothemultiverse:microphoneheartbeats:I was tweeting with friend
microphoneheartbeats: yourtickettothemultiverse: microphoneheartbeats: I was tweeting with friends earlier about how because Young Avengers is designed as a fractal, you don’t really get the emotional impact of Miss America Chavez’s character arc until the end of the series but it refracts all the way back through to the beginning and that on a re-read she’s got one of the most emotionally affecting stories in the series. The moments are scattered throughout the 15 issues and her relationship with Billy and Loki and Teddy are all coloured by this stuff. BUT even just in issue 14 Gillen and McKelvie play with time in ways that make stuff hit you differently in retrospect even within the issue. Because America’s story in #14 and her memory flashback reminiscing happens right before she stomps over to give Billy a talking-to and snap him out of his navel-gazing moping at the end of his segment of #14 that immediately preceded America’s. And in that context, when she tells him “You’re never going to get a chance to be Captain America. Thor. Iron Man. Your mom. Any of them. Those positions are filled. Doesn’t matter. We save the world every day we choose to and we crap all over it every day we don’t. You’re Billy fucking Kaplan. Own it.” there are like four different things going on. 1) he doesn’t know what Billy Kaplan, Demiurge means to her so her pep talk is just a pep talk but she knows exactly what he’s capable of more than even he does at some level. 2) America is still, at some level, coping with the disillusionment that comes with realizing that people you grow up idolizing are idiots just like the rest of us, although she’s not chastising him - just nudging him in the right direction. 3) America isn’t just talking to him. When she says you’re never going to be Captain America, she’s also telling herself you’re never going to be Billy Kaplan. America’s Stars and red and blue costume isn’t a Captain America riff or an America the country riff. Her name is America, hence Miss America, but the unbounded stars and the red and dark blues come from Billy’s new Wiccan / Demiurge costume. America Chavez’s outfits evolve from the aesthetic of her Demiurge costume as a kid. It’s Billy Kaplan cosplay. 4) If she’s grown out of modeling herself after her moms and Billy, then Billy can stop modeling himself after the Avengers and just be himself because that’s enough. 5) You’re America fucking Chavez. Own it. is probably part of what she’s been telling herself silently for the whole damn book. Bolded for emphasis. OMG I WAS JUST ABOUT TO DO A POST SAYING EXACTLY THIS, HOW AMERICA’S PEP TALK REFLECTS ON HER OWN CHARACTER ARC AND HOW SHE’S HALF TALKING TO HERSELF AND ABOUT WHAT SHE’S LEARNT THROUGH THIS ALL AND THANK YOU FOR NOT LEAVING ME ALONE IN THE ANALYSIS OF THIS AMAZING SCENE. This is the issue I will forever bring up when people try to reduce America to this uni-dimensional rage bully who will punch anything that moves. Well, this and the .1 which are incidentally the only two issues in the whole series were we get to read her inner dialogue. Which goes to show that America is much deeper than anyone gives her credit for, she just keeps her feelings and thoughts carefully hidden. She’s always under control. She is —in her own words from the Teen Brigade run— “always alright,” even when in pain. I mean, this is a girl who kept her shit together after being harassed physically and emotionally by the same death parents she’d grown up idolizing. Who had to put the copies down herself while saving her deity and then come to terms with him being a scared little boy who relied on her. A girl who did all this while the world was in peril and while trying to protect this kid from Loki’s hidden intentions, and no one but herself knows what it is, what she’s going through. And she goes on and endures it all because she’s used to having no one. All her life she’s known she’s all alone in the whole Multiverse. Can you imagine how big it was for her to have friends? (Since she wasn’t in exactly friendly terms with the Teen Brigade even when he lead them). Can you imagine what it was like to have a home? Food every day and a place to sleep at for a kid who’d most likely grown in the streets? I agree with OP, when you go back and re-read her character arc is so powerful because you start to notice this little vulnerabilities. 1) She claiming not to be “a friend”. 2) Her face when they’re all gathered in the spaceship at the end of issue #5’s last page. 3) Her urgency for Billy to “stop whining” at first. 4) Her complete refusal to talk about herself or her world because she could be changing things and ruining everything. 5) Her tear-eyed plea for Billy not to screw up right before the face Mother. Just so many powerful things. reblogging for further wonderful commentary on this character and this arc. -- source link