Following the conclusion this week of Kieron Gillen and Jame McKelvie's run on Young Avengers with Issue 15, the writer turns to his blog to break down the comics that influenced the well-regarded series. And a couple of them may surprise you.

Grant Morrison is well-represented on the list, with We3, Kill Your Boyfriend and The Invisibles, and so is Peter Milligan. But Gillen also gives a shout-out to the 1970s oeuvre of the late Steve Gerber.

"Just have a wander through it. Howard the Duck, obv, but also his Defenders – a parallel I picked up when reading Colin TBTABC talk about it," Gillen writes. "I’m not the biggest 70s connoisseur, so my knowledge is piecemeal, but his approach to superhero comics was something that resonated in the back of my head when writing Young Avengers, in terms of thinking of people who were absolutely mainstream while doing things that I wanted to do. Trollingly calling an arc STYLE > SUBSTANCE could have only been more of a Gerber move if I called it ON THE NOSE or something."

There's more at the blog, including a funny nod to one of Gillen and McKelvie's previous collaborations.