Young Avengers #1

History

Writer Allan Heinberg came to Marvel not as a comics veteran but as a television writer and producer on The O.C., where he had openly woven his love of comics into the show's scripts; Marvel editors tracked him down after reading an interview in which he discussed that affection and essentially gave him a blank slate. Young Avengers would become his comics debut. Jim Cheung was the only artist Heinberg considered for the series, and the two worked together under editor Tom Brevoort — who later acknowledged that virtually nobody at Marvel, including himself, believed in the concept before the book shipped. Because Heinberg's television schedule was inflexible, the series was structured as a 12-issue run rather than a true ongoing, which Heinberg likened to producing a season of television. The depiction of Wiccan and Hulkling as a gay couple required its own internal negotiation: Heinberg originally designed Hulkling as a female shapeshifter to smuggle the relationship into a mainstream Marvel book, but Brevoort ultimately suggested simply writing both characters as gay men, a change Heinberg embraced.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Asgardian/Wiccan (Billy Kaplan), Hulkling (Teddy Altman), Iron Lad (Nathaniel Richards), and Patriot (Eli Bradley) — the four founding Young Avengers.
• First appearance of Kate Bishop, the future second Hawkeye, who appears here as a civilian caught in the team's first public rescue attempt at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
• Written by Allan Heinberg (his comic-book writing debut) and penciled by Jim Cheung, with inks by John Dell, colors by Justin Ponsor, letters by Cory Petit, and editing by Tom Brevoort; published under Joe Quesada as editor-in-chief.
• The story arc is titled 'Sidekicks (Part 1 of 6)'; the issue's in-story framing device is a J. Jonah Jameson-bylined Daily Bugle feature — 'Who the #*&% Are the Young Avengers?' — reported by journalist Kat Farrell and investigated by Jessica Jones.
• The team's existence is explained in-universe as the activation of a fail-safe program created by the Vision before his destruction in 'Avengers Disassembled,' designed to recruit the next generation of Avengers-connected heroes.
• Iron Lad is established from the outset as Nathaniel Richards, a younger version of Kang the Conqueror, who assembled the team specifically to avoid his destined villainous future.
• Patriot (Eli Bradley) is the grandson of Isaiah Bradley, the forgotten Black super-soldier, tying the team's legacy theme directly into the politically charged continuity established in Truth: Red, White & Black (2003).
• The issue has been reprinted multiple times, including a Marvel Legends Reprint edition (November 2005), in the Young Avengers by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung: The Complete Collection (2016), the Heinberg & Cheung Omnibus (2022), and the Young Avengers Modern Era Epic Collection (2024); a Wizard World Los Angeles 2005 exclusive sketch-cover variant also exists.

Cast · 15 characters

Full credits

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