Marvel Boss Kevin Feige Kind Of Addresses the Rumors That ‘Young Avengers’ Is Coming to the MCU
Marvel boss Kevin Feige first laid out his plans for Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in 2019. He took the stage at San Diego Comic-Con and revealed that Black Widow would be kicking things off.
Then, he announced that the MCU would expand into TV with a slate of new original series on Disney+. Despite all of the pandemic-caused delays, most of Feige’s storytelling plans haven’t changed.
But there are still a number of projects he hasn’t announced yet. Could the Young Avengers be coming soon to the MCU?
Who are Marvel’s ‘Young Avengers”?
The Young Avengers first appeared in the Marvel comics back in 2005. Created by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung, they are a younger version of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. They also happen to be a group of great characters.
Some of those characters are Kang The Conqueror/Iron Lad, Kate Bishop/Hawkeye, Elijah Bradley/Patriot, Cassie Lang/Stature, Teddy Altman/Hulkling, Billy Kaplan/Wiccan, Tommy Shepherd/Speed, and Vision.
Phase 4 is missing the ‘Avengers’
Currently, Marvel has a total of eight movies scheduled to premiere between now and July 2022. But as Cinema Blend points out, not one has the word “Avengers” in the title. That’s not a brand that Marvel will drop anytime soon. But they are keeping their plans for the superhero team a secret.
Some have noticed, however, that the movies and TV shows coming in Phase 4 have clues about what’s to come. Comparing upcoming projects to the Avengers character patterns in phases 1 through 3, it looks like the studio is laying the groundwork for the Young Avengers.
The Marvel boss admits that phase 4 will be introducing ‘all sorts of new types of characters’
During a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Feige admitted that as a comic fan, everything in the pages of Marvel comics is an “inspiration” and “guide point” for the studio.
“How those things come together and in what shape, it’s always subverting expectations, it’s always half the fun as meeting them,” Feige said. “But, yes, you can certainly see that Phase 4 is introducing all sorts of new types of characters with the potential being endless.”
Kevin Feige says phase 1 and phase 4 of the MCU have a lot in common
Feige didn’t confirm that the Young Avengers were coming to the MCU. But, he did compare the studio’s current situation to the beginning of phase 1.
“Now, all of us at Marvel Studios feel like Nick Fury at the end of Iron Man 1, as new actors and new performers come in and we tell them they’re part of a bigger universe,” Feige explained. “They just now have to do the work required to build their audience. I’m happy to say everybody that’s here, certainly where I’m sitting now, is doing amazing work and [I] can’t wait to show them the world.”
There’s evidence that Marvel’s ‘Young Avengers’ are coming to the MCU
Throughout Phase 4, the studio will introduce crucial members of the Young Avengers. In fact, they’ve already introduced two of them. WandaVision saw the arrival of Wanda Maximoff’s children, Billy and Tommy. By the end of the series they were only 10 years old. But there were hints that they would soon become their aliases Wiccan and Speed, which they use in their teens.
Wanda’s chaos magic technically created them, and they were destroyed at the end of WandaVision. But, their history in the comic books is complicated. They do eventually become real-word beings.
In addition to Billy and Tommy, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is set to introduce America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). She’s a Young Avenger known as Miss America in the comics. There’s also Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) who will arrive in the Disney+ series Hawkeye. And Cassie Lang, (Kathryn Newton) who will become Stature in the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
