Marvel’s not called the House of Ideas for nothing, as the studio rarely throws a concept away wholesale, instead developing it in a new direction if it doesn’t work out the first time. While DC’s history is haunted by the ghosts of movies that never hit their release dates, for example, even cancelled MCU projects have a habit of eventually making it to screen in new forms. Like Armor Wars becoming a movie not a Disney Plus series or Inhumans going in the opposite direction (not that that one turned out well, but hey ho).
An IP that we’re pretty sure is undergoing this treatment right now behind the scenes is the Young Avengers, a team that Kevin Feige has been clearly teeing up for the past several years now, even though there’s no self-titled project for the next generation of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes on the docket. It’s just possible that we now know the fateful production that will see Kate Bishop and company finally assemble, though, and it could be rising from the ashes of a junked sequel show.
Vision Quest is rumored to have been redeveloped into a different MCU project
Remember Vision Quest? Although never officially announced, it’s long been an open secret that Marvel was developing an additional WandaVision spinoff alongside Agatha: Coven of Chaos Darkhold Diaries, all about Paul Bettany’s White Vision. However, this appears to have been put out to pasture at this point as showrunner Jac Schaeffer and her crew have removed the project from their WGA profiles following the end of the writers’ strike.
That doesn’t bode well for those of us banking on more of the Maximoff family, but thankfully there may be a ray of light for fans of the weirdest TV clan not called Addams or Munster. According to a rumor from CWGST, Vision Quest is being retooled into a different Disney Plus called The Children’s Crusade, as based on the comic book storyline of the same name starring Wanda and Vision’s twins, Billy and Tommy.
While this is obviously unverified information, it does fit with prior reports that a Wiccan solo show was in the works. Let’s not get too excited at this juncture, then, but this is nevertheless reason to be cautiously optimistic.
So is this where the Young Avengers could finally assemble?
So what is The Children’s Crusade? Presumably, this theoretical show would be based on Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, which — despite the title — is a Young Avengers story. In the wake of Scarlet Witch’s breakdown in House of M, Billy/Wiccan and Tommy/Speed aim to reunite with their long-lost mother to reveal that they didn’t die after all. It’s easy to see how this arc could easily transplant to the MCU at this point in the timeline, with Wanda’s dark turn in Doctor Strange 2 a direct stand-in for House of M.
In the comics arc, Billy and Tommy are joined on their crusade by their Young Avengers teammates, all of whom — bar Hulkling — are already knocking around the MCU. And with rumors of Hailee Steinfeld recruiting Kamala Khan in The Marvels, the stage is set for the group to join together in the near future. We have so little confirmed about Agatha right now, but we’re all pretty sure Heartstopper‘s Joe Locke is playing Billy, and it would be a natural progression to give the lead of one of Netflix’s most popular shows his own Marvel Disney Plus series.
Who knows, maybe talk of The Children’s Crusade will come to nothing, but one of these days, the Young Avengers have got to assemble somewhere. Or else they’ll age up so much we’ll just have to call them the… Avengers.
