We can scarcely believe our eyes, but we have seen the Young Avengers together in an official Marvel production. Well, kinda. Ever since Avengers: Endgame, the stage has been set for the Young Avengers to assemble, and yet coming up to six years later we’re still waiting on the next generation of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to form a team of remarkable young people. The wait may just be over, though, thanks to an unlikely source.
A year ago, The Marvels ended with Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan recruiting Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) into her new “Kid Avengers” initiative, and now three more members have teamed up…. Uh, off-screen, at least. In a new video played at the Worlds of Marvel restaurant on the Disney Treasure Cruise, none other than America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), and Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) are shown hanging out.
In a parody of The Avengers’ shawarma scene, the narrator explains that the trio are “celebrating their latest victory” while hanging out at an eatery. “So, who’s up for shuffleboard?” America asks her two bored-looking friends.
It’s not much, but this scene surely confirms that it’s Marvel’s intention for Kamala and Kate to add these three heroines to the Young Avengers’ roster in the MCU before long. It’s been 84 years but finally — as one excited fan summarized — “ITS HAPPENING.”
Although, come on, let’s not forget about the latest teen on the scene — Joe Locke’s Wiccan, from Agatha All Along!
So, are these six the founding members of the Young Avengers? It’s entirely possible. Remember, the Avengers themselves had six original members back in 2012, and having their younger counterparts comprise five girls and one boy would be a neat inversion of the troubling ratio from back in the day, when Black Widow was the only woman on the squad. Then again, there is Wiccan’s brother, Speed, to contend with, so the number could stretch to seven.
While this World of Marvel video can obviously be considered non-canon, there is a chance that Kamala will bring together the rest of the team off-screen in order to get the skates on and for the Young Avengers to be fully recruited by the time they next show up. Sadly, there’s no Young Avengers project in the works, so at this rate our best bet for them to appear would be Vision Quest. Maybe, once Billy has tracked down Tommy, Kamala will drop by and do her best Nick Fury impression again.
If this is the MCU’s Young Avengers, it’s certainly missing a few key players, both from the comics and those already teased in the franchise itself. Eli Bradley’s Patriot (Elijah Richardson), who we met in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, springs to mind. And then there’s Iron Lad, although his connections to Kang the Conqueror may count against him post-Doctor Doom takeover. Whatever happens, though, the team’s name is still a misnomer. Your periodic reminder that Hailee Steinfeld is now 27, the same age Scarlett Johansson was when she first played Natasha in Iron Man 2.