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Is Marvel teeing up Young Avengers? Kevin Feige addresses potential

Marvel Studios president addresses all the Young Avengers characters popping up in Phase 4.

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Published on March 18, 2021 03:00PM EDT

Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, took the stage during San Diego Comic-Con 2019 to lay out plans for Phase 4 of the MCU, beginning with Black Widow and expanding to Disney+ with a slate of original shows. Despite multiple schedule shifts due to the pandemic and worldwide theater closures, that general storytelling plan hasn't changed. But there are certainly other projects that haven't been announced yet.

For one, what about Young Avengers? A film or show focusing on this group of teen heroes from the comics hasn't been announced yet, but it's easy to theorize how Phase 4 might be setting the stage for something.

During a conversation with Feige for EW's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier digital cover, the man behind the curtain addressed whether these shows and films are, indeed, building towards the formation of the Young Avengers on screen. He offered a very diplomatic response.

"As a comic fan, anything in the comics is always our inspiration and our guide point. How those things come together and in what shape, it's always subverting expectations, it's always half the fun as meeting them," Feige said. "But, yes, you can certainly see that Phase 4 is introducing all sorts of new types of characters with the potential being endless. Now, all of us at Marvel Studios feel like Nick Fury at the end of Iron Man 1, as new actors and new performers come in and we tell them they're part of a bigger universe. They just now have to do the work required to build their audience. I'm happy to say everybody that's here, certainly where I'm sitting now, is doing amazing work and [I] can't wait to show them the world."

Here's the evidence we have so far. Crucial members of the Young Avengers team are being introduced over the course of Phase 4. Two of them already have.

WandaVision, the first Marvel Studios Disney+ series, brought in the children of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), Billy and Tommy, whose teen selves in the comics go by the aliases Wiccan and Speed. Yes, they are technically magical creations from Wanda's chaos magic, but their comic book history is quite complicated and involves the boys becoming real-world beings at one point, with Billy channeling similar powers to Wanda and Tommy maintaining super speed, like his uncle Pietro. (Fun fact: A recent comic book arc sees Billy marrying his boyfriend Hulking, another Young Avengers member, who becomes the ruler of his own galactic empire.) Billy and Tommy's fate in the MCU isn't entirely clear. (Spoiler warning!) They were erased from reality when Wanda destroyed her witchy sitcom world at the end of WandaVision, but she hears their voices calling out to her from places unknown in the show's finale post-credits scene.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which will tie directly into the events of WandaVision, then introduces America Chavez, another Young Avenger in the comics who goes by Miss America. Xochitl Gomez (The Baby-Sitters Club) will play her in the film, which also returns the Scarlet Witch.

Kate Bishop, portrayed by Hailee Steinfeld, will arrive in Disney+'s Hawkeye series as an arrow-slinging protege of Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner).

Actress Kathryn Newton as grown Cassie Lang, who becomes the size-altering Stature, will feature in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, as will Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), a noted villain from the Young Avengers comics.

It's unclear what awaits us in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but if you hear the name Elijah Bradley (a.k.a. Patriot), that Easter egg should ring some more bells.

The new series premieres this Friday on Disney+.

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