Young Avengers: They Might be Titans
In the mid-2000s Marvel hit a goldmine with their Ultimates line of comics, which reinterpreted their major characters and presented them as younger, hipper, and sexier than your grand-daddy’s Marvel heroes. This proved to be a massive hit and someone must have noticed that younger characters = new readers. Yeah, go figure a medium that is primarily marketed to teenagers and children would seem out of touch to that audience if they could not relate. It seemed like 2004 and 2005 were watershed years for pumping out as many teen centric comic books, or at least comics that featured teenagers. You had the Runaways, which was a massive hit. Over in the X-Men family of books they had New X-Men (volume 2) which focused on teams of students that attended Xavier’s school. NYX which featured a teenage cast of mutants trying to live an ordinary life. There was the forgettable Machine Teen about a teenage version of Jack Kirby’s Machine Man. Sentinel which focused on a kid who controlled a Sentinel robot. Over on Marvel’s briefly revived Epic line, you had Trouble which asked the question “What if Peter Parker’s mom was DTF at an age where that is illegal in most places”.
It was a weird place to be a teenager during this period of comics as they were deeply influenced the lingering traumas of both the Columbine Mass Shooting of 1999 and 9/11. Lot of derivative loners, lone wolves, and troubled teens. The kids were not all right during this period and the escapism of comic books where you could be accepted for who you are no matter how different you were was appealing, I guess. It was for me during that time, even though I was well into my 20s by that point (I was a late bloomer).
Following this theme was the Young Avengers, one of the many new titles that spun out of Avengers: Disassembled. It followed a team of teenagers who were considered for possible future Avengers trying to be Avengers when there were no Avengers around. Whereas the X-Books had their teenaged mutants being mentored and taught how to use their powers, the Young Avengers seemed to always be told that they were too young to get involved in the type of shenanigans the Avengers found themselves in.
Young Avengers seemed like the next natural evolution of the brand. Have a team of young successors to the mantle. Each character inspired by a different OG Avenger (which I’m sure corporate was happy with that since derivative works meant less royalties, but I digress). Part of me also wants to think that Marvel wanted to tap in the same market of the successful Teen Titans franchise over at DC Comics had. The Titans had been around since the 1960s and had been almost consistently published since the 1980s.
Looking back at reviews of the time, the title was well reviewed and in 2006 it won both a Harvey and a GLAAD award. Yet, despite this success, the series fizzled out after 12 issues. From there, the Young Avengers were relegated from a regular on going series to a bunch of limited series whenever there was a major event. Sadly, that’s where the Young Avengers stayed, but we’ll get into that later.
That said, this index includes all Young Avengers titles, including the limited series and one-shots since they are all basic continuations of the main book. So you can get your entire fix in one shot. You’re welcome.
