Young Avengers Appreciation 2023

[Journey]

Young Avengers as a whole is more iconic & successful then the Champions will ever be despite multiple flop launches Champions will never be that girl, Marvel is holding the YA back. Champions need their clout to be successful.

[Digifiend]

Yes...but as they expanded the Champions branched out from that. I would say keep them both with the Champions being opened for all young heroes and keep the Avengers Legacies for YA. And even having some overlap between them. Nadia is clearly a Legacy...and to see her at some point on the YA with her Brother William would be fun.

William's far too young. Sure, he has his mother's powers and thus is Tigra Jr, but he's just a toddler. He was only born during Dark Reign, right (conceived prior to Secret Invasion)? That's around three years ago in universe.

[marhawkman]

William's far too young. Sure, he has his mother's powers and thus is Tigra Jr, but he's just a toddler. He was only born during Dark Reign, right (conceived prior to Secret Invasion)? That's around three years ago in universe.

Also there's a weird question about whether William is half-Skrull.

[Dermie]

Also there's a weird question about whether William is half-Skrull.

They did genetic tests on him after he was born and there was no trace at all of any Skrull DNA -- Criti Noll had replicated Hank Pym so perfectly that William's genetic material is only Hank's and Greer's.

Presumably a writer down the road could do a retcon and mess with that if they wanted....but as it stands, William isn't supposed to have any Skrull genetics.

[Sutekh]

They did genetic tests on him after he was born and there was no trace at all of any Skrull DNA -- Criti Noll had replicated Hank Pym so perfectly that William's genetic material is only Hank's and Greer's.

Presumably a writer down the road could do a retcon and mess with that if they wanted....but as it stands, William isn't supposed to have any Skrull genetics.

Yeah, if a writer wanted to, they could say that it wasn't Criti Noll's DNA messing with the tests, it was *William's* ability that was consciously hiding his Skrull DNA and only appearing to have his mother's physiology, since his breed of Skrull had been *designed* to hide from DNA tests, but for now, he's 100% the biological DNA child of Hank Pym and Greer Nelson.

Once some writer decides to mess with him and have him use Pym particles to become an itty-bitty kitty or a kaijuisized Zabu, all bets are off.

[Chris0013]

William's far too young. Sure, he has his mother's powers and thus is Tigra Jr, but he's just a toddler. He was only born during Dark Reign, right (conceived prior to Secret Invasion)? That's around three years ago in universe.

I am not saying right away...or maybe i am...imagine him stowing away on a YA mission with his big sister because he doesn't want to be left behind and then the team has to deal with a villain and take care of him.

[Will Evans]

At this point I just want them to name this new MCU team New Avengers or Next Avengers or something like that. It's probably better than using Young Avengers or Champions and essentially disappointing the fans of either group. At least with another name people won't have expectations based on the comics.

Two things with Teddy is his name: Hulkling, when he has no ties to the Hulk. This will be so confusing to movie audiences. Heck it’s still confusing for new readers. It would be like calling Wiccan as Asgardian still, when he comes on the Agatha show.

And then others already mentioned the half-skrull/half Kree part. This latest Captain Marvel movie would have been the perfect time to bring out that concept or hint to it about Teddy’s origins.

[Digifiend]

Mar-Vell's gender bend doesn't help. In the comics, he's male, but in Captain Marvel she's female. And worse, she dies, in the 1990s! That means she can't be Teddy's parent, it'd make him far too old. They could fix it by saying she had a son, Genis-Vell, and make him the father of Teddy. But that creates a new problem, since Genis's main comic book codename... is Captain Marvel. Monica's already codenameless for the same reason (I think - I haven't seen The Marvels yet but all the reviews just call her Captain Rambeau, which means the comics switching her from Spectrum back to Photon was yet another synergy failure). The only example of codename sharing in the MCU so far is Hawkeye (Captain America, Falcon, and Black Panther all have successors, but it wasn't a case of two using the name at the same time).

[Digifiend]

They did genetic tests on him after he was born and there was no trace at all of any Skrull DNA -- Criti Noll had replicated Hank Pym so perfectly that William's genetic material is only Hank's and Greer's.

Presumably a writer down the road could do a retcon and mess with that if they wanted....but as it stands, William isn't supposed to have any Skrull genetics.

Yeah. Bear in mind, if he had Criti's DNA and not Hank's, the Unstoppable Wasp book wouldn't have noted that he's Nadia's brother. It's funny actually. He's finally back in Avengers Inc, so he'll finally learn about Nadia in a couple of months. And when he does, it'll be the second time he's come back from being off the board and discovered he has a child he didn't know about.

[ShatteredReality]

Was it ever explained why the communists or russians or whoever kidnapped her didn't just kill Nadia's mother right away and instead waited for her to give birth? does the red room just kidnap random pregnant women to get recruits?

[Digifiend]

Nope. Before the retcon that introduced Nadia, Maria was indeed supposed to have been immediately killed, Hank knowing he was widowed when he returned to the US and became Ant-Man. They didn't explain why they kept her alive, but since Hank didn't know she was pregnant, it seems she lived for six months or so (if she was more than three months gone she'd have been showing a bump, right?), then was murdered when Nadia was born, so the kid could be raised loyal to the Red Room. The Black Widow program was unlucky in that Nadia managed to find out her true identity and flee.

[marhawkman]

Two things with Teddy is his name: Hulkling, when he has no ties to the Hulk. This will be so confusing to movie audiences. Heck it’s still confusing for new readers. It would be like calling Wiccan as Asgardian still, when he comes on the Agatha show.

And then others already mentioned the half-skrull/half Kree part. This latest Captain Marvel movie would have been the perfect time to bring out that concept or hint to it about Teddy’s origins.

they DId open up the idea of having Skrulls on Earth, but... yeah, not much else.

[ShatteredReality]

Nope. Before the retcon that introduced Nadia, Maria was indeed supposed to have been immediately killed, Hank knowing he was widowed when he returned to the US and became Ant-Man. They didn't explain why they kept her alive, but since Hank didn't know she was pregnant, it seems she lived for six months or so (if she was more than three months gone she'd have been showing a bump, right?), then was murdered when Nadia was born, so the kid could be raised loyal to the Red Room. The Black Widow program was unlucky in that Nadia managed to find out her true identity and flee.

you'd think that nadia would have been so brainwashed at that point that finding out who her father was would have disgusted her instead of causing her to escape.

[Maestro 216]

Two things with Teddy is his name: Hulkling, when he has no ties to the Hulk. This will be so confusing to movie audiences. Heck it’s still confusing for new readers. It would be like calling Wiccan as Asgardian still, when he comes on the Agatha show.

And then others already mentioned the half-skrull/half Kree part. This latest Captain Marvel movie would have been the perfect time to bring out that concept or hint to it about Teddy’s origins.

Yup that's why they likely will use Skarr.

[Factor]

I truly don't think the name Hulkling is such a big problem. They could follow the comics by first establishing him as an Avengers fanboy who doesn't know his true origin, so he initially goes by Hulkling. They could have him pick another codename by the end of the first movie (like the comic probably should have).