1. Young Avengers #14 by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie et al. (Marvel)
YOU GOTTA FIGHT (DUH DUH) FOR YOUR RIGHT... TO PAAAAAARRRRRR-TYYYYYY!!! The Young Avengers have beaten Mother and sent the multi-dimensional evil Young Avengers back to their own planets: they've saved the universe, guys. And now? Now it's time to celebrate and what better time than at the Young Avengers New Year's Eve party? That's right, the Young Avengers put aside their weapons, bust out their prettiest clothes and dance, dance, dance the night away. I'm serious, this is an entire issue of the Young Avengers celebrating the completion of their latest and greatest adventure and just chilling out. No big fights, no superhero antics, nothing else - it's like an episode of (insert popular teen drama show)! And it's awesome! Partly because I don't think I've read an episode which is just the characters saluting their awesomeness for an entire issue, but it's also kinda meta too. Young Avengers is drawing to a close with issue #15, so this issue is the penultimate one and it's as much the creative team celebrating their successful run as it is the characters toasting their own victory. It's also as much an artist party as it is a characters party. The amazing regular art team of Jamie McKelvie and Matthew Wilson (Mike Norton's conspicuously absent - maybe he'll be fashionably late to the party?) draw just five pages of this comic with Emma Vieceli, Lee Loughridge, Christian Ward, Annie Wu and Jordie Bellaire drawing the rest of the issue among them. Suffice it to say the comic is as gorgeous to look at as Kate Bishop is in her party dress (and yes, even a shirtless Noh-Varr, damn him!). The only thing that would make this comic even better art-wise would've been to have Bryan Lee O'Malley draw a coupla pages. There is still one more issue to go... Things get a little maudlin as we draw closer to midnight with a flashback sequence for Miss America showing us how she became such a hardass. It's also a great scene that reminds us of the character's age - she becomes more adult with her realisation of Wiccan at the end of her flashback and every grown up reading this issue will know how she feels. Kieron Gillen includes a playlist of songs for this issue and the next and I feel Joan Osborne's One Of Us should've been playing during her flashback - but maybe that'd be a bit too on the nose (and it's not really a party song). If you love Young Avengers like me, this issue, a victory lap of a comic, will be a non-stop delight. If you don't like Young Avengers, you're simply wrong, and if you haven't read any of this title, do yourself a favour and check it out. The credits pages to this series alone make it stand out above so many other comics out there. The playlist ends on Nelly's Hot In Herre and boy is it ever by that final page! Can't wait to read the final issue to this extraordinary series next month - in the meantime, raise your glasses and take off all your clothes! * Those are my picks for the best comics of the week, but what're yours? Let me know in the comments below. Christmas is next week so here's hoping Santa brought you something awesome to read for when you sober up - until next time!