One good thing you can’t take away from The Marvels? It’s finally got the ball rolling on the Young Avengers, with Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan now on a mission to round up the “Kid Avengers” (even if nearly all of them are old enough to drink).
The Marvel fandom has been (not-so)patiently waiting for this day for ages now, probably ever since Avengers: Endgame wrapped up the OG Avengers’ storyline back in 2019. In actual fact, though, the next generation of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes has been teased since long before that — 2014, to be exact. It’s just that we didn’t know it at the time.
To be specific, the first children of the Avengers introduced into the franchise occurred in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Well, at least — to quote Obi-Wan Kenobi — from a certain point of view…
Captain America and Peggy Carter’s kids have (allegedly) been hanging around the MCU for decades
A memorable subplot in The Winter Soldier sees the unfrozen Steve Rogers discover that his wartime “best girl” Agent Peggy Carter eventually settled down with another man and had a family. The mystery of who Peggy’s husband was raged for several years there, until Endgame appeared to reveal the truth. Depending on which theory of time travel you subscribe to.
Yes, as you’ll recall, Steve goes back in time at the end of Endgame to live out a happy life in the 1940s with Peggy. According to writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, this is the culmination of a long-term plan they set up in Winter Soldier, with it being their intention that Steve was Peggy’s husband and the father of her unseen children all along. The only hitch? Directors the Russo brothers claim Steve going back created a new timeline, meaning he can’t be Peggy’s other half in the prime universe.
If, for the sake of argument, we choose Markus and McFeely’s authorial intention as the canon explanation for a moment (the fact that Old Man Steve is sitting there by that lake certainly backs up their interpretation), this means that Steve and Peggy’s son and daughter have existed in the MCU for decades. And yet these two influential and potentially powerful individuals have stayed entirely out of the limelight.
How could Steve Rogers’ son and daughter still come into play in the MCU?
Needless to say, Steve and Peggy Junior would obviously be too old to join the Young Avengers as of the 2020s, as they were likely born in the 1950s or perhaps ’60s. However, the existence of this next generation of the Rogers-Carter clan — even in any timeline, not necessarily the 616 one, given this is the Multiverse Saga — is surely too huge to ignore forever.
For starters, you would think that the siblings would have some kind of important career in S.H.I.E.L.D., as per their mother being the organization’s co-founder, and share their parents’ thirst for do-gooding and saving the world. What’s more, you would heavily suspect that Steve’s Super-Soldier physiognomy would pass down to his kids, meaning they may possess at least a fraction of his super-strength and longevity.
One possible way for the Rogers children to crossover with the Young Avengers would be for them to act as the beneficiaries of the team, serving as the Nick Fury or Tony Stark for the gang; the adult mentors that take the adolescent heroes under their wing and fund their quest to become a superhero organization. They may even have kids of their own, Steve and Peggy’s grandkids, who could get involved.
As Marvel looks to increase the nostalgia for the Infinity Saga, in order to win back wayward viewers, introducing the kids of Captain America and Captain Carter could be a star-spangled plan for success.