With Young Avengers #1 on stands for the better part of a week now, writer Kieron Gillen has rolled out a "director's commentary" of sorts that provides an entertaining and insightful peek behind the scenes of the Marvel series.

For instance, Gillen explains things like his goals for certain scenes, and how artist Jamie McKelvie had to redraw Hulkling's tentacles, "because they originally looked like big ol’ cocks." But perhaps most interesting are the defenses he lays out for a couple of criticisms of the issue -- one I'd seen pop up online, the other I hadn't.

The latter is Loki's use of the portmanteau (it qualifies, yeah?) "terribad" during his confrontation with Miss America. "It’s funny. I got away with the Phone Booth but some people tripped over Terribad, when it’s absolutely IC [in character] for Loki in his mix of bad internet gibberish and old norse," Gillen writes. "I suspect that’s people who’ve never read any of Kid Loki before. C’est la vie."

However, it's his explanation of the double-page title spread following the opening sequence, below, that proves the most engaging (don't worry, it didn't eat into the number of story pages).

"It serves a purpose here bar triumphalism," Gillen writes. "It’s a cold hard break between the opening and the rest of the story – a hard re-set. Lauren did ask about the justification for this seemingly non-related intro, and I explained it to her as a PULP FICTION opening. [...] Essentially, it goes quiet-conversation in the style of the film setting mood, exploding into shouted sweary gun-wielding violence, freeze-frame and hard cut to the black screen with the titles and that Dick Dale Guitar. We don’t come back to the young robbers until way into the film, but it doesn’t matter- its initial purpose is that it explains Pulp Fiction in miniature, right there. And then we go to a much slower paced section which builds, etc. You know what the film is from then on in. That’s what the opening was for. The rest of the book is relatively grounded, but in the opening I give a concentrated portrait of the whole vision. This is what we do."