The Young Avengers are the names of two superhero teams appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung, the first team appeared in Young Avengers #1 (April 2005). The Young Avengers team features numerous adolescent characters who typically have connections to established members of Marvel's primary superhero team, the Avengers.
Young Avengers follows the events of the 2004–2005 "Avengers Disassembled" storyline. The four founding members of the team are gathered as a result of the Vision's plan for the reformation of the Avengers in the event the team disbanded. In the series, newspapers refer to the young heroes as "super-powered " and label them the "Young Avengers", a name the team members initially dislike but that sticks nonetheless.
The Young Avengers were originally featured in several notable Marvel crossover series, including the Civil War and events, before the series was relaunched in January 2013 as part of the Marvel NOW! rebranding by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jamie McKelvie.
In 2019, Rio de Janeiro mayor Marcelo Crivella ordered Avengers: Children's Crusade to be censored as various instances of homosexuality such as the relationship between Hulkling and Wiccan were displayed. Crivella said the content was "improper for children". Writer Kieron Gillen was disappointed about the changes. The organizers of the Bienal do Livro book fair, where the comic was being sold, repudiated the mayor's decision and decided not to remove the book from sales. On September 6, Avengers: Children's Crusade sold out at the event.
In "Secret Identities" (issues #7–8), the Young Avengers must decide how much to tell their parents after the members decide to continue acting publicly. None of their parents find out. During a fight with Mr. Hyde in Young Avengers #8, Wiccan discovers Eli abusing Mutant growth hormone (MGH) which gives people powers for short periods. Eli confesses that he deceived Iron Lad who meant to recruit his missing uncle Josiah X in order to join the team. He quits the team, overwhelmed with emotion.
At the insistence of Kat Farrell, Jessica Jones interviews the Young Avengers about their pasts. Young Avengers Special #1 Cassie Lang had a troubled home life, especially after her father Ant-Man died. She and her mother constantly fought, and she hated her mother's boyfriend. Had the Young Avengers not formed, Cassie planned to join the Runaways. Teddy Altman abused his shapeshifting powers to spend time with a more popular kid. He realized that he had gone too far when his "friend" tried to force him to steal artifacts from the destroyed Avengers Mansion. Billy Kaplan had a problem with being accepted because of his sexuality. He was tormented and physically abused. He met the Scarlet Witch, who explained that being different is not bad. He eventually stands up to his tormentor for another kid. He nearly kills him when his powers become dominant. Kate Bishop was brutally assaulted in a park. Eli Bradley used MGH because he felt powerless against some thugs and wanted to prove that his grandfather truly was the black Captain America.
K'Lrt the Super-Skrull tries to take Teddy to the Skrull homeworld."Family Matters", Young Avengers #9–12 K'Lrt reveals that Mrs. Altman is not Teddy's mother and kills her. In the aftermath, K'Lrt kidnaps Teddy. The Vision offers to locate more Young Avengers using his prior incarnation's contingency plan. The Young Avengers break Thomas Shepherd out of a superhuman prison and recruit him. Tommy can move at superhuman speed and accelerate matter, destabilizing it enough to cause an explosion. The Super-Skrull tells Teddy of his true origin as the son of the Kree hero Captain Marvel and the Skrull princess Anelle. He then claims that Tommy and Billy are the Scarlet Witch and Vision's lost twin sons. Billy believes him, but Tommy does not. Kree and Skrull combat forces arrive and fight each other and the Young Avengers until Teddy, realizing his importance to both sides, calls for a ceasefire. The Avengers intervene and a Kree warrior fires at Captain America. Patriot intervenes and is gravely wounded. Hulkling and K'Lrt end the fighting by secretly shapeshifting into each other's forms. Captain America and K'Lrt, disguised as Hulkling, broker a shared custody between the races.
At a hospital, Eli's grandfather donates his blood to Eli. Captain America again tells the Young Avengers to stop what they are doing. Kate blames their trouble on the Avengers for not training them. The Young Avengers repair the statues of fallen Avengers at Avengers Mansion. Eli now has superpowers as a result of the blood transfusion. Kate receives Hawkeye's bow and quiver from Captain America, and she takes the mantle of Hawkeye. Tommy arrives in costume and calls himself Speed.
With the surrender of Captain America, the rest of the Young Avengers are granted amnesty in exchange for registration. All the members except Hawkeye, Patriot and Speed registered, and began training at Camp Hammond. In the last issue of the crossover, when the funeral of Captain America takes place at Washington D.C., all of the Young Avengers are seen, wearing their Super Hero outfits, and are even mentioned by name by the Falcon, while delivering the ceremonial speech. This suggests another amnesty was offered to Hawkeye, Patriot and Speed, who had stayed in the resistance after the end of the Civil War, alongside the New Avengers.
In She-Hulk #21, it was revealed that the Hulking and Wiccan that joined the Initiative were actually a pair of interdimensional travelers known as "Alphas" whereas the actual Hulkling and Wiccan were shocked at the discovery that they had registered. Hawkeye, Patriot, and Speed remain unregistered. Young Avengers Presents #1
The Avengers attempt to stop Magneto and fight him unsuccessfully, before Wiccan teleports Magneto and the Young Avengers to Wundagore Mountain. There they encounter Quicksilver, who attempts to kill his father. However, they discover that this Scarlet Witch is actually a Doombot in disguise, Avengers: The Children's Crusade #2 prompting the Young Avengers and Magneto to journey to Latveria, with the Avengers, Quicksilver and Wonder Man following behind them.
Wiccan eventually finds the real Wanda, apparently devoid of her powers, amnesiac and engaged to be married to Doctor Doom. Wolverine tries to kill Wanda, but is prevented from doing so by the reappearance of Iron Lad. Doom also states that Wanda is depowered. Iron Lad and the Young Avengers escape with Wanda into the timestream and land in the past when the resurrected Jack of Hearts destroys the Avengers Mansion. The team escapes the explosion and involuntarily returns to the present due to Wanda, who has remembered everything. As an unexpected side effect, the life of Scott Lang is also saved.
When the group returns to the present, Scarlet Witch is shown in a depression where she thinks that she killed her father, her brother, and the Avengers. She vows to kill herself with Kree ships and Ultron clones which Hawkeye and the Young Avengers destroy. During that time, Beast and Jessica Jones arrive, where Beast learns that the Scarlet Witch that he encountered was actually a Doombot. Wiccan tells her that her father, her brother, and "her sons" are still alive. Billy finally gets the happy Mother-and-Child Reunion that he had been dreaming of. Beast asks Wanda if she can reverse the "No more mutants" spell. She is unsure a reverse spell would work. They meet up with X-Factor Investigations, which has many clients who are depowered mutants. Rictor volunteers and has his powers restored. The X-Men show up and Wanda tells X-Factor Investigations that if the X-Men want more mutants then that's exactly what she will give them. Avengers: The Children's Crusade #6
However, a battle ensues between the X-Men and the Avengers over what to do with Wanda, forcing her and the Young Avengers to flee back to Doctor Doom. It is revealed that Wanda's enhanced powers were a result of her and Doom's combined attempt to channel the Life Force in order to resurrect her children, but it proved to be too much for Wanda to contain and overtook her. With Wiccan and Doom's help, they seek to use the entity possessing Wanda to restore mutantkind's powers but they are stopped by Patriot (who is concerned at the fall-out that would ensue if the powerless mutants are suddenly repowered), only to find out that the entity was transferred to Doom's body, giving him Wanda's god-like powers. His scars finally healed, he calls himself "Victor", discards his now useless mask, and promises to take care of everything. Avengers: The Children's Crusade #7 Doom becomes omnipotent with powers surpassing those of beings as Beyonder or the Cosmic Cube; he offers to use these powers to fix the Avengers' and X-Men's problems and bring their deceased friends back to life, but both teams refuse the offer. The Young Avengers confront him, aided by the Avengers, the X-Men and X-Factor; Wanda and Wiccan manage to remove Doom's newfound powers, and he claims that he was responsible for the Scarlet Witch's doings during the "Avengers Disassembled" and "House of M" events (later established to have been lying on Wanda's behalf, and the Scarlet Witch to have been solely responsible). During the confrontation Stature attacks Doom, who responds by blasting her with a wave of energy. After Wanda and Wiccan successfully remove the powers from Doom he escapes. The last panel of issue 8 ends with the heroes surrounding Stature's stricken form. Avengers: The Children's Crusade #8
Following the battle with Doom, Stature is revealed to have died from her injuries. Iron Lad offers to save Stature by taking her into the timestream. Vision objects to this, making Iron Lad enraged with him. Iron Lad attacks him, resulting in Vision's destruction. Iron Lad then prepared to jump into the timestream to go back and save Stature, with Wiccan warning him that this is the moment he becomes Kang the Conqueror, but Iron Lad is not deterred. With the battles over, all that was left was to determine the fate of the Scarlet Witch. Cyclops agrees to leave the Scarlet Witch alone, but states that he will kill Wanda if she turns against the heroes again. Rejecting the offer to rejoin the Avengers or her family, Wanda departs stating that after years of defining herself as Magneto's daughter, Pietro's sister, or the Vision's wife, she wants to find out who she is on her own before she decides what to do with her life. Later the Young Avengers decide to disband, much to the disapproval of Speed. Months pass by with the events of Spider-Island, Schism, and the Human Torch's revival having occurred and the Young Avengers taking no action. All this time Wiccan was in a depressive state. Hulkling tries to get him to talk to someone, but Wiccan refuses. Wiccan then believes Hulkling is breaking up with him, leading Hulkling to make an impromptu "proposal". They kiss, but are interrupted by Ms. Marvel and told to get into uniform and go to the mansion. The issue ends with the Young Avengers officially being recognized as full-fledged Avengers. Avengers: The Children's Crusade #9
Thus the team again disbanded, after Hawkeye, America Chavez, and Noh-Varr joined West Coast Avengers, Wiccan and Speed focusing their relationships with Hulkling and Prodigy respectively. West Coast Avengers Vol. 3 #1. Marvel Comics Lords of Empyre: Emperor Hulkling #1. Marvel Comics
Heinberg, who is gay, initially assumed that Marvel would not permit him to include gay characters in the series. Consequently, early drafts of Hulkling conceived of the character as a female shapeshifter named Chimera who would discover that her true form was male; this would prompt Wiccan to be forced to decide whether to stay in the relationship, which Heinberg described as "a very long, convoluted way to sneak a gay love story into a mainstream Marvel comic". After editor Tom Brevoort suggested that the story could be simplified by making both characters gay, the character's origin was revised to Heinberg's original vision. Heinberg described the process of creating a gay character in a mainstream comic as ultimately "far easier" than creating a gay character in a mainstream television series, which he ascribed to the lower budgets (and thus lower financial risk) of comic books. Heinberg reported that a majority of the letters to the editor about the series' gay subject material were positive, with "only one or two" that were "blatantly homophobic".
Marvel comics editor-in-chief Axel Alonso offered writer Kieron Gillen the second volume of Young Avengers on the basis of his previous work at Marvel, particularly Generation Hope (2011). Gillen chose his frequent collaborator Jamie McKelvie as the artist for the series; Young Avengers was McKelvie's first ongoing serialized comic for the company, having previously worked for the company as a fill-in artist and on graphic novels. Mike Norton provided additional artwork, while Matt Wilson served as colorist and Clayton Cowles served as letterer. The second volume was edited by Lauren Sankovitch, who described Young Avengers as "a book that I felt very strongly about and demanded", and who had previously worked with Gillen as the editor of his run on Journey Into Mystery in 2009.
In 2019, Heinberg and Cheung reunited to author "The Celebration Dinner", a Young Avengers story in Marvel Comics #1000. The issue is an anthology of eighty single-page stories by eighty creative teams, released to mark the 80th anniversary of Marvel Comics.
Kelly Thompson of CBR.com called Young Avengers #1 "incredibly satisfying, innovative and touching," asserting, "There's such passion and even conviction in what Gillen and McKelvie are doing on this book. It's easy feel the love and care on these pages, which is something mainstream comics don't have nearly enough of. With books like "Young Avengers" leading the pack, Marvel NOW! is shaping up to be one hell of an interesting line." Marc Buxton of Den of Geek gave Young Avengers #1 a grade of 10 out of 10, writing, "So, if you’re one of those readers who complain that they have seen it all before and that mainstream comics have become predictable, you owe it to yourself to experience Young Avengers. This is the book that will define the craft for generations to come, and Marvel deserves credit for seeing the potential the creative team has with these characters. Gillen and McKelvie are clearly worthy of the legacy that is Young Avengers."
Volume 1: Sidekicks | Young Avengers (vol. 1) #1–6 | Feb 2006 | |
Volume 2: Family Matters | Young Avengers (vol. 1) #7–12; Young Avengers Special | Nov 2006 | |
Young Avengers | Young Avengers (vol. 1) #1–12; Young Avengers Special | Feb 2008 | |
Young Avengers Ultimate Collection | Young Avengers (vol. 1) #1–12; Young Avengers Special | Jul 2010 | |
Young Avengers by Allen Heinberg and Jim Cheung: The Complete Collection | Young Avengers (vol. 1) #1–12; Young Avengers Special | Dec 2016 | |
Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways | Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #1–4 | May 2007 | |
Young Avengers Presents | Young Avengers Presents #1–6 | Oct 2008 | |
Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers | Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers #1–3 | Mar 2009 | |
Runaways: The Complete Collection Volume 3 | Civil War: Young Avengers And Runaways #1–4, Runaways vol. 2 #19–30, Runaways Saga, Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers #1–3 | Mar 2015 | |
Dark Reign: Young Avengers | Dark Reign: Young Avengers #1–5 | Jan 2010 | |
Siege: Battlefield | Siege: Spider-Man; Young Avengers; Loki; Captain America; Secret Warriors | Aug 2010 | |
Avengers: The Children's Crusade | Uncanny X-Men #526 (B-Story); Avengers: The Children's Crusade #1–9; Avengers: The Children's Crusade – Young Avengers #1 | Mar 2012 | |
Young Avengers: The Children's Crusade | Avengers: The Children's Crusade #1–9; Avengers: The Children's Crusade – Young Avengers #1; material from Uncanny X-Men #526 | Jun 2017 | |
Young Avengers By Heinberg & Cheung Omnibus | Young Avengers (vol. 1) #1–12, Young Avengers Special, Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #1–4, Young Avengers Presents #1–6, Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers #1–3, Dark Reign: Young Avengers #1–5, Siege: Young Avengers #1, Avengers: The Children's Crusade #1–9, Avengers: The Children's Crusade – Young Avengers #1, Young Avengers #1 Director's Cut, material from Uncanny X-Men #526 | August 23, 2022 | |
Young Avengers Vol. 1: Style > Substance | Young Avengers (vol. 2) #1–5, Marvel Now! Point One #1 (Young Avengers story) | Sep 2013 | |
Young Avengers Vol. 2: Alternative Cultures | Young Avengers (vol. 2) #6–10 | Feb 2014 | |
Young Avengers Vol. 3: Mic-Drop at the Edge of Time and Space | Young Avengers (vol. 2) #11–15 | Apr 2014 | |
Young Avengers by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie Omnibus | Young Avengers (vol. 2) #1–15; material from Marvel Now! Point One #1 (Young Avengers Story) | Dec 2014 | |
Young Avengers by Gillen & McKelvie: The Complete Collection | Young Avengers (vol. 2) #1–15; material from Marvel Now! Point One #1 (Young Avengers Story) | December 8, 2020 |
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