3 out of 5

So it’s possible that Marvel was like “Ryan, please write this using the same voice you always use, and please include alt-text.”  It’s possible Ryan feels like he has to continue writing that way because that’s what his fans expect.  It’s possible he just enjoys writing that way.  …But I’m sort of tired of it.  I’m excited for Ryan to be moving into regular comics; he’s a smart guy, and he has shown over the years that he can wrangle a joke from context and not just by messing with punctuation and caps.  I would love to see something where he digs down and uses his ideas and humor but tries to write it with a more realistic voice.  I’m sure it would seem forced at first, but with practice…  And then, maybe, he can get his kicks with Dino Comics and Adventure Time while making us smile and think with some good geek fiction on the side.

His 5-part ‘Young Avengers’ tale in this mini is surprisingly solid for a tie-in series – you don’t really have to care about the Sins setup, and because we’re dealing with the ‘Young’ and somewhat inexperienced Avengers, the stakes make sense – but since all of our teenagers sound the same in Ryan’s world (except for – as happened in Midas Flesh – the one straight man, here represented by bad guy The Hood) – the dialogue doesn’t feel like an exchange between characters so much as it does sifting through tweets and hash-tagged posts…  Sure, yes, a lot of obnoxious people do sound like that anyway, but I’m not sure I really want to always read witty banter from obnoxious people.  Anyhow, The Hood is maybe trying to extort some Original Sins secrets from some consciousness-expanded druggies, and he tries to bully the YA’s – or Marvel Boy, Hulking and Prodigy – into helping him, but they mostly stay on top of things, with a bit of youthful stumbling in the mix.  Ramon Villalobos’ art looks great.  But the alt-text really ruins any immersion.

Bookending these bits in each book we get one standalone ‘Sin’ story from various writers and artists, and because these are almost all designed as one-offs (or lead-ins to series), they’re honestly pretty readable.  Toward the tail end of the mini, issues 4 and 5, these one-offs start to feel like they’re more connected with the larger Marvel crossover, which does makes the pacing in the series seem a bit uneven.  But then each issue ends with a pretty amusing gag strip (Lockjaw’s ‘Sin’ that he remembers is a bone buried on the moon); these are honestly a highlight of the mini and remind me of the genius of the ‘Strange Tales’ series, pairing indie artists / writers with Marvel heroes.

North fans will probably be happy; anyone looking to dabble lightly in the Original Sins storyline can honestly get most of the gist from these books.  The overall effect isn’t solid enough to make it a necessity, but it’s more entertaining than it should be for a major-crossover tie-in.