YMMV / A-Force

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • The portrayal of Loki has attracted some controversy, because she looks exactly like the Loki from J. Michael Straczynski's run on Thor, who infamously was running around in Sif's stolen body. Some people dislike the reference to that story arc or even take it as that this Loki also had stolen Sif's body and as such shouldn't even be here. Others, especially fans of Loki: Agent of Asgard, point out that Loki had gone through years of Character Development since that story and actually became canonically genderfluid and can now easily take female form on their own.
  • Generally speaking Loki's fandom can be divided into three big categories: Traditionalists ("Again with this? Loki is not a woman! At least she was evil. Good."), movie fangirls ("Loki as a woman is weird/Why would you reference JMS, but that family is so cute... NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"), and trickster tale fans ("Well, this is an interesting setup. Really? That's your twist? *facepalm*"). An exercise in how to alienate everybody.
  • The Arcadian version of Nico has gotten a mixed reception from Runaways fans; while many fans are happy to see a version of Nico that did not suffer through the events of Avengers Arena, some are put off by the implications that this Nico was never a Runaway.
    • A similar divide has popped up in the post-Secret Wars series, wherein Nico has apparently left the Runaways and relocated to Japan to connect with previously-unmentioned cousins. Some fans welcome the notion of Nico having a family outside of the Runaways, while others think it's just a cheap and lazy way to avoid mentioning the other Runaways, and that the writers are desperately trying to play up how "exotic" Nico is to cover up the fact that she is the only non-Caucasian character in the current lineup.
• Broken Base: Marvel Zombies - you either think their attack was properly foreshadowed and gives the team good material for a grand finale or that they came out of nowhere and/or are derailing the plot from what it should be focusing on, to be about monsters who are already antagonists in five other books.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Many readers liked Loki's family best about this comic. Happens when the writer is very good at writing families not to mention puts together one consisting of a regular (Nico), an iron (America), and a jerkass woobie (Loki). Which makes what happens later just more baffling.
• Faux Symbolism: Antimatter for some odd reason has a simplified kabbalistic tree of life◊ as symbol (appears within a pattern like that, has a lot of them in its body like the stars on Singularity etc.). Why? Because why not, apparently.
• Growing the Beard: Almost everyone agrees that the series vastly improved after Kelly Thompson and Ben Caldwell took over.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Throughout the post-Secret Wars series, Nico's time with A-Force shows her gradually recovering her sense of self-worth after the events of Avengers Arena and Avengers Undercover. The 2017 Runaways series, however, reveals that her decision to walk out on the Runaways led to Klara and Molly being taken away by child services, which in turn led to the team disbanding.
  • At one point Nico threatens to cut Medusa's hair with a special razor. Fast forward to the Inhumans TV adaptation where that is exactly what happens to Medusa.
• Ho Yay:
  • While the comics mentions that Nico and America are Loki's wards, meaning she is their foster mother, it didn't stop some fans from getting different vibes from their relationship. It helps Loki and America shipping was already a thing before.
  • The final issue of the Secret Wars edition decides to cram in one with Spider-Gwen and Mary Jane.
• Obvious Judas: Loki by virtue of being Loki, even if it went against the character's current interpretation and everything set up about her in the first issues. Some hoped that maybe she'll have a good explanation why, at least... but what we got was bordering on word salad.
• Nightmare Fuel: The town where people are getting turned into hideous bug creatures. Even most of the A-force team gets changed near the end!
• Older Than They Think
  • When announced, some fans complained about the book being all-female, on the grounds that the inverse wouldn't be accepted. Except... there have been all-male Avengers books. In particular, just about EVERY incarnation of The Illuminati has been wholly male. In fact, one such incarnation was going on at the same time in New Avengers.
  • This was not the first ongoing superhero team composed only by women. The Fearless Defenders, released just two years before, had the same premise.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading:
  • In the Secret Wars miniseries, a lot of fans initially thought America Chavez was Lady Loki's lover rather than her foster daughter.
  • In the ANAD series, Singularity is supposed to come off as a surrogate little sister to Nico, but enough readers thought that there was something else between them that the editor had to step in and insist that Singularity is like a child and there are no plans to put her in a romantic relationship with Nico.
• Rooting for the Empire: One of the major complaints about the Secret Wars miniseries was that it effectively forces audiences to root for a government that is collaborating with one of the Marvel Universe's biggest villains.
• The Scrappy: Singularity falls into this category for people who read the book for the Ensemble Dark Horse. Some will admit that this isn't the fault of the character as much as the story's destroying the one thing they read it for in order to build up this character and insistence on using even The Woobie's pain to make her look better.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • A lot of readers were intrigued by the Secret Wars miniseries starting out with Loki being a foster mother to Nico Minoru and America Chavez, but this family is broken up over the course of the miniseries in order to give Nico a reason for wanting to protect Singularity.
  • Also in Secret Wars the whole struggle over the Barony could have lead to a complex and morally grey plot about necessary evils and conflicting loyalties, which was thrown out for a perfectly black and white interpretation to prop up the story of Singularity learning about humanity. Mind you, this is what effectively lead to the Rooting for the Empire example earlier.
• The Woobie: Poor Arcadian Nico loses everyone she ever loved by the end of the Secret Wars series.
  • Her mainstream counterpart isn't doing much better. Still dealing with the trauma from Avengers Undercover, she's been separated from the other Runaways, her attempts to reach out to her surviving family in Japan are ruined by Antimatter, and her new team ends up getting divided by the events of Civil War II.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: The unfortunate part of paying tribute to all the superheroines in Marvel history is that many heroines get their "classic" or "iconic" costumes. Some of these outfits really suck.
  • Loki being given design from Joe Straczynski's Thor run, instead of one of her looks from Agent of Asgard.
  • Nico has always been Not Wearing Tights, instead preferring a variety of her Goth outfits, so she gets a new one here. Some of her fans are not happy that it's a Stripperiffic one inspired by one of Jo Chen's notoriously-inaccurate Runaways covers.
    • Some of the post-Secret Wars covers depict Nico wearing a cheongsam (a type of Chinese dress), which is a very strange costume choice for a character of explicitly Japanese descent. Thankfully, the series proper ultimately gave her a costume closer to her usual fashion sense.

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