Marvel Editor Reflects on the Young Avengers Nearly 20 Years Later: "Nobody Liked the Idea"
"We came up with ways to make it work and to not have it be what everybody was dreading."
"They're not what you think." That's how Marvel Comics marketed the Young Avengers, a team of teenage "sidekicks" who appeared to resemble a younger Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk. After Avengers Disassembled —Marvel's line-wide Avengers initiative that launched with 2004's Avengers #500 and spanned issues of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and Captain America and the Falcon — Earth's mightiest heroes officially disbanded. As the New Avengers formed in their place, so too did the Young Avengers: a new generation of heroes (dubbed "Thor Junior," "Iron Kid," "Teen-Hulk," and "Lieutenant America" by The Daily Bugle's J. Jonah Jameson).
In reality, those Avengers-inspired "kid sidekicks" were assembled via the Avengers Fail-Safe Program: Asgardian (later Wiccan, a.k.a. the mutant mage Billy Kaplan), Iron Lad (a time-traveling Nathaniel Richards, an idealistic teen version of the future Kang the Conqueror), Hulkling (Kree-Skrull hybrid Teddy Altman), and Patriot (Eli Bradley, the grandson of super-soldier Isaiah Bradley, the Black Captain America).
Their ranks would expand with the addition of Hawkeye (Kate Bishop), Stature (Cassie Lang, daughter of Scott Lang's Ant-Man), a new Vision (Jonas, a synthezoid from the 30th century), and super-speedster Speed (Tommy Shepherd, Billy's twin brother), with a young Loki, Marvel Boy (Noh-Varr), and America Chavez forming a new team with Wiccan, Hulkling, and Hawkeye during the Marvel NOW! initiative in 2012.
The team proved so popular that Marvel Studios has been teasing the formation of a Young Avengers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — but only because 2005's Young Avengers #1, by co-creators Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung, wasn't what readers were expecting: kid versions of Earth's mightiest heroes.
"Nobody liked the idea of Young Avengers before the book came out, most of all me," longtime former Avengers editor Tom Brevoort wrote on his Substack blog. "I thought it was another dopey idea that Joe Quesada [then Marvel's editor in chief] had come up with. But once Allan Heinberg was on board to create it, we came up with ways to make it work and to not have it be what everybody was dreading."
Brevoort added: "This is entirely the reason why the first house ad we made up for the series, which ran in Avengers #500, was focused upon the idea that 'They're Not What You Think.'" Brevoort currently oversees Marvel's X-Men comics and the just-launched X-Men: From the Ashes era.
