Alright, it’s Wednesday night (technically Thursday morning but calendars are just day-math and I'm terrible at math), Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s second episode released just a few days ago on Disney+ and it was a banger. Great action, great tension, a firmer narrative direction… the show is awesome, and it’s way more fast paced than WandaVision was. I appreciate a good slow burn but F&WS has been nonstop gas and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to slow down anytime soon. Good. Run me over with crazy-ass comic action, I don’t mind one bit.
About two thirds through the episode, the MCU introduced a character that I didn’t think would ever appear. This dude:
This is Isaiah Bradley. In the comics, he was one of 300 test subjects for Project Rebirth, the program that gave the United States Captain America. He was the only survivor, and technically the first Super Soldier who ever existed. Dude first appeared in a comic called Truth: Red, White, & Black in 2003. He’s got a dark history. The United States has never treated its black citizens well. Ever. This story was a retcon that showed a dark but believable underbelly that contextually made sense and more importantly got people asking questions about the greatest generation and if they were so great at all.
Isaiah Bradley was a hero. He was also a grandfather to a young man named Eli Bradley. And the fact that they introduced Isaiah in Falcon & Winter Soldier makes it clear that the MCU is heading towards one specific point.
The MCU is going to drop Young Avengers on us and it’s going to change everything.
Young Avengers was a comic book that came out of the ashes of Avengers Disassembled. When the Avengers broke up, there was a void, and young teenagers who resembled former heavy hitters from the Marvel universe stepped in to fill it.
Look at that cover, they’re a team of analogues. Everyone on it looks like they’re someone else’s cousin, and if you’re familiar with the comics (or now the movies) you get it. Oh, that’s baby Thor, that’s baby Hulk, baby Iron Man and so on. You look at it and you get it.
The story itself was rad. This isn’t about the individual issues but I want to take a moment to talk about the creative team. Allan Heinberg was a television writer most famous (at the time) for his work on Sex and the City and The OC (greatest show of all time). He writes the teenage drama well and tells an incredibly nerdy story that makes perfect sense, wrapping in Iron Man, Cap, and even Jessica Jones as the “chaperones” of the story. Jim Cheung’s lines are somehow clean but incredibly kinetic. Motion is conveyed incredibly well during the action sequences but the facial expressions are just drop-dead gorgeous, capturing all the angst, awkwardness, rage, and relief of teenage years. John Dell’s inks add a weight to the characters that are then colored incredibly well, using digital coloring techniques that hold up all these years later. It’s a gorgeous comic, it’s a well-told story, and I cannot recommend it enough.
Anyways, back to the point. Isaiah Bradley was the first Super Soldier. His grandson Eli eventually becomes a hero named The Patriot. Great note giving him Cap’s original shield from the 40’s, a wonderful touch that’s a deep cut to the Marvel comic universe.
That’s one.
In the Ant-Man series of films, we meet Cassie Lang, Scott’s daughter. She was an adorable little kid in the first two who always believed in her dad and she did a great job of bringing a little perspective to the MCU, as one of the few children we see on screen for extended periods of time. Since Endgame, she’s aged five years and is now a young teenager
In the comics, she would go back and forth to her mom’s and dad’s, meaning she’d get to kick it at Avengers Mansion a lot. Scott actually stole Hank Pym’s Ant-Man suit to save her and even though he had a checkered past, the nobility of his intention to save his daughter earned him status as an avenger.
Scott died in Avengers Disassembled, and Cassie was left with this former life attached to the biggest heroes in the MU without a living connection to them. As a child however, she would grab loose Pym particles and play with them the way a child would. This eventually gave her the ability to alter her size, though to my recollection she only ever could be normal or enormous.
Cassie is in the MCU. She’s old enough where she’s a young adult, and not a child. That’s two.
In Avengers Disassembled we learn (or re-learn rather) that Wanda never had twins, she used her incredibly powerful magic to will them into existence. I don’t want to go into spoilers here, because I think it will be part of whatever happens in the MCU, but if you’ve seen Wandavision you’ll know where I’m going with this. We got heroes three and four.
Kate Bishop has been confirmed to appear in the incoming Hawkeye series coming to Disney+. Again, since this character hasn’t appeared yet (and you know my thoughts on MCU mythology super imposing on the comics). But, uh, regardless, that’s five.
Again, in Avengers Disassembled (it’s impossible to overstate just how massively important AD was, not just to the Young Avengers but to 2000’s Marvel in general), Vision dies. This one I’m ok with talking about because hey - Vision died in Avengers: Infinity War, and everyone saw that movie already. Anyways, Vision was dead and (redacted) came from the (redacted) and was able to reboot Vision’s body with a new AI based on the mind of (redacted). So, Vision was ostensibly back and had a new, younger personality that made perfect sense. Dude had wants and needs in a way that felt surprisingly natural. His inability to process stuff for once wasn’t because he was a robot, but rather because he was a teenager. If I recall correctly, there’s a Vision floating around somewhere in the MCU that is primed for a personality makeover (though if they didn’t that would be super interesting too).
That’s six.
There’s still two more key characters to the Young Avengers, but as of now they’re yet to appear in the MCU, so I’m worried to talk about one of them because of their connection to a rumored incoming Marvel villain and all the potential spoilers that come along with it. Come to think of it, the other character will likely tie into an announced Disney+ series as well, so, instead, I’ll just post this super dramatic cover because I love it so much.
The Young Avengers is one of my favorite comics. Period. I had read random Avengers comics as a kid because certain covers were too hard to say no to, but something about the Young Avengers made them feel like they were my Avengers. They appeared right when I started going to the shop every week, they appeared in the wake of great tragedy, they were my age when I first read them, and they were just… different. A lot of comic stories are about someone passing the torch to the next person in line, but the Avengers gave up. This was a story about kids taking the torch because there was no one else around to hold it.
What excites me most about the Young Avengers appearing the MCU is that I don’t know what it will be. I really don’t. They were such particular reactions to a post-9/11 America and that stage of Marvel as it matured to meet a weirder world that I don’t know if the original vision jives with modern MCU. Teenagers today are beset by different tragedies and failures of the world around them. The og Young Avengers cast were perfect teenagers 15 years ago when they debuted but they need to be teenagers now in 2021 and I’m so curious to see what that looks like.
Another wrinkle is Kamala Khan, also known as Ms. Marvel. She debuted nearly a decade after the Young Avengers initially hit the stand, but it’s been confirmed that we’re getting a Ms. Marvel series coming to Disney+ as well and the addition of that character would be such an interesting variable to create something completely new in the MCU with the original characters. The Young Avengers are squarely millennials. Kamala is clearly Gen Z. How is it all going to work together? Will it? Will she go straight to the A-Team? I can make guesses, but I’m only shooting about 75% so far.
It’s such an exciting time to be a fan of the MCU and all I can do from the sidelines is recommend books that I think will be relevant. So let’s wrap this up with a reading list that will catch you up on the basis for WandaVision and where I think the MCU is heading in the future:
Avengers Disassembled (Avengers 500-503, Avengers Finale)
Young Avengers 1-12 and Young Avengers Special
House of M 1-8
Young Avengers Presents 1-6
Good grief, these books are so good. I’m going to stop typing just so I can go back and read them again. Until next time, here’s another kickass YA cover.
