Young Avengers #5
Sidekicks, Part 5
Iron Lad (Nathaniel Richards) had travelled back in time to recruit a new team of Young Avengers to stop his future self, Kang the Conqueror. However, this has come with repercussions: If Iron Lad prevents himself from becoming Kang it will change history in the present day, turning it into a nightmare reality.[1] With reality changing all around them, Iron Lad is then forced by his future self to incapacitate the Young Avengers — Patriot (Eli Bradly), Hulkling (Teddy Altman), Asgardian (Billy Kaplan), Giant-Girl (Cassie Lang), and Kate Bishop — as well as Captain America (Steve Rogers), Iron Man (Tony Stark), and former hero Jessica Jones.
With the battle over and the damages caused to history, Iron Lad realizes that he has no other choice but to go back to his proper timeline and face his destiny. However, as Kang opens a time portal, Cassie Lang shoots up to normal size and tries to reason with him. As it turns out, she managed to avoid getting knocked out by shrinking down to ant size. She then shoves Kang through the portal and almost gets sucked in by herself. Luckily, Iron Lad manages to grab her and they fly up into the sky. Cassie then kisses him as thanks for saving her life, but immediately apologizes about acting so brash. Nathaniel wasn’t offended and kisses her back, for good luck. They then land on the ground and rejoin the others as they recover from the blast.
Iron Man warns the others that Kang won’t be gone for long and will be back. While the Young Avengers are willing to fight for their newfound friend, Iron Lad tells them that he is going to go. He points to the scene around them and says his continued defiance is going to irreversibly change history for the worst. The Young Avengers protest this, especially since there is a high liklihood that they will no longer remember these events or that they were ever banded together when reality is set right. This is too much for the team and they suggest they go someplace else to hide and prepare to fight Kang. Iron Lad reminds them that they can’t evade Kang forever because he can track his neuro-kinetic armor. Patriot then offers a simple solution: Just take the suit off. As they try to bury the armor, Kang returns and has Captain America hostage. He demands that his younger self return to the past or else he will execute Steve Rogers right then and there.
The Young Avengers stand their ground, telling Nathaniel to make a run for it. Taking command, Patriot tells the others that attack with all of their powers — including the magic and shape-shifting powers that Asgardian and Hulkling have been hiding up to this point — and they all charge at Kang. During the first strike, Kate Bishop is in the line of fire, prompting Patriot to shove her out of harms way. For a moment, the two aren’t bickering with one another, and agree that Patriot is now even for saving her life.[2] Unfortunately, none of the heroes can get past Kang’s force-field. That’s when Patriot suggest they somehow use Iron Lad’s abandoned armor to even the odds. It was used to download the Vision’s data base and perhaps that holds the key to defeating Kang.[3] As he says this, the center of chest plate begins to glow.
Not noticing this, Kate says that there is no time to figure out how the armor works and suggests they rely on their resident spell-caster. Billy isn’t confident he can since he is just learning how to use magic. Still he tries, muttering a spell over and over in the hopes that it can disable Kang’s force field. He manages to pull it off, but they are still pinned down from Kang’s weapons. Billy explains that Kang’s armor allows him to pull any weapon out of history, leaving them at a great disadvantage. Kate then decides to take a million-to-one shot with her bow and arrow. She manages to strike Kang’s belt buckle, which is the power source for his trans-temporal armor. This strands Kang in the past with no way to defend himself.
Unfortunately, he is far from harmless, as Patriot learns when he tries to attack Kang directly. The time traveler manages to overpower him and take him hostage. Kate tries to save Eli, but she too is quickly outmatched and ends up with her own sword at her throat. That’s when Kang’s younger self comes out of hiding and seemingly surrenders to Kang. However, when “Nathaniel” checks to see if Kate is all right, he whispers to her that he is not really Iron Lad. It turns out it was Hulkling used his shape-shifting power to get close enough to Kang to ambush him. The Young Avengers try to dogpile Kang, but he is still the more skilled fighter. That’s when he is blasted from behind.
When he turns to see who this new attacker is, he is shocked to see that it is Iron Lad’s own armor. Thanks to the downloaded data from the Vision, the suit has become the Vision himself, taking on an appearance that resembles his former self. But, this still is not enough to stop Kang, who easily disables the armor and puts it on himself when the Vision makes the foolishly gets within grabbing distance. That’s when Captain America attacks, demanding that Kang leave the children alone, or else. Kang then blasts Cap, Iron Man, and Jessica Jones, taking them out of the fight once more. When Kang asks who is next, the real Nathaniel Richards comes up behind him and impales his future self on Kate’s sword.
Recurring Characters
Young Avengers (Iron Lad, Patriot, Hulkling, Asgardian, Cassie Lang, Kate Bishop, Vision), Iron Man, Captain America, Jessica Jones, Kang
Continuity Notes
This has been detailed over the last four issues. Basically, if Kang doesn’t have his first clash with the Avengers (circa Avengers #8). Typically, the rules of time travel go in the Marvel Universe is that usually it just creates an alternate reality. In some cases, the change to history are so extreme it overwrites one reality with another. Infamous cases include when Legion killed his own father, Professor X in X-Men (vol. 2) #41, creating the Age of Apocalypse (Reality-295), and when the Scarlet Witch used her power in House of M #1 to create the House of M (Reality-58163). In both cases reversing the inciting incident restored the baseline reality (in X-Men: Omega #1 and House of M #8 respectively) Usually with both realities existing independently of one another. Such will be the case here, as we’ll see next two next issue. As of this writing (May, 2024), the nightmare timeline that is replacing present day Reality-616 in this story has yet to be given an official reality number.
They are referring to how Kate helped the Young Avengers foil a hostage situation at St. Patrick’s Cathedral back in issue #1.
In issue #2-3, Iron Lad explains that he downloaded the Vision’s database to locate and gather his Young Avengers. At the time of this story, the Vision was destroyed in Avengers #500. He will eventually get rebuilt in Avengers (vol. 4) #19.
