The MCU Officially Confirms The First 3 Young Avengers Members

Summary

• The Marvels confirms the arrival of a Young Avengers team in the MCU, with Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel taking on the role of the founder.
• The movie also reveals the first two Young Avengers recruits alongside Khan.
• There are also multiple other candidates from other MCU movies and TV shows.

After years of speculation, Marvel has confirmed in The Marvels that a Young Avengers project is coming to the MCU. With the sprawling Marvel timeline introducing legacy heroes and family members of original superheroes, there has been a shift towards new life since the end of the Infinity Saga. Naturally, older and established heroes continue to be big brands for the MCU, and several upcoming Marvel movies are dedicated to them, but the studio knows that if you’re not moving forward, you’re going backward.

Since the start of Phase 4, multiple Marvel projects have introduced teenage and even younger superpowered individuals. Top tier heroes like Spider-Man already existed, and Tom Holland’s webslinger will always command his own brand within the MCU, but the others posed an intriguing question. Will there ever be a Young Avengers movie? Kevin Feige himself weighed in on the possibility in his typical enigmatic way after Cassie Lang was recast for Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. When asked if the change was building to a Young Avengers pay-off, he replied mysteriously:

“Well, sure…so where and when we would see the evolution of that? I don’t know. And certainly – taking our cue from the comics as we always do – that’s why we wanted Cassie, a very young Cassie in this movie, to be inspired by her father. Just planting seeds.”

Now, thanks to The Marvels, those seeds are flowering. A Young Avengers team is already being set-up in the MCU thanks to one of the most popular new heroes.

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Kamala Khan Is Forming The Young Avengers After The Marvels

Despite Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania producer, Stephen Broussard, saying only in February 2023 that: “There are no current plans for [a Young Avengers movie]”, The Marvels ending offers a different take. In the last moments, Iman Vellani’s Kamal Khan AKA Ms. Marvel meets up with Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) to reveal her plan to bring together a group of remarkable young people (stop us if you’ve heard this before). Yes, Ms. Marvel is the Young Avengers’ answer to Nick Fury, and she’s already set her sights on two fellow fledgling superheroes.

In Marvel Comics, the Young Avengers are founded by Iron Lad – a teenage variant of Kang, otherwise known as Nathaniel Richards – who brings together founding members Eli Bradley, Wiccan, and Hulkling. They are then quickly joined by the likes of Kate Bishop, Cassie Lang, and Speed, and later by America Chavez, Kid Loki, Marvel Boy, and mutant Prodigy. A resurrected Vision also joins the team. While not all of those characters are available to the MCU, lots of them could be used in a Young Avengers movie.

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All 3 Young Avengers Confirmed So Far

Kamala Khan AKA Ms. Marvel Replaces Iron Lad

As the ultimate in-universe Avengers fan, Kamala Khan fits the role of the Young Avengers founder perfectly. In Young Avengers #1-6, the new team are dismissed as Avengers superfans, and are given the Young Avengers name against their will. Establishing Ms. Marvel – an actual superfan and immensely powerful hero – as the founder, rather than another Kang variant, flips the original insult very cleverly.

Iman Vellani spoke to Screen Rant about a potential Young Avengers movie:

“They have perspectives that the older Avengers don’t, especially because they’ve had to deal with the repercussions, but they’re also a fan of the older Avengers. So I think they can really make this team-up something new. I think it’ll be way more functional than the Avengers even were. I think Kamala being in charge might also set the tone in a really wonderful way. I think she’s a natural-born leader.

She is not only the glue of the Marvels, but could be the glue of the younger Avengers group because she is mature and she is intelligent, and she also has all this knowledge about being superheroes and teamwork and how to do it in a way that’s ideal and works for everyone. And she’s probably learned so much from being on the Marvels, so she can bring that into the Young Avengers. But yeah, I think they’ll definitely be a group that a lot of the younger audiences can resonate to and relate to way more. I think their opinions on social justice issues, I think their opinions on just the world in general and is what’s needed is way more important.

They feel like the group that will understand humanity and the value of human life way more than I think the older group does because they’re in it, right? They have relationships there. They’re in school, they have their friends, they have their idols and their mentors. And I think all of those relationships will ground this group way more than we have mentors who’s a billionaire, and you got a guy who was frozen from the 1940s. So they’re definitely way more aware of reality.”

Kate Bishop Is The First Young Avengers Recruit

The Marvels sees Kamala Khan head to New York to seek out Kate Bishop (the MCU’s new Hawkeye after the events of Hawkeye), posing the question of a Young Avengers team. Like Khan, Bishop is a legitimate Avengers superfan, having spent a lot of time gushing over Jeremy Renner’s curmudgeony original Avenger in the festive 2021 miniseries, so she makes sense as a recruit. In the comics, Bishop became the leader of the Young Avengers, and could take up the same leadership position in the MCU.

After the release of Hawkeye, Steinfeld spoke about a possible return to the MCU, teasing her Young Avengers involvement:

I mean, the question from you and I both. Yeah, I’m certainly chomping at the bit. It’s been a minute since I’ve… It’s always so funny, because I feel like a few months can go by and I feel like I’ve been doing nothing, you know what I mean? I’m like, ‘It’s been so long since…’

It’s been a while since ‘Dickinson’ ended and since ‘Hawkeye’ came out, but I am so ready to get back at it. I am itching to be on set again with people that do what I do, and love what we do, and I have such a sense of belonging when I’m on set, and a sense of home, and I just love it. And it has been a while. So, I am very much chomping up a bit.

Cassie Lang Is Next On The Young Avengers Roll-Call

While Kathryn Newton’s Cassie Lang doesn’t appear in The Marvels, Kamala reveals that she knows of her existence thanks to SABRE’s intelligence. That intel mirrors the database of heroes Vision put together in the comics that formed the list of potential candidates for the original Young Avengers. Her mention suggests that Kamala Khan will be heading to San Francisco to recruit Stature, another member of the original comics team.

Newton was recently asked about her potential involvement in a Young Avengers project, and responded enthusiastically:

I did! I heard through the Quantum Realm birdies. I heard that there was a cool tag, and I was pretty excited to see that and hear that. In the Marvel universe, you hope for that. You hope to be. My whole thing is that I grew up watching
Iron
Man
, and I feel like I grew with that character. So my hope for Cassie Lang has always been to grow with my audience, be it the people who are my age and saw [
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
], or the people who are just starting to watch Marvel movies at a young age. I saw one when I was a little young, but I still love those movies. So if I get an opportunity to continue the story, then that would be so cool to be a part of a generation that’s growing up with a film. It’s such a big part of my life. But they don’t really tell you. They tell you an overall, but I don’t take anything for granted. I am just trying to get through the day. Let’s finish one movie and then let’s continue. But I would very much also jump at the opportunity to work with Marvel Studios again.

She also spoke directly to Screen Rant to double down on those comments:

I’d like to see her on a team. I feel like for me when I was in high school on my golf team, championship ring right here, I was obsessed with being number one. I wanted to be the team captain, and my coach was like, No captain, that’s not how we do it here. We’re all equal, and be on a team and win and lose together. So I feel like that’s something that everyone can relate to, is having to be together on the team on the rise and be together in trenches. So, I’d like to see some more of that.

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Who Else Could Join The Young Avengers?

Then there’s the question of who else could join the Young Avengers. Looking to the original (and relaunched) Young Avengers teams from the comics, there are several young heroes already in place in the MCU who could also be on Ms. Marvel’s hit list. For now, some of them may not even be known to SABRE, but knowing Nick Fury, he’ll have spied on every hero possible, and few will be out of reach of Kamala.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness star Xochitl Gomez (who played multiversal powered America Chavez, spoke to ComicBook about a possible Young Avengers movie in the wake of The Marvels‘ release:

“It would be pretty awesome to have a pretty young, diverse cast altogether. Just the thought of that is pretty awesome. Just knowing that we all support one another. And I saw Kathryn [Newton], she came to [Dancing With the Stars]. It’s just one of those things that it would be nice to have a fun moment altogether.”

Ironheart replacing Iron Lad is very much a spiritual replacement for Iron Man, of course, and Eli Bradley may be the grandson of Isiah Bradley’s super-soldier from The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, but for the most part, the team fits together. Skaar and Hulking are both Hulk legacy characters, and while Kid Loki chose to stay in the Void at the end of Loki season 1, there’s no saying he can’t return.

Then there’s another group of young heroes who could join as later recruits: Toussaint, T’Challa’s son; Love, Thor’s daughter; Tony Stark’s protegee Harley Keener; Axl Heimdallson, Heimdall’s son; and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3‘s Phyla all fit the bill as young, available heroes. There’s also a multiversal Spider-Man to consider of course, too, but Miles Morales is probably a bigger fish than the Young Avengers team set-up could accommodate.

When & Where Will The MCU’s Young Avengers Appear Next?

Now that a Young Avengers team has officially started its formation and there are plenty of available potential members, the question shifts to when audiences can expect to see these heroes come together. Marvel Studios currently has movies announced through 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars, so it may seem like there’s simply no room for the Young Avengers until Phase 7 or later. However, that may not be the case. Marvel has held on to a few release dates in 2026 and 2027 for the MCU without confirmed projects. One could be a Young Avengers movie.

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Moreover, given Kamala and Kate made their MCU debuts on the small screen, it’s possible that the Young Avengers will get the series treatment, which aren’t typically dated until relatively close to release. However, that seems a bit less likely. Disney CEO Bob Iger recently announced that the MCU would be limited to 2-3 movies and 2 TV shows per year moving forward. With Agatha, Ironheart, Daredevil: Born Again, Wonder Man, and Vision Quest all seemingly in the queue first, a Young Avengers series wouldn’t have time to release for a few years.

A third option is that the team won’t get their own projects at all – at least not at first. The Avengers have two movies coming up in 2026 and 2027, and it’s possible the Young Avengers will form their own squad in one of those team-up projects. Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame featured different pockets of heroes operating independently for large stretches of each movie, so the same could be true here, with the Young Avengers undergoing their first mission as a B plot.

Whatever the time and wherever the place, hopefully, the MCU delivers on its Young Avengers set-up sooner rather than later. The MCU Phases 4-5 have had a problem with teasers, cliffhangers, and set-ups that go unanswered for far too long, and the Young Avengers is too cool of a concept to succumb to that fate. There’s only 1 MCU movie this year (Deadpool & Wolverine), but hopefully, Marvel Studios will reveal more about their future plans when releases resume at a more regular rate in 2025.