The Young Protectors is divided in arcs, with each arc comprising one or several chapters, and in occasion, bonus comics that add additional depth to some characters or stories. Major spoilers will be marked.
This arc focuses on Kyle, A.K.A. Red Hot, and how he comes to accept his sexuality, his origins, and his power.
Prologue
Kyle subreptitiously visits a gay bar for the first time. Once he gets out, he is confronted by the Annihilator, a dangerous supervillain that saw him enter. Annihilator threatens to expose Kyle, while he can't be exposed because he's already out of the closet. His condition to not out Kyle is getting a kiss. Kyle reluctantly accepts, in his first kiss.At the end, Annihilator confesses that he would never have outed Kyle, but since Kyle already thought of him as a villain, he decided to act as one. He parts, leaving Kyle confused about his feelings.
Chapter 1
The rest of The Young Protectors are introduced, working as a team to save people trapped in a burning building. After saving the people, Kyle sees Annihilator hiding in the crowd. Later that night Kyle returns to the site of the fire and encounters the Annihilator, who invites him on a date and gives him his name: Duncan Wells. He introduces him to Sircea, the Platinum Priestess, a powerful witch that teleports them to Hong Kong. A brief conversation between Duncan and Sircea suggests they may have ulterior designs towards Kyle.Kyle and Duncan's date is interrupted by a couple of vigilantes, Hunter and Killer, who use a high-technology device to nullify Duncan's powers and try to kill him. Duncan uses a magic powder provided by Sircea to turn Kyle invisible and keep him out of danger. Eventually, Kyle and Duncan defeat them. Kyle reveals that any intense sexual feelings make him lose control of his sexual powers, which he find out the first time he tried to masturbate, which ended up with his foster sister in the hospital and his parents' house burned down.
Being impervious to fire, Duncan suggests that Kyle could try having sex with him, and they make plans to have sex in the night of Kyle's eighteenth birthday.
It's aditionaly mentioned that most heroes and villains are outside Earth, dealing with an event named Crisis of Trans-Colliding World Identities that seems to have a galactic reach.
Chapter 2
In the night of the day Kyle turns eighteen, he meets again with Duncan and they travel to an empty warehouse away from any inhabited place. Duncan says that even if Kyle loses control of his powers, they could burn it to the ground without endangering anyone. They have a romantic dinner and afterwards they have sex. Kyle has a hard time enjoying himself, being conditioned to stay always in control, but eventually with the help of Duncan he relaxes and lets go. Right when he is about to orgasm, Duncan turns onto him and uses magic to unleash his fire powers, and then uses Kyle's fire to transport both of them to hell.In Hell, Duncan confers with a demon king named Laampros, offering him to create a portal to Earth so Laampros can conquer it and feast on the souls of humanity, and asks in exchange to rule over the American continents plus eternal life and youth for him and Sircea. Laampros accepts and brands Duncan with his sigil, sealing the deal.
Enraged, Kyle attempts to attack Duncan and manages to burn him. Laampros seems pleased at this and reveals that Kyle is his son and, therefore, a prince of hell. Duncan and Kyle return to Earth, with Duncan claiming that what he did is a necessary evil, apologizes to Kyle and leaves him traumatized.
Chapter 3
Kyle calls Fluke for help. Fluke enlists the help of Spooky due to the demonic nature of the problem, and Flyboy for transportation. They go to the warehouse and do their best to comfort Kyle and get him back on his feet, although Kyle keeps claiming that he is evil and cursed. Spooky then reveals that when he was young he was abducted and spent a year in hell, and tells Kyle that he was used and manipulated, but he's not cursed.All of them meet with the rest of the team and start searching for a way to stop Duncan from opening the portal. Commander communicates with the army, trying to get a specialized team to address the problem, and in the meantime Spooky attempts to find the location of the ritual to open the portal. Tsunami is extremely reluctant to allow Kyle, Fluke and Mitch in combat due to their lack of experience, but Commander argues that in a crisis of that level they will need all the help they can get.
Meanwhile, Duncan and the Platinum Priestess are preparing for the ritual. It is revealed that an event called The Grey Working weakened the Platinum Priestess and made her mortal, and rendered insane every true magician on Earth except for her and Spooky.
The Young Protectors reach them when they are about to start the ritual, which involves an arch of bones and a cage of people who will be sacrificed at an exact time. They plan how to stop them, and right before they start Flyboy reveals to Kyle that he's gay too. Their plan, however, crashes when Annihilator uses the same device Hunter and Killer used, nullify the powers of the Young Protectors, and knocks them all out.
Chapter 4
The Young Protectors awake trapped in a forcefield that nullifies their powers. Duncan explains his whole plan to them: The walls between Earth and hell are weakening, and if they break down Earth will become permanently a part of hell. He and the Platinum Priestess plan to allow Laampros in Earth to use his power to repair the walls and destroy him, believing that it's better to lose millions of lives to him in a temporary event, than to lose all the lives on Earth forever.Commander argues that they can find another solution, but they refuse to listen and prepare to finish the ritual. Commander, however, has a plan to get free: Fluke's power is balancing luck and right know he has a lot of luck reserves due to all the events happening, so she convinces him that it would be a great stroke of luck if the nullifying forcefield didn't work on him. As soon as he believes it, the field short circuits and they're all free.
In their second engagement the Young Protectors fare much better: they manage to force the Platinum Priestess to teleport away and Spooky locks her out so she cant return. Fluke destroys the source of the nullifying field close to Duncan, overcharging him so he loses his powers for a while. He has a change of heart and tells them that pushing Laampros back through the portal will close it, although it won't be enough to fix the walls.
Then they attempt to open the cage with the victims, but it's under magical protections so strong that they are unable to break in. When the moment of the ritual begins, the victims are electrocuted, but Spooky absorbs their souls before they die. However, the ritual is completed and the portal for Laampros opens.
Chapter 5
Laampros appears and The Young Protectors attack him. Laampros withstands their combined attacks and unleashes an army of demons. Kyle engages him in direct combat and absorbs part of his hellish fire, partially turning into a demon. Laampros forces him to face his feelings of rejection from his past, his isolation from his friends (including Tsunami's past uneasiness towards him), his unrequited crush for Spooky and his nature as a half-demon. Eventually, however, Kyle decides to accept himself as he is and stop being afraid of his powers, claims himself as an earthling and unleashes enough fire to push Laampros back through the gate, closing it.
He then uses his newfound power to open the cage with the victims, but it seems to be too late: the souls Spooky absorbed have been destroying his own mind and soul, and Commander claims he's dead. Kyle, however, uses his fire to bring him back to life and make him release the souls back into the lifeless bodies. Spooky returns to consciousness and kisses Kyle.
While Spooky heals his teammates, Commander and Kyle find out that Annihilator has been transformed into a teenager and has lost his memory. The military arrives and makes him prisoner.
Epilogue
On the aftermath of the events in this arc, the Young Protectors are preparing to testify before an investigation comission for the event. Flyboy is now living with his boyfriend, while Kyle and Spooky are not pursuing a relationship, since Spooky is hunting down the Platinum Priestess and a supernatural laser-eyed bear that was released during the battle.
Kyle visits the Annihilator in the top-security facility in which he is kept. Annihilator states that he is being experimented upon, with the military testing the limits of his immortality. He also has fragmentary memories from his past that he tries to leverage into improving the way he is treated. After talking to him, Kyle goes out to his first date as an out gay man, with a civilian named Sameer.
Interlude One
Written by Alex Woolfson, with line art by Adam De Kraker and colors by Veronica Gandini.Takes place shortly before the prologue. Browsing the internet, Fluke encounters a fanpage dedicated to the Young Protectors, in which Yaoi Fangirls upload erotic gay drawings of them. While Fluke, Kyle and Spooky take it in good humor, Tsumnami has a very negative reaction to it, throwing off Kyle. Tsunami prevents Flyboy from watching the drawings, but a couple days later after a mission Flyboy finds them in the browsing history... and is quite enticed by them.
Spooky Jones: Genesis
Written by Alex Woolfson, with line art by Adam De Kraker and colors by Veronica Gandini.Takes place several years before the Prologue. A teen-aged Amanda and her mother (an army lieutenant) visit a police deparment where Spooky is being held, having been found wandering naked, traumatized and holding a demon's head. Amanda slowly gains his trust and peeks into his mind, finding the memories of Spooky being dragged to hell at his thirteenth birthday and his struggles with demons until he managed to break out. She tranquilizes him, convincing him that he is really out of hell (which he doubted) and that he is not cursed, but simply went through a horrible experienced. When questioned again by the police, Spooky tells them that the walls between Earth and hell are weakening, but that in his escape he made sure that no other demon could cross at the moment, and he claims the name Spooky Jones for himself.
Bonus comic: Truth or Dare
Written by Alex Woolfson, ilustrated by Julie WrightTakes place a month before the Prologue by Word of God. The Young Protectors are forced to play a cursed game of truth or dare in which lying can kill them and they will forget all the answers by the next day. The stakes start small and easy, but go higher as the game progresses. Spooky confesses that he wears layers because after he came back from hell he's always cold. Kyle confesses that when Spooky sleeps at his home they share a bed.
Then, Commander is forced to confess that sometimes she fantasizes about her teammates getting it on with Spooky, and Flyboy confesses that he was kicked of the superhero team he was interning with for doing freelance work as a vigilante and that he is still doing it. Tsunami confesses that he made past mistakes that still haunt them and that he hopes to help his teammates to avoid the same pain. And finally, Fluke confesses that his "fuck, marry, throw of a cliff" would be Commander, Kyle, and Tsunami.
Bonus comic: Flyboy
Written by Alex Woolfson, with line art by Adam De Kraker and colors by Veronica Gandini.Takes place right before chapter 3 of the arc. Flyboy is doing some nighttime freelance vigilante work when he overhears a friend from his past, Cory, a youngster with telechynetic powers that is involved in a robbery from the mafia along with his brother Diego. Flyboy attempts to stop them and help, but he fails and Diego gets shot. Cory, enraged, loses control of his powers and creates an expanding tornado that might destroy a huge part of the city. Flyboy manages to knock him out of the shock and get Diego to a hospital. Then a conversation between them reveals that they were a couple and Cory's parents kicked him out when they found out he was gay. Flyboy and Cory rekindle their relationship, and then Flyboy receives a message, telling him to return because they have to go find Kyle.
Interlude Two
Written by Alex Woolfson, ilustrated by Julie WrightThe shortest interlude, takes place along with chapter 5: Cory is taking care of Diego in a hospital room, along with an employee of Flyboy's parents, and they observe the sky turn red when Laampros arrives to Earth.
Chapter 1
Spooky has decided to help Kyle to finally get over his aversion to sex, using Intimate Healing. He confesses about having had sex with both men and women, and they have sex. Then, Spooky suggests a possibility of being more serious and Kyle shuts it down, arguing that Spooky doesn't do romantic relationships, which hurts Spooky's feelings.Chapter 2
A week after the first chapter, Spooky confronts Kyle on how his words make him feel and how he is actually afraid of being unable to find love, and how he felt hurt because he has feelings for Kyle. Kyle confesses then that he also has feelings for Spooky, and they have sex again. Spooky uses magic to enhance the experience by syncing their minds and bodies, until suddenly Kyle is replaced by Spooky's former lover from Hell, the demon Aanado.Starts immediately at the end of Legendary, when Spooky finds that Kyle has been replaced by Aanado. Aanado claims that the spell Spooky used to sync their minds allowed him to jump to eart and completely take over Kyle's body, but this is temporary and they must seal the spell so he can't stay on Earth for good. Spooky is reluctant to abandon Kyle like that, and then Aanado transports them both back to hell and returns Spooky to his 13-year old, powerless self.
Aanado reminds Spooky of all their time fighting in hell together and reveals that his body was destroyed when he crossed to Earth and that he will die without a body. He proposes to leave Kyle's body and take Spooky's instead, and he insists to do the change right there in hell, saying that Spooky as selfish abandoned him the last time. Spooky becomes suspicious at certain things in Aanado's story that don't make complete sense, and the longer they talk the more distrustful he gets, until he realizes the truth:
He's not in hell, but in a fantasy in his own mind, and he's not talking to Aanado but to another creature. With that knowledge, he transforms the fantasy in a more pleasant one and strips Aanado from the illusion revealing a powerful demon named Velliok.
A part of Spooky's backstory is revealed then: Velliok had created a portal to Earth using Spooky's blood and Spooky had to cross it so it would close, but Aanado was restrained and unable to follow him, and insisted that Spooky should go anyway and leave him behind. Velliok had not seen that, having been impalled by a magic lance away from them, so he tried to play it as Spooky abandoning Aanado, which tipped Spooky off. Spooky threatens to torture and destroy Velliok.
Velliok then imprisoned Aanado and tortured him for years and is still doing it, and was trying to impersonate Aaanado as a ruse to be allowed to possess Spooky, which would give him access to Earth. He then offers a pact to Spooky: Spooky will release him, in exchange for a clue to find Aanado. Reluctantly, Spooky agrees, even if he knows that Velliok only intention is giving him a chance and a motive to go back to hell and be trapped and used by him.
Velliok additionally indicates Spooky that he doesn't need to wait for a stellar alignment that might take centuries to happen, but he can make it happen using an object known as the Sphere Celestiale, and that it's right then being used on earth. He then leaves, claiming that Spooky is destined to belong to him from birth and that he will go back to hell, and he will fall into Velliok's hands.
Spooky then wakes up in his bedroom along with Kyle and embraces him, but he knows that he must really come back to hell and try to rescue Aanado. He then starts telling Kyle about his past, and his plans for the future.
Chapter 1
Spooky and Flyboy get a tip from Kanya about a magical artifact, that Spooky identifies as related to the Sphere Celestiale. They, along with Cory, use it to track a location that Spooky identifies is relate to a case he solved in the past but somehow got erased from his memory. They find a coven of magicians and the Platinum Priestess about to perform a ritual with the Sphere. They interfere with the ritual, but accidentally the Sphere is activated and opens many portals that fly all over the place, with Cory and Flyboy both falling into portals. Flyboy finds himself into a location in the past, with Spooky about to be defeated by a crazy magician, and saves him.Chapter 2
Flyboy deduces that he is in the past, before the Young Protectors were formed and Spooky joined them. He convinces Spooky to join him. They travel to Spooky's office when he meets his late receptionist, Cassidy. Cassidy introduces them to Ambrosia von Dumas, a rich heiress that asks for Spooky's help to locate her brother, who has been dabbing on dark magic. Even if Spooky states that her brother is beyond saving, she insists that they try, and also tells them that he kidnapped a young girl that could still need to be saved.As a last clue, Ambrosia shows them a sign drawn by her brother, that Flyboy recognizes as part of the ritual the Platinum Priestess was performing, and Spooky as the sign of a king of hell named Domanoth, and points them to an abandoned church where her brother and his friends gathered to perform rituals.
Spooky and Flyboy visit the church but fall into a trap. A powerful magician wearing Evil Sunglasses nullifies their powers and tries to kill Flyboy, although he insists he needs Spooky alive. Flyboy finds a strange energy coming out of his arm, that he uses to break a spell suffocating Spooky, and they barely escape.
Chapter 3
Flyboy wakes up back in Spooky's office, where he meets the younger version of Commander. She used alien technology to diagnose the blasts of energy coming from his arm as signs of instability caused by his temporal displacement, that eventually will kill him. She intends to turn him to exsec for examination, but Flyboy convinces her not to do it.Meanwhile, Spooky confirms the existence of the disappeared girl and locates Ambrosia... who is chained to a rock by the shore and about to drown when the tide rises. They deduce that it's a trap and they will be attacked when they try to rescue her, but they still try and manage to save her. Ambrosia tells them that she was kidnapped and taken to an abandoned amusement park, where she could hear the disappeared girl and maybe her brother. Since the sun is about to go down and some spells the sunglasses wizard uses may require darkness, the heroes decide to wait and rest and go to the park in the morning.
Spooky spends part of the night creating some magical devices that might come in handy in the confrontation the next day, and then he and Flyboy go to sleep. Things get a little awkward when they negotiate their way around sharing the bed, and then Spooky reveals one of the aftereffects of his visit to Hell: he gets super cold at night unless he's touching another person. Things get even more awkward when he asks Flyboy to hold his hand, but he accepts. Then Spooky gets too warm and goes full awkward by stripping down to his underwear and, noticing Flyboy's reaction, by asking him if he likes boys. In the ensuing conversation, Flyboy admits he's gay, but also admits he and Cory are at a complicate place right now when they need each other more as friends that as boyfriends.
Spooky and Flyboy talk and get more comfortable with each other and eventually Spooky kisses Flyboy and, after a couple initial doubts, Flyboy kisses him back. As they begin making out, the eyes of a statue in Spooky's studio being to glow ominously.
Chapter 4
Flyboy, Spooky and Amanda try an assault to the abandoned amusement park where the kidnapped girl is being held, but things don't go according to plan. They quickly fall into a trap and Amanda is knocked out. Flyboy and Spooky fight against the wizard with the sunglasses and his crazies and seem to be gaining the upper hand, until sunglasses uses a trick to bypass Flyboy's defenses and impales him with a metal rod.Spooky then drops a giant ferris wheel on him, which seems to defeat him or at least stop him, and then rushes to Mitch's aid. However, Mitch sustained too much damage and Spooky seems unable to heal it all, and in despair he grabs an amulet on his neck and calls for help. Then a portal opens and reveals the person he called: The Platinum Priestess.
Later in the arc, Mitch convinces Amanda and Spooks to recruit the younger versions of Red Hot (Kyle) and Fluke (Paul), who are barely teenagers at his point in time.
Chapter 1
Cory falls through a portal created by the Sphere Celestiale and finds himself in a surealist world with multicolored, googly-eyed carnivorous plants and talking dinosaurs. A blue guy with golden wings, ram-like horns and big fangs "rescues" him, but it's not clear if his intentions towards him are good. The guy takes him to his house and we find out that his hame is Karthak and he thinks Cory is an angel. His parents, though, think he's an animal.
Karthak is allowed to take him to the barn of his family and care for him. Cory collapses, exhausted both by the time displacement and the effort fighting the dinosaurs, and Karthak helps him rest and recover.
A conversation between Karthak's parents also reveals that there seems to be a big threat looming on the whole golden winged-people. Karthak believes that Cory can help with that.
