Young Avengers Appreciation 2023

[Frontier]

Why are they over-complicating this and making it creepy...

[Drops Of Venus]

Just expanding my thoughts on why I don't think the possession thing would be good: I feel like it would be such a betrayal of the message from WandaVision, you know? In the end, Wanda learned that it wasn't ok for her to disregard other people's lives and consent just so she could be happy. It would be very weird to me that in order for Billy Maximoff to ''come back'', another innocent life has to be jeopardized. Like... I want to trust that Jac Schaeffer would realize how bad that would look, specially if they're planning a redemption for Wanda down the road.

And on another level... the idea that a child who had the maturity of someone who lived for a few weeks is in the body of a young gay man who will surely have his sexuality explored is just very uncomfortable. I'm not sure if there is a way to portray this without some weird implications.

If this is true and they are just going to take parts of Children's Crusade and putting it into the Agatha show then chalk this up there with Planet Hulk and Secret Invasion. Honestly if that's gonna be the MCU CC then what are the potential MCU Young Avengers even going to do? So many of their iconic storylines and situations are just being passed on to the point I don't even know what they would even do when/if they do assemble in the MCU.

I guess we're just gonna have to wait and see if the rumor about the post-credit scene for The Marvels is true. Only after that I believe we will understand what direction they're taking the YA in the MCU.

[Journey]

I feel it’s just a way to explain why he looks so different they might recast again if possession is the name of the game tho that would mean bye bye Kaplan’s

[Sutekh]

The only way a possession story could work for me is if the body being possessed didn't have a life to steal. They were in a coma, and lacking higher brain-function after a car accident, or drowning accident or something like that, so it was just an empty body, with no 'person' there to have their life stolen. Lights still on, but nobody home. But even then, the slightest hint of the 'possessor' remembering stuff from that body's former life, or any pretense that feels oogy involving their former family or friends or, heaven forfend, romantic partners, just threatens to make it all creepy and problematic again, so I'm not sure I'd even be willing to go that far, since other writers are going to dabble in this sandbox, and 'make it creepy,' no matter the intentions of the original creator.

Given the nature of Billy's powers, the brain-dead body doesn't even have to look exactly like his, nor have had the name 'Billy,' since he can rewrite things so that 'everyone remembers him as Billy' when he 'wakes up,' even if the dead teen was named Paulo or something. About the only way this would vaguely seem on-brand for comic-book Billy is that he seems to have utterly divorced himself mentally and emotionally from his birth-fam, the Kaplans, whom he rarely seems to visit, or even think about, and treats Wanda and Tommy as his actual 'mom' and 'brother.' Which would make a ton of sense if the essence of Billy isn't really all that attached emotionally to the Kaplans (or the Kaplans were horrible people, best forgotten, like Harry Potters uncle Dursley, but that's not the case!).

[Drops Of Venus]

The only way a possession story could work for me is if the body being possessed didn't have a life to steal. They were in a coma, and lacking higher brain-function after a car accident, or drowning accident or something like that, so it was just an empty body, with no 'person' there to have their life stolen. Lights still on, but nobody home. But even then, the slightest hint of the 'possessor' remembering stuff from that body's former life, or any pretense that feels oogy involving their former family or friends or, heaven forfend, romantic partners, just threatens to make it all creepy and problematic again, so I'm not sure I'd even be willing to go that far, since other writers are going to dabble in this sandbox, and 'make it creepy,' no matter the intentions of the original creator.

Morally, yes, I guess you could justify that it's not as bad if he only took over the body of someone who was never going to have a life anyway (and I really hope they don't go with the route of him taking over an actual dead body 'cause I don't think anybody wants Wiccan to be a freaking zombie), but this still doesn't really address the issue of how they're gonna explain the discrepancy between the mind of the old Billy and the body of the new one. If he's supposed to have a boyfriend on the show, how is that going to work? Are we gonna have an 18-year-old Billy with a child-like mind that thinks it's icky to kiss someone else on the lips? I can see how that would make for a good comedy, but I don't think that's what anyone wants for Wiccan as the MCU's first gay lead character, right?

Also, I think I just generally dislike the idea because, at some point... that it's just not even Billy Kaplan anymore. He wouldn't be his own character with his own life and experiences. He wouldn't be the geek jewish gay kid from the Upper West Side who was bullied in school and was an Avengers fanboy. He would be a blank slate of a character with the consciousness of someone who barely had any life experiences at all. That just feels like taking away all the personality and things that made Billy an interesting and relatable character in the first place.

Unless, of course, they managed to make both Billys coexist. So Billy Kaplan could still be Billy Kaplan, but Billy Maximoff would... IDK, still live inside of him somehow and be his own separate consciousness? I don't really like the idea of Billy having a split personality, but it's better than the alternative, I guess.

Given the nature of Billy's powers, the brain-dead body doesn't even have to look exactly like his, nor have had the name 'Billy,' since he can rewrite things so that 'everyone remembers him as Billy' when he 'wakes up,' even if the dead teen was named Paulo or something. About the only way this would vaguely seem on-brand for comic-book Billy is that he seems to have utterly divorced himself mentally and emotionally from his birth-fam, the Kaplans, whom he rarely seems to visit, or even think about, and treats Wanda and Tommy as his actual 'mom' and 'brother.' Which would make a ton of sense if the essence of Billy isn't really all that attached emotionally to the Kaplans (or the Kaplans were horrible people, best forgotten, like Harry Potters uncle Dursley, but that's not the case!).

I wouldn't go as far as to say Billy completely divorced himself from his biological family in the comics. Like, the Kaplans were still at his second wedding not long ago (and they were closer to the altar than Wanda and Vision, by the way), which is a sign that they are still a part of his life; we just don't really see it on-page that much because writers are lazy and prefer to highlight his spiritual family since they're the most popular characters. I like to believe he still has a relationship with the Kaplans off-page. At least there isn't anything that contradicts that.

But anyway, precisely because the comics have failed in that regard, I would hope the MCU could make up for it by actually giving the Kaplans a bigger role. So yeah, it would be a disappointment if the MCU doubled down on making them not matter to his story. And lord, hopefully they WON'T make the Kaplans be bad people just so the audience can root for the Maximoff family more. That would be awful, not to mention a weird pattern after we just go another jewish hero (Moon Knight) who came from an abusive home.

[MaximoffTrash]

Honestly they should have a standard and simplified procedure when introudcing Billy&Tommy in future adaptions, literally just say Billy and Tommy have Wanda's soul shards like the way Wanda has Chthon's essence/soul shard.(And there are a thousand ways to make that happen and you can do it anytime before their debut as young superheroes. )
This way you don't even need to have a convoluted pregnent—death of OG Billy/Tommy—soul reincarnation/time travel process.
This way Billy Kaplan/Tommy Shepherd always existed with their own biological family and unrelated to Wanda until they got spiritually connected to her in some way.(And the souls shards simply grant magical power instead of carrying some actual personality)

And you can now introduce Billy&Tommy before Wanda's whole romance/marriage if you really want to. There aren't much lost anyway in terms of Wanda and the kids' relationship since she never raised them personally anyway.(Fans who are obsessed with them being "true family" might be upset I guess)
If you really want to play up their relationship, you can go back to the comic roots where Wanda actually wanted to adopt kids. Literally just let Wanda play a fairy godmother if they want to. Or like Janet's motherly role to Nadia(And it ultimately saves Wanda from going through bunch of unpleasant storylines.)

Just talking about some hypothetical adaption projects say a YA animation and what not.
Obviously it's too late for MCU, which should just actually follow up on WV's end credits where the twins' souls are actually held hostage by some people(a god, a demon, or Illuminati's magic users.) And after some intense battle and chaos they are rescued and tossed back to 616/Main universe but with the wrong time coordinates. Done. You have the twins reincarnated in the past having a full life till their teenage years. Speaking of the utterly wasted plot points huh.(No seriously, the twins in MoM are a horrible way to catch up on the WV plot/loose ends.)

[ComicNoobie]

Ultimately I can see the Kaplans being shafted or even fridged in the MCU. They aren't anywhere near as popular as Wanda and her connection is likely what most fans especially casuals will want to see in the MCU after Wandavision. They would have to really endear the audience to the Kaplans whenever they appear. Make them as beloved as Kamala's family among the audience.

Comic-wise I can't remember the last time I ever saw the Kaplans. My last memory of them was being brainwashed by Mother. So yeah, unless it's Spider-Man's cast non-super characters in Marvel rarely have a role anymore.

[MaximoffTrash]

Again I wouldn't want Kaplans erasure which just feels too much like Django and Marya erasure.
Ignoring a character's actual family in favor of someone else simply because said character is more popular will never sit right with me.
They may not be as iconic as the Kents, May and Ben Parker, etc but the idea of those parents characters stays, they are the mortal/human anchor of our heroes.

[legion_quest]

Sounds like a poor story, coupled with a terrible casting choice.

Pretty much the staple of what the MCU is now.

[Waking Replica]

Ultimately I can see the Kaplans being shafted or even fridged in the MCU. They aren't anywhere near as popular as Wanda and her connection is likely what most fans especially casuals will want to see in the MCU after Wandavision. They would have to really endear the audience to the Kaplans whenever they appear. Make them as beloved as Kamala's family among the audience.

Comic-wise I can't remember the last time I ever saw the Kaplans. My last memory of them was being brainwashed by Mother. So yeah, unless it's Spider-Man's cast non-super characters in Marvel rarely have a role anymore.

If it's any consolation spoilers:

there are two actors cast that are most likely Jeff and Rebecca. Plus before people figured out they were the Kaplan's, there were casting calls for authentic Jewish adults in the Kaplan's age ranges

end of spoilers

I agree with everyone though, they most likely super over complicated it when they could've gone for the simpler route of reincarnation (even if it's still wonky).

[Wiccan]

Unpopular opinion but I don't think the reincarnation would quite work in the MCU tbh. People are gonna be confused about the kids being created just a couple years ago as we saw in WandaVision, but somehow being reincarnated into teenagers, and it turns out that their teenager selves were there the whole time even before Wanda created them, and it's because the souls somehow traveled through time...

I know the retro-reincarnation thing is pretty accepted by the fandom, but I think the truth is that the issue only went unnoticed because, even though it didn'tactually line up in comics time, it did in real time, with Billy and Tommy being created around 15 years after Wanda's original children. After all, if I'm not missing anything, this was never addressed in Heinberg's run. It was only brought up decades after by Robinson on the Scarlet Witch solo and then Al Ewing in New Avengers. So I think it's something that people just sort of subconsciously glossed over at the time, but in the MCU with WandaVision having been just 3 years ago, people would question it.

I actually had a theory that was kinda similar to the supposed leaks. Though with the way things have been said they sounds a bit "worse".

[ShatteredReality]

Okay here's my proposal: Billy Kaplan was a philosophical zombie before Billy Maximoff went into his body. So he acted like a normal teenage boy but didn't have a soul and didn't feel anything at all. That way no one's getting their will overridden! Why did he not have a soul in the first place? Uuuhhhhh it was eaten by a demon? Something went wrong during his birth? The soul goddess who gives out souls forgot to give him one?

Alternative theory: when Wanda created the children, she actually took part of the souls of pre-existing children. Then their souls returned to their original bodies.

[gurkle]

What bothers me is that WandaVision introduced what I thought, at the time, was the perfect way to avoid all the confusion about who Billy and Tommy are. They can magically age themselves up, so I figured when we saw them again they would be aged up to teenagers and the only mystery would be how they survived the end of the spell.

Instead, because of Feige's #@%!-ing determination to do the story where Wanda goes nuts because of her "fake kids," the writers of WandaVision now have to add all this stuff that is almost as convoluted as the comics.

And of course the only reason the comics are that way to begin with is because of the age problem. Heinberg's original pitch (reproduced in the Young Avengers ominbus) was that Billy would find out the Kaplans adopted him and he was really the son of the Scarlet Witch and the Vision, and Tommy was his long-lost twin brother. My guess would be that this was vetoed because having teenage sons would make Wanda too old.

The MCU had the setup to simplify the whole thing and they didn't, which is a symptom of what's been plaguing the whole franchise lately.

[Drops Of Venus]

Unpopular opinion but I don't think the reincarnation would quite work in the MCU tbh. People are gonna be confused about the kids being created just a couple years ago as we saw in WandaVision, but somehow being reincarnated into teenagers, and it turns out that their teenager selves were there the whole time even before Wanda created them, and it's because the souls somehow traveled through time...

I know the retro-reincarnation thing is pretty accepted by the fandom, but I think the truth is that the issue only went unnoticed because, even though it didn'tactually line up in comics time, it did in real time, with Billy and Tommy being created around 15 years after Wanda's original children. After all, if I'm not missing anything, this was never addressed in Heinberg's run. It was only brought up decades after by Robinson on the Scarlet Witch solo and then Al Ewing in New Avengers. So I think it's something that people just sort of subconsciously glossed over at the time, but in the MCU with WandaVision having been just 3 years ago, people would question it.

I actually had a theory that was kinda similar to the supposed leaks. Though with the way things have been said they sounds a bit "worse".

I don't think the time travel stuff is THAT hard to establish after Endgame. Like, the audience already knows that Steve Rogers had an entire different life because he chose to stay in the past and live as Peggy's husband. So the idea that Billy's and Tommy's lives were destined to take on a different path in the past so we could meet them in the present as different people doesn't seem that far fetched.

I think no matter how you look at it, either reincarnation or possession would be a drastic change to those characters after WandaVision. To start the Agatha show with a kid named Billy Kaplan with a whole different family, played by a completely different actor, and the sudden revelation that he's also Wanda's kid might come off as a bit weird to anyone who's not familiar with the comics, regardless of how they explain that transition. I would just prefer if they explained it in a way that's convenient to my tastes. lol

[Digifiend]

Unpopular opinion but I don't think the reincarnation would quite work in the MCU tbh. People are gonna be confused about the kids being created just a couple years ago as we saw in WandaVision, but somehow being reincarnated into teenagers, and it turns out that their teenager selves were there the whole time even before Wanda created them, and it's because the souls somehow traveled through time...

I know the retro-reincarnation thing is pretty accepted by the fandom, but I think the truth is that the issue only went unnoticed because, even though it didn'tactually line up in comics time, it did in real time, with Billy and Tommy being created around 15 years after Wanda's original children. After all, if I'm not missing anything, this was never addressed in Heinberg's run. It was only brought up decades after by Robinson on the Scarlet Witch solo and then Al Ewing in New Avengers. So I think it's something that people just sort of subconsciously glossed over at the time, but in the MCU with WandaVision having been just 3 years ago, people would question it.

I actually had a theory that was kinda similar to the supposed leaks. Though with the way things have been said they sounds a bit "worse".

Heinberg simply didn't do the maths right when he created them. Hulkling has the same origin problem (considering he's Mar-Vell's son), they had to retcon him as being sent back in time as a baby too. Billy, Tommy and Teddy should all be about half the age they are otherwise.