Now that The Marvels is here, fans are wondering what the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will look like. The film itself gives us a setup for a new team coming into the MCU fold. To see a beloved comic book team assembling in front of our eyes was more emotional than we were prepared for.
**Spoilers for The Marvels below**
At the very end of The Marvels, Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) travels to New York to talk to another young Avenger and try to recruit her into her own new group of heroes. Fans of the comics instantly recognize the moment as the start of the Young Avengers, a team made up of the younger counterparts of well-known heroes. It means the world to see Kamala being the one to go to Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), a.k.a. Hawkeye, to get things rolling. It’s exactly the move that Kamala would make.
Going to Kate first works thematically for these characters, but also makes sense given that many of the other members of the classic comics team are not yet part of the MCU. Whether that means we’re going to get the exact make-up of the Young Avengers from the comics or a new collection of heroes, we don’t know. But seeing Kamala and Kate together was a sweet moment for fans of these heroes. Now, they just have to go and find America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez).
For whatever complaints people have with The Marvels, this moment made me giddy with excitement for the future of the MCU.
What a great start to a team
One of the worries many people had with the setup for the Young Avengers is the fact that they’re all very different ages. Kate Bishop came into Hawkeye older than characters like America and Kamala (which Kate makes a quick, funny reference to in her meeting with Kamala). Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton) was 18 when we saw her in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The youngest of them all are Billy and Tommy, who were Wanda’s boys in WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness but have not been aged up yet. There are other members that have appeared popping up through the MCU but whether we’ll see them as part of Kamala’s team, we don’t know yet.
We could be seeing a new version of Billy and Tommy in shows like Agatha: Darkhold Diaries. For now, though, the team is still forming, and having Kate and Kamala be the ones to start this new group together is exciting. All of this is giving the Young Avengers fans what we’ve been waiting for. The joy that this scene brought me really was worth the wait.
It’s going to be a fun journey for the new kids in town.
(featured image: Disney+)
