The Young Avengers started off as a team of teenage superheroes who set out to emulate the real Avengers. This was during a time where the Avengers were not together and the team made their mark before becoming great heroes in their own right. They reformed later down the line and added even more young heroes, proving to be one of Marvel’s best new teams.
What started out as the Young Avengers was not how the team looked in the end. Changes came, heroes left, and others died, while newcomers came in to replace them. In the end, The Champions replaced the team as Marvel’s top destination for teenage heroes, but with rumors of the Young Avengers coming to the MCU, their popularity is as high as ever.
10 Iron Lad
The Young Avengers formed because of one young teenage hero named Iron Lad. While Iron Ladf patterned his career after Iron Man, he was a very different character. Iron Lad was a time-traveling younger version of Kang the Conqueror, and he had one goal on Earth-616, which was to prevent himself from becoming evil.
Iron Lad then set out and gathered together other young heroes patterned after the Avengers and formed the team. It was mostly a boy’s club at first, but soon Iron Lad allowed in other members and the Young Avengers was born.
9 Patriot
Iron Lad went to find the Avengers when he arrived from the future, but they were not there. He did find an Avengers Fail-Safe Program in the AI of The Vision that revealed people related to the Avengers. One of these was a man connected to Captain Ameria in Josiah X.
Josiah had been missing for years, but his nephew Eli Bradley lied and said he was a super soldier, gaining the powers from a blood transfusion with his grandfather Isaiah Bradley, the former Black Captain America. He actually used the Mutant Growth Hormone drug to gain superpowers and took on the costume of Bucky, calling himself Patriot.
8 Hulkling
Another person Iron Lad found in the Avengers Fail-Safe Program was a young man named Teddy Altman. While he believed he was a regular Earth kid with superpowers, he was much more important. He was the son of former Avengers’ ally Captain Mar-Vell and the Skrull Queen, making Teddy half Skrull and half Kree.
He had powers from both, including shapeshifting, and this allowed him to form a shape similar to Hulk’s to fit in with the dynamic of the Young Avengers theme. He eventually began to date his fellow teammate, Wiccan.
7 Wiccan
Wiccan joined up with Iron Lad around the same time as Hulkling, and he had a very similar secretive past. Billy Kaplan was also listed in the Avengers Fail-Safe Program, and his relationship was much closer to the Avengers than any other. He was the son of Scarlet Witch, one of the twins that she lost years before.
Wiccan had the powers of his mother and is one of the most powerful warlocks on Earth. When he joined the Young Avengers, he went by the name the Asgardian, believing his magical powers could replicate the look of Thor’s powers, but he soon came into his own as Wiccan.
6 Hawkeye
The second rescue mission in the first issue of Young Avengers by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung had the four-boy team rescue a wedding held hostage by gunmen. One of the bridesmaids at the wedding was Kate Bishop and she ended up forcing her way into the group, even with Patriot not wanting any females involved.
While she had no powers, Kate became the new Hawkeye, taking the role left behind after Clint Barton died. Kate was a key member in all the Young Avengers teams and when the group disbanded, went on to join The West Coast Avengers.
5 Stature
When Kate Bishop was at the hospital after the attack where she met the Young Avengers, Cassie Lang approached her. This was Scott Lang’s daughter and it turned out she had been messing around with the Pym Particles when her dad had her as a child at Avengers Mansion, eventually gaining the powers herself.
Cassie wanted to join up with them and she took Kate along with her, where the two both ended up as founding members when the group began. Sadly, Cassie was also one of the first members of the team to die.
4 Vision
The Vision had died, but when Iron Lad showed up he was able to download Vision’s AI into his armor. When Kang the Conqueror attacked, Iron Lad removed his armor and this allowed it to form a new Vision, which remained with the Young Avengers when Iron Lad left to return to his own time.
Because he had Iron Lad’s brain patterns, Vision developed a close relationship with Cassie Lang and changed his name to Jonas. He served as a member of the team until his death.
3 Speed
When the Super Skrull showed up on Earth and tried to abduct Hulkling, Vision decided to help the team find more Young Avengers using the Avengers Fail-Safe Program. This time he found a young man named Thomas Shepherd, who was locked away in a superhuman prison.
As his name suggests, Speed has super speed. This is also important because Tommy and Billy soon learned they were brothers, as Tommy was the second twin that Scarlet Witch lost and he inherited his uncle Quicksilver’s speed powers.
2 America Chavez
The team remained mostly the same through the Civil War and Dark Reign, but when Marvel Now! began, there were new members who came along. The first was America Chavez, who went by the name Miss America. America showed up when she saw Kid Loki trying to cast a spell at Wiccan.
America ended up as one of the team’s key members, even more so than the originals. She joined the West Coast Avengers along with Kate Bishop and has remained close to her former Young Avengers teammate to this day.
1 Kid Loki
When America Chavez showed up to stop Kid Loki from messing with Wiccan, he revealed he was there to stop Wiccan from doing something that could destroy the world. Billy Kaplan was destined to become the dangerous and omnipotent Demiurge.
Kid Loki ended up working with the Young Avengers and became a true hero thanks to his time with the team. After Kid Loki, there were only two more members in the Kree warrior Noh-Varr and the mutant Prodigy.
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