By Shaun Knittel

Best Gay News Magazine Staff Writer

Marvel Comics has announced a renewed focus on its Avengers
comics. The company is set to release a spin-off about a team of teenage
superheroes called, Young Avengers. 

Queerty reports, “Joining Kid Loki, Miss America and Marvel
Boy are Wiccan and Hulkling, one of mainstream comics’ most prominent (and
cutest) gay couples.

Wiccan and Hulking were actually a part of an earlier Young
Avengers title created by gay screenwriter Allan Heinberg) that was sadly
canceled some time back.”

Writer Kieron Gillen says, they will be the “core romantic
couple of Young Avengers.”

“Wiccan will make a big mistake,” warns Gillen, “that
threatens his relationship with the shape shifting Hulkling.”

“Do they have Grindr in the Marvel Universe?” asks Queerty.

“Fundamentally, ‘Young Avengers’ used to be about being
sixteen,” said Gillen, who also gave a brief summary of how the character
grew up in the original series. “I wanted to do something different.
Instead of being a book about being 16, it’s a book about being 18. It’s about
approaching the world on your own terms.” Gillen stated he plans to
explore the superhero convention from top to bottom. “Most of the books
that have ‘Avengers’ in the title is about the ideal. It’s about super heroism
and living as one of Earth’s Mightiest Mortals. … It’s a book about optimism
and how optimism tends to get crushed.”

Gillen characterized the book as “very natural,”
saying, “There’s nothing that is less cool than desperately grasping to be
cool.”

He wants to focus on the full range of teenage problems
through a superhero lens.