80-Page Thursdays: Avengers Academy Giant-Size #1!

Man alive, when was the last time we had a Marvel 80-pager here? Way back in 2019! But, we've got one I hadn't seen before, with a couple characters that were getting the push at the time, and maybe a couple Marvel's still trying to break big. And, it might set up not one but two series later! From 2011, Avengers Academy Giant-Size #1, written by Paul Tobin, pencils by David Baldeón, inks by Jordi Tarragona.

Full disclosure here, and absolutely personal bias: I don't love the Avengers Academy era. It didn't feel like a great use of some established characters--hey, Hank Pym's not in anything, I guess he's a teacher now. But just from this issue, the Academy kids seem to feel like they're treated like property, forbidden from using their powers unless it's in service to the Avengers or the government. (Pretty sure you should side with the kids, but it sucks that some Avengers get made the bad guys for enforcing that, even if they were getting the screws put to them as well.) On a rare day off in NYC, Reptil, Veil, Finesse, and Striker decide to enjoy the day; even if it's only a day and they were probably being watched by Avengers even if they promised they wouldn't...The kids happen to see Firestar and Spider-Girl fly/swing by, but after they wander off from each other, Reptil and Veil worry the others might have run off, and they might get in trouble themselves if so. Their search is cut short, when while checking out a somewhat suspicious Avengers Academy poster, they get hit by flying bricks and giant robots. No points will be given for guessing the baddie: it's Arcade.

While on their way to meet up with fellow Young Allies member Toro, Spider-Girl and Firestar are lured in by a giant Spider-Girl balloon and captured as well. Arcade intended to put them all in his patented death-traps, but Reptil and Spider-Girl wake up early, so Arcade improvises a competition between them, to score points and save their friends, or at least some of them. He seems to be enjoying creating on the fly; but the whole endeavor was meant to show he still had the juice to kill super-powered heroes, even if they were just kids. (Arcade claims to have killed 'scores' of regular people, an interesting choice of terms!) While gas-girl Veil figures out her trap, Spider-Girl and Reptil run Arcade's wild goose chase: eventually, Arcade murders them all, or at least appears to: no spoiler, but O.G. junior hero Kitty Pryde pulled the same on him, back in Uncanny X-Men #197! 

Traditional as hell: of course the Avengers and the government aren't looking when the kids are kidnapped: they can only surveil to punish you, not help you. This also seems to pretty much set up the later Avengers Arena and Avengers Undercover series with Arcade; but Reptil was the only hero from this issue to appear in those. I don't know if I've seen Reptil lately; which would kind of be standard for a younger hero like that after his book went away; except he was also in the Super-Hero Squad cartoon and comic! I wonder how many years we are away from a childhood fan of his bringing him back. (He did appear in a King in Black issue fairly recently.) 

Firestar...man, Firestar's been around since what, 1981? And Marvel still seems to be at a loss over what to do with her, at least consistently: her most recent appearances were the last West Coast Avengers, where I think she had PTSD and alcoholism, developed after her stint as a double agent against Orchis during the Krakoa era. Which may or may not be an improvement from having to sit at the kid's table? I'm not saying all of Firestar's stories should be sweetness and light, but that feels a bit much.

I had to look up the others: Veil had to give up her powers before they killed her, but Finesse seems to have settled into B-list bad guy for hire work. Her powers seemed like Taskmaster's, but part of her larger plot was that the Academy deemed her among the most likely to become a villain, so she just did. At least a bit; she maybe just didn't want to anything to do with Avengers after that, which, fair. Striker's maybe still out there, but not used for much except maybe crowd filler. The Young Allies Toro was a largish bull-guy, not the old Human Torch's sidekick, but while I thought he would've been phased out when the Liefeld-era girl Bucky was removed, he stuck around at least a little. He might be one of several refugees from alternate earths on 616, but the original Toro came back as an Inhuman, so we might not see YA Toro again.