In the early 2000s, Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada noticed that anime and manga were getting popular and so decided to get in on that with Tsunami, a whole line of somewhat manga inspired titles. It was short lived but the most popular titles, at least the ones with the most devoted cult followings, tended to be the titles focused on younger heroes, stuff like New Mutants or Runaways, so Marvel would follow up Tsunami with the equally shortlived Mavel Next imprint focused exclusively on those types of characters. This would start a run of younger and/or teen heroes which would last until the early 2010s, with a lot of these characters largely discarded or worse end up in Avengers Arena as the deck was cleared for the Alonso era ones like Miles Morales, Kamala Khan and Riri Williams.I started reading and buying comics a lot more regularly during this time and being a teenager myself when Tsunami was starting I tended to be drawn to those books. Now that I'm hitting the point of life where you're nostalgic about everything I figured what the hell, I'll do a storytime of what we could, I suppose, call the Quesada Era young heroes, from some of the early Tsunami titles and ending with Avengers Academy which feels like a proper swansong for this generation of characters. Will I be able to get through it all? Who knows, but I'll try.I'll be starting this whole thing off with what was technically the first of these titles to be released. So today, it's Sentinel #1-4.
Fair warning, these are all going to grabbed from RCO. But the benefit of that is that it meant at least in part having to read or re-read a lot of these while doing it.
Very Columbine
I like how the early 2000s How to Draw Manga art style means she really doesn't look like a senior (and Juston doesn't really look like a high schooler). I'm guessing Udon put their lowest tier artists on this book.
As usual when I storytime things, I'll take a small break inbetween issues.
Issue 2
I'm iffy on posting recap pages since I don't know if they're necessary. But there are plenty of times were that's where they put the credits too.
Probably seems weird now but I'd imagine a poor kid living in the middle of nowhere 20+ years ago probably wouldn't have a computer or any of that stuff.
>>154031363A simpler time. Kids still getting ground up but still a simpler time.
Issue 3
This is the closest to seeing any known characters you're going to get in this series. Sentinel was basically it's own thing until Juston showed up in Avengers Academy.
Issue 4
One of the things you realize when reading through a lot of this stuff is just how strictly the writing for the trade style was enforced at the time.
Also I should mention that Jemas was the one responsible for the recap pages.
That does it for today. Next time will continue Sentinel with issues #4-8.
For the record, here's what I plan on storytiming for all of this.>Sentinel (vol 1 and 2)>Runaways (vol 1-3)>New Mutants vol 2>New X-Men (both DeFilippis/Weir and Yost/Kyle runs, plus the Hellions mini)>NYX>Amazing Fantasy vol 2 (The Araña and Scorpion stories)>Araña: The Heart of the Spider>Gravity>Young Avengers>Avengers: The Initiative>Nomad: Girl Without a World (plus the Nomad backups from Captain America)>Young Allies>Onslaught Unleashed>Spider-Girl (plus the Spider-Island mini where she gets powers)>Dark Reign: Young Avengers>X-23 (the ongoing)>Avengers: The Children's Crusade>Fear Itself: Youth In Revolt>Avengers AcademyI'm laregely avounding the Runaways/Young Avengers event minis since they're kind of irrelevant.The Loners mini I thought about since it's a Runaways spinoff but it's '90s young heroes and no 2000s ones so I think I'm skipping it. Generation Hope I'm leaning towards skipping because it's ultimately a pointless series. Plus I have to storytime Messiah Complex seeing as that's how NXM ends and the structure of the event means I can't just do the NXM issues, so that'll bloat things. Really it's not intended to be every appearance ever.
>>154031363Man, Runaways was the first comic I ever owned and I remember reading a few of these in the local library since they were donated by the LCS.Thanks for the blast from the past, anon.
>>154033947Yeah, like I said this was when I was starting to get comics regularly so I have a large attachmen to a lot of these characters regardless of the quality of the books although aside from a few I do think most of them are fine.Once I finish Sentinel I'll start on Runaways next and probably alternate daily between it and New Mutants until volume 1 finishes. I want to do things in a roughly chronological order or at least as best as I'm able to because I feel like it also provides a good glimpse of how the MU changed (both in-story and in reality) during that time as well.IMO Runaways, at least the first volume, holds up well even if it's trying very hard to capture Buffy's tone. From having had to re-read all three of the 2000s books, Chase is far and away the best character.Young Avengers OTOH I think doesn't really hold up all that well. But if people read it'll be interesting to see what they think, especially anyone who was reading these books when they were new.
Bump
>>154032553
>>154036580Life turnes out pretty shit for Juston. Of course it's his fault for still asking after she'd already said she had a boyfriend but probably thinking "well he's not around and I am so I can totally charm her away" is probably realistic for an awkward teenager.
