For fans of the new and young characters in Marvel, this is a banner week, as we get two big debuts from the House of Ideas. What are they? First, Al Ewing and Lee Garbett’s “Loki, Agent of Asgard”, a book that finds the now slightly older but still pretty young Loki doing sneaky, needful things in the name of Asgard. Then, you have the big kahuna, as G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona’s “Ms. Marvel” debuts, bringing Kamala Khan to fans in the midst of huge amounts of mainstream publicity.
So this made us wonder, with the launches in mind, who are the ten best young Marvel characters right now? We take a stab at that this week in Countdown, and please, share your favorites in the comments, and we know, it shocks us too that no Runaways make the list.
Note: actual ranking was created by David Harper, with Matthew Meylikhov tag-teaming writing responsibilities.
10. Nova (Sam Alexander)
Why He Makes the List (Matthew Meylikhov): I think just about everyone was surprised when “Nova” was released and became an instant hit, but a large part of that is because the book starred a character that made people want to read more. Here was someone new to the scene, someone with the curiosity and optimism that we’d been missing from a lot of superhero stories. There’s certainly something to be said for younger heroes stealing the spotlight in comics, but Sam Alexander’s bumbling and innocent Nova who’s still learning the ropes and capabilities of his powers offers up enough dramatic irony to be endearing and affable.
9. Bentley-23
Why He Makes the List (David Harper): Originally from Jonathan Hickman’s “Fantastic Four” run, Bentley-23 – aka the young clone of The Wizard – went from a quality cast member to Hickman’s “FF” to one of the breakouts of Fraction and Allred’s version, as they turned him into a kid with villainy in his genes who really, ultimately just wanted to be a kid even as he filmed Werner Herzog inspired documentaries about the other cast members of the book. He’s brilliant, charming, unpredictable and completely delightful in a way his far more famous “father” never was. He’s a legacy character of sorts, but this is certainly one case where the legacy favors the young.
With “FF” at its end, I can only hope we will see more of Bentley, especially in concert with the Moloids, as they are quite the combination.
8. Noh-Varr
Why He Makes the List (David Harper): He’s young, he isn’t, he’s Marvel Boy, he’s Protector…who the hell knows. I’m going to go with the Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie version, the one that found Graham Parsons to be a beard inspiration, The Ronettes to be his spirit singers and potential mates (of any variety) to be things he never understands but sure loves to be with. Noh-Varr started as a young Kree warrior who couldn’t help but destroy, but in the hands of Gillen and McKelvie, he became a free spirit that represented everything it meant to be young and human, even though he may have been much older than we realized and certainly wasn’t human.
Long a character I wanted to see more of after Grant Morrison and JG Jones introduced him, Noh-Varr is someone who is endlessly charming and brutally effective, all while being ignorant of his own sneaky, rogue like nature. Just a fantastic character.
Why She Makes the List (Matthew Meylikhov):
Simply put, Troll was the best part of “Thunderbolts.” A sleeper hit character, it turned out that Troll embodied the absolute heart of the Thunderbolts; there lay in her a certain innocence that couldn’t be equalled in tone or character by the rest of the cast. It certainly helped that she was the newest character to the scene and we got to see her story from beginning to temporary end, but Troll showed that pure naivety and innocence still has a place within comics like these, offering up a very fun character to grow alongside and someone who sorely needs to come back.Continued below
6. Loki
Why He Makes the List (Matthew Meylikhov): Loki is hardly “young” by any stretch of the imagination, but when the Old Loki died in “Siege” and came back in a younger mind and body (before, y’know, killing the younger mind and stealing the body), it offered up a reinvention of the character unlike anything we’d seen before. Loki is a character who can redefine himself at his own whims, btu the current iteration of the character is perhaps the most relatable and interesting iteration of the character that has ever existed within Marvel continuity. While he may not be the young and questioning child searching for redemption we first met in “Journey into Mystery,” the current teenage Loki still offers up a very different and all the more interesting take on the Prince of Lies that we’ve seen in comics in quite a long time. The possibilities of what he’s currently capable of is veritably limitless.
5. Kate Bishop
Why He Makes the List (Matthew Meylikhov): Kate Bishop aka Lady Hawkguy has been one of Marvel’s hidden gem character for the longest time. Debuting in “Young Avengers” and recently gaining a new level of popularity between the revitalized title and her starring role in “Hawkeye,” Kate Bishop is one of the most nuanced and interesting teenage female leads to ever appear in a Marvel comic. What makes Kate so interesting is that she was always a rather unassuming character; her origins, like many of that team, were rather simplistic. But she was one to very quickly evolve and find new life throughout the multiple titles the team had before finally landing herself a starring role. Now that she’s co-carrying her own title, we’re really seeing Kate blossom as a rather formidable character, as vital and important to the Marvel mythos as the man she took her name from.
4. Cammi
Why He Makes the List (David Harper): Anyone who read the original Drax mini that preceded “Annihilation” knows what I’m talking about when I say Cammi is completely, undeniably, and wholeheartedly the shit. Since she was just a little girl growing up in Alaska (like me minus the little and girl part!), Cammi wouldn’t put up with stupidity from anyone, whether that meant her classmates or murderous aliens who may or may not have recently eaten other humans. In becoming Drax’s unofficial sidekick, she became one of my favorite new characters in recent memory and then BAM! She disappeared, absent from Marvel’s comics for more than 6 years. Thankfully, Dennis Hopeless remembered her, as he brought her back in “Avengers Arena” and grew her up, using her time in space as a hard edge to sharpen her against life even more, creating an intermittently charming but always effective badass that we can’t help but love.
Now, with a starring role coming in “Avengers Undercover”, here’s hoping she earns even more love, but from me, it’s pretty much impossible to move up anymore.
3. Quentin Quire
Why He Makes the List (David Harper): Here’s an admission: Quentin Quire’s rebellious, completely unredeemable nature once grated on me, and even though he was a great villain, I wanted him to lose badly. Grant Morrison did phenomenal work with him in doing so, but still, I did not like him.
Then, when Jason Aaron literally had Wolverine tie him up and throw him on the Blackbird at the end of Schism, a corner was turned, and Jason Aaron actually redeemed him. He turned that rebellious, brash nature, and used those same characteristics to his advantage in making him not just someone we enjoy, but someone we can envision as a future leader of the superhero community. The whole cast of “Wolverine and the X-Men” is brilliant, but class president Quentin Quire? He’s arguably the most likely to succeed of the bunch.
2. Broo
Why He Makes the List (David Harper): This is undoubtedly and completely a personal bias ranking. I’m not sure how anyone else feels about this little guy, but to paraphrase Will Ferrell in “Old School”, you’re my boy, Broo. This little guy captured my heart in “Wolverine and the X-Men”, becoming the brilliant, burning core at the center of the book, representing everything that is right and special about the world Aaron created. I mean, he’s a miniature version of one of the X-Men’s greatest enemies, and he’s perpetually fighting that nature – even to the point when he reverted to his animalistic ways post getting shot (and heartbreakingly nearly killed) – as he charms the heck out of every reader.
Continued belowI am really, genuinely curious as to how he does outside of the work of Jason Aaron, but a character like this? He’s gold no matter what, and I’m eager to see what Jason Latour and Mahmud Asrar do with him going forward.
1. Miles Morales
Why He Makes the List (Matthew Meylikhov): Miles Morales is Spider-Man. That’s the easiest thing you can say about him that is true, because that’s who he is: he is Spider-Man. If we are to accept the idea that superheroes represent ideals and that Spider-Man embodies some of the absolute best that humans can be (self-sacrificing, unselfish, devoted to protecting and helping others, great power and great responsibility et al), then it is easy to see why Miles is Spider-Man. He’s not Spider-Man because he puts on a costume with a spider on it and he’s not Spider-Man because he swings around on webs; no, he’s Spider-Man because he (just like Peter Parker) represents the absolute best in what our heroes can be, and who they should be represented as.
Sometimes a phrase that you often hear get thrown around is “Be the change you want to see.” Miles is the epitome of the change we want to see, and he’s easily the most important character Marvel has right now. It’ll be interesting to see happens with the next wave of Ultimate books, and what new opportunities lie ahead for him.
