Welcome to another great Marvel series! So many great new ideas emerged in the mid-2000s!
After the Avengers Disassembled storyline, there are reports of teen supers emerging in the void of hero teams.
The (as yet unnamed) Young Avengers’ first adventure has them stopping crime at a wedding where Kate Bishop is a guest–and she quickly schools them on how to be a real hero.
Captain America and Iron Man decide that kids shouldn’t be doing this kind of thing and try to stop them, but the teens continue in secret. That’s the big picture plot. Most of the fun comes in learning about each of these legacy-type “sidekick” heroes and watching them relate to each other.
Who are they?
First, there’s Iron Lad. He is introduced without revealing his true identity (and part of me hoped he was Timothy Anders, Tony Stark’s child who we saw once and never saw again). Soon, he is revealed to be Nathaniel Richards (aka a “Kang”) from an alternate future but he’s a teenager—which means he’s going to grow up to be Kang but isn’t yet. For the sake of proper identification, Iron Lad is tagged separate from Kang even though he is Kang in at least one timeline.
I hate time travel.
Kang has a storyline, too. We see Nathaniel in the future, 30th century, being visited by Kang, who is from even farther in the future. (Confused yet?) Future/Bad Kang gives his younger-self “neuro-kinetic” armor that responds to his thoughts and warns him that in the future The Avengers will foil him and trap him in the 40th Century. Instead of heeding the warning, though, Nathaniel decides he doesn’t want to grow up to be Kang, so he goes back in the future to train a team to fight Kang when he arrives.
We also see him working the remains of Vision, who was destroyed during the Avengers Disassembled storyline.
Turns out, hidden in Vision’s programming is a “failsafe” program designed to help prevent Kang’s rise.
Next is Patriot, who is initially dubbed “Lieutenant America” by the press. He is the grandson of the “black Captain America,” Isiah Bradley. He has some fun street-level adventures establishing his capabilities with Hulkling and Asgardian.
He also gets his shield in this first story.
Tracking the Young Avengers are Kate Bishop and Cassie Lang. They go to the ruins of Avengers Mansion where Cassie’s father, Scott Lang, was killed by Jack of Hearts.
That’s where the Young Avengers are hiding out, and when confronted, Cassie reveals that she has powers…
The first time she uses her powers, she passes out.
That just further convinces Cap that the kids shouldn’t be superheroing. Also across these issues, Kate Bishop takes on a Hawkeye identity–since Clint is dead.
It’s so fun to see all this roll out gradually over several issues.
Rounding out the team are Hulkling (a shapeshifter) and Asgardian (magic), who don’t know how they got their abilities. Also, they’re both gay and a couple.
Bad Kang shows up at the mansion, takes down Captain America and Iron Man fairly easily, and then tells Jessica Jones that she has to force Iron Lad to return to the future or else he’ll cause irreparable time stream damage—and changes start occurring as the city falls apart and the heroes see that their own appearances are changing.
Like Jessica is no longer pregnant.
Seeing what’s happening, the heroes agree to help Kang bring Iron Lad back to the future—but the Young Avengers disagree with this outcome and fight the heroes until Kang plays his ace in the hole: He designed Iron Lad’s armor and can still control it.
He causes a massive explosion, knocking everyone else out.
The Young Avengers regroup and attack Kang, while using Hulkling to trap the villain. Hulkling shape shifts to appear as Iron Lad, draws Kang closer, and then the team takes him out using their newest member…
Teen Vision! And also using a sword. Iron Lad stabs his future self.
Is that suicide?
But killing his future self wasn’t enough. To fix the timestream, Iron Lad has to return to the future…
Before he goes, Asgardian casts a spell to make him forget the entire adventure. He also leaves behind his Iron Lad armor and the new version of Vision.
Cap has some final words for the kids.
I mean, given what happened to young Bucky it makes sense but…He’s being a dick.
The kids don’t listen though, which is good because this is a great series and I want to read more!
English (US) · 