The Young Avengers Initiative: First Steps/YMMV

* Awesome Music: Weird Al and Pharrell Williams' duet song "So-Called Avengers" is nice-bopping and a catchy tune that also in a Paternal Bonus way, as a diss track towards Elon Musk, Andrew Tate, Zack Snyder and a few others like, who has been in a recent downfall in 2025.
* Awesome Moments: Even as the recent president of the United States, Sam Wilson/Captain America is still capable of being a competent leader and great hand-to-hand fighter (even without his gear or The Secret Service's assistance).
* Actor Allusion: Hank Pym and Mar-Vell's actors (Michael Douglas and Annette Bening) both respectively worked on The American President.
** Janet Van Dyne's interaction with Goose could be seen as this, since Michelle Pfeiffer worked in Batman Returns as Catwoman.
** This isn't the first time that Ron Perlman portrays a red character and fights a group of young superheroes.
* And You Thought It Would Fail: From the moment that the line-up confirmed that Spider-Man, Joaquin Torres, Shuri, Groot II and G'iah are in the lineup, MCU fans and critics (especially those of Spider-Man: No Way Home) are negatively doubtful about this team, But after the game release, The line-up has gotten a warm welcome by fans while others don't seem to mind the line-up one bit.
** And the plot of the game kinda sets MCU fans off due to its on the nose political themes and meaning and the questionable writing decisions (Spider-Man, Joaquín Torres/Falcon, Shuri and G'iah in the Young Avengers is one of the most intensely divisive writing decisions).
* Adaptation Distillation: The main story-line loosely adapted 2 Marvel books, Dark Reign and Outlawed.
* Awesome Art: Thanks to the people who worked on What If...?, The same visual achievement in the art-style of the series translated extremely well into the gaming consoles.
* Broken Base: Is the roster is perfectly good for the game or it's need more characters?
* Does This Remind You Of Anything: Ross during his time as president and his supporters were obvious parodies of Donald Trump and his supporters.
* Diagnosed by the Audience: If one thinks about it enough, you can see that some of the Young and 1970s' Avengers members can be seen as autistic and ADHD coded, to give a few examples:
** Odin and Adam Warlock are both equally powerful beings of their respective species, but they also like to watch Sesame Street which can be seen as a special interest and they can't seem to get social cues.
** Joaquín Torres is very good in combat and giving the group crucial information, despite relying on the EXO-7 Falcon to fight.
** Kamala Khan and Groot II are both ADHD and autistic, respectively.
* Love to Hate: Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross managed to be even more evil and hateable than his Sacred Timeline counterpart, But his Red Hulk's creepily awesome design, impressive manipulation, leadership skills during his time as president and his wide array of powers even Harrison Ford's dastardly and charismatic performance made him the best villain in the MCU since The High Evolutionary.
** His Dark Avengers team, while not as cooperative as the Young or 70s Avengers and pretty argumentative, have their fair share of awesome Evil is Cool moments.
** The Leader can have his moments in the Kingdom of Spiders DLC.
* First Installment Wins: The main game, 1970s DLC, the 1970s/Young Avengers crossover story campaign and their respective shorts and comics were the only parts of the game that were best received for their consistent story-telling, characterisations and their style of humor while the other DLCs (even having their fair share of fans) are mixed.
* Friendly Fandoms: With the fans of Lyla in the Loop and season 2 of American Dragon: Jake Long.
** Some even overlap with the fans of the first 2 Spy Kids movies.
** The fans of the game and fans of The Iwi Giant are good neighbors for: despite being kids' media made by PBS Kids' Pipeline Studios allumni (mostly those who worked on Alma's Way, Work It Out, Wombats!, and Lyla in The Loop), are more mature and doesn't talk down to their target audience while maintaining their adult themes and doesn't tone down the violence, scale, destruction and brutality.
** The fans of 2 beloved Marvel cartoons: The Spectacular Spider-Man and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes resonated with them greatly.
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* Heartwarming Moments: The Young Avengers's interactions and friendship with their leader (albeit some arguing and fighting), Kamala Khan/1970s Avengers with Isaiah Bradley are the few positive depictions of a genuine friend group in kids' media (looking at you, Penny's friend group from The Proud Family), they always got each other backs, comfort each other and have perfect teamwork.
** For instance, After Riri's spine and left arm was shattered by Red Hulk to the point, The team (particularly Tommy Maximoff) had to help her walk for a couple months. 
** President Sam Wilson/Captain America has dissolved the Sokovia Accords Relocation Act for good and made heroes legal again. 
*** His new laws as the president are: No AI replacement in entertainment studios, no superpowers for malicious purposes, social media will have strict but fair policies, no racism against superheroes people of different race, gender or nationally, etc.
** Mixed with Tearjerker in the Trans-Dimensional Avengers DLC, Shuri gets to reunite and interact with an alternate version of her father, T'Chaka (who is assuming the role the Black Panther at the time).
* He Can Really Act: While the cast have their enjoyable moments, Samuel Sterns/The Leader/Man-Spider is considered to be the best out of the cast in Kingdom of Spiders DLC, thanks to Tim Blake Nelson's comedic but seriously threatening and menacing role.
* Harsher in Hindsight: Ross' villainous campaign is similar to Dan Schneider's time on Nickelodeon before getting exposed by Quiet on Set.
** The High Evolutionary plans to mutate the Earth to "perfected" it in 1970s become this when Elon Musk came to Memphis, Tennessee with his supercomputer idea and nearly destroyed the state's reputation and infrastructure.
*Heartwarming in Hindsight: Spider-Man's interactions and friendship with the Young Avengers breaks the cycle of his time in the comics where the Avengers and the superhero community (including Paul from the reviled Zeb Wells' run) treated him like crap and ends the web-slinger's suffering.
**Odin's interactions with the 1970s Avengers became much more heartwarming when he lose his apathy in humanity and became cooperative when The High Evolutionary destroyed Asgard and brought Loki back to his native home.
**Peggy's more understanding but strict behavior to Bradly is this when she was trying to regain Isaiah's trust in the US after the poor treatment the government gave him (this implies that this happened in the Sacred Timeline, but failed).
*Hilarious in Hindsight: In the Lyla in the Loop segment "Finding a New Friend", This line of dialogue from the titular character seems almost prophetic since the creator, writers and director of the show (David Peth and Huy Tran) went on to work on this game, which has Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Melina Vostokoff (both spider-themed superheroes), some of High Evolutionary's arachnid-based Hellspawn and Samuel Sterns/The Leader's Man-Spider form, his spider-themed arsenal and his plan involving gamma-radiated spiders with cybernetics.
**Bonus points for a 2020s animated project where a certain fun and playful A.I. of Miguel O' Hara/Spider-Man with extreme anger issues is one of the founding leaders of a society of alternate Spider-Men shares the same name and Kate Bishop was a Spider-Woman variant before her MCU debut.Lyla (panicking): SPIIIIDERR!! I'm not... Usually. but this spider is gigantic! SEE!
*Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Ross/Red Hulk and The Dark Avengers, Samuel Sterns/The Leader/Man-Spider, The Winter Soldier, The High Evolutionary, Dormammu, Hela and even, HulkKing may be much more evil, But at least they don't hid behind their armies and are willing to put up a fair and decent fight (for The High Evolutionary, Dormammu, Hela and Ross's Dark Avengers' case as HulkKing proved to be a bit of a coward) and have a couple of Evil is Cool and Love to Hate factors, The politicians (Ty and Samantha) and other Damage Control agents like Sadie Deever and have no redeeming qualities and considered to be genuinely hateful and unlikable as they care about their reputation and popularity status rather than the Young heroes' safety, it's come to the point were even the villains wanted nothing to do with them.
*Faux Symbolism: Many gamers and critics have read the public's perspectives on superheroes that isn't Tony Stark or Steve Rogers as an symbolic representation of Marvel fans expecting MCU projects to be like Infinity War/Endgame or the comics (not even actors, writers and directors are immune from this).
*Funny Moments: The Young Avengers' interactions and idle animations with the 1970s Avengers, but Tommy Maximoff's interactions with Odin, Hank Pym/Ant-Man and Adam Warlock take the cake.
**Tommy's pranks (like his Mentos, liquid nitrogen and soda bombs on characters like M.O.D.O.K. and few others) are chuckle-worthy.
* Nightmare Fuel: Brad Davis' transformation into Molten Man is hands down the most horrifying Body Horror transformation in the game, Sure he may be a massive jerk, But he doesn't deserve that ugly molten metal eyesore for a body, it doesn't help that all of his bones actually MELTS to the point that he needs to wear a containment suit.
** President Ross/Red Hulk managed to be even worse than he was in Captain America: Brave New World and Civil War, even before he was transformed, he was successfully manipulated Damage Control to ban all superheroes, reopening the Soviaka Accords Relocation Act, allowed racism/sexism as a law and was 100% responsible for Brad's horrific condition and the formation of The Dark Avengers, and when in Red Hulk form, He managed to nearly beat the Young Avengers in a massacre where they have to used their skills to overpowered him, His worst actions of all is crippling Riri Williams to the point she was to wear leg braces, an arc reactor on her chest and a hand splint for the rest of her life (but still capable of engineering and piloting her armor).
** The Technovore is basically a MCU's version of Shin Godzilla and looks similar to its EMH counterpart, but made out of metal and organs.
** Todd Phelps/HulkKing is probably the most terrifying, scarier and intimidating foe that the team ever faced and unlike Red Hulk and The Dark Avengers, he had no redeeming qualities and has the most pettiest reasons (being rejected by women like Kamala Khan) to hate superheroes and launched a professional spite campaign to kill superheroes, especially the female ones of the Avengers/Young Avengers division because he thinks the superhero community have no place here and he nearly endangered the entire world economy by tampering with nation-wide computer software.
** Samuel Sterns's Man-Spider transformation is on another level of terrifying that would make David Cronenberg (the director of the 1986's Fly remake) proud, It doesn't help the fact that he had 4 arms, 4 eyes on his face, spider legs and the abdomen in the form of his legs, his entire body is almost skeletal and his mouth is filled with potently venomous fangs (unluckily for those who have a fear of spiders), but luckily, he can change back.
** In one of the prototype logo variants for TT Games, Lyla, Stu and her little brother, Luke are playing with orange and blue LED pegs to create the TT Games logo, but Isaiah Bradley uses his machine gun to create the logo out of the blank bullets, but then proceed to PELTS AND SHOOTS THE SISTER AND BROTHER WITH THE BLANK BULLETS AND PROCEED TO CHASE AFTER THEM!! Any reason why this didn't make it into the final cut?
** The Punisher and Battlestar's finishing moves are splitting an enemy's hand. Did somebody watch Extraction 2?
** While she may not been a likable character in the second Black Panther movie, Seeing Riri struggling to walk even after her resurrection is genuinely distressing and unsettling, She has a arc reactor on her chest that stabilize her condition, But fortunately, her teammates got her back.
** The High Evolutionary is just as insane and depraved as he was in Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3.
*** The Celestial HellSpawn is considered to be the most horrifying creature that The High Evolutionary ever made, Just the idea that the depraved scientist actually made a Hellspawn out of a GOD is on another level.
*** The High Evolutionary merges with Ultron to create an Evo Bomb and a suit of armor from the A.I. that grants him unfathomable power on a grander scale.
*Tearjerker: Although Peter and Kamala finds some new friends in the form of The Young Avengers, their stories can be downright depressing and soul-crushing, Kamala have to move away from her family and her hometown of New Jersey during the renewed Soviaka Accords Relocation Act while Peter is forced to into hiding, drops out school, never speak or see his friends, MJ and Ned Leeds for the rest of his life and works with The Young Avengers to clear his name.
**In the start of 1970s Avengers DLC storyline, it implies that Maria Stark has died from the car accident (when Tony is 3 years old) caused by The Winter Soldier and Howard lets his anger and grief out on the assassin by creating the a Iron Man suit and nearly beaten him to a bloody pulp in a one-on-one fight.
**While count as Heartwarming, seeing Shuri reunites and interacts with the 1970s Avengers T'Chaka is one of a tearful one, considering how he died in Captain America: Civil War.
*Rooting for the Empire: It is easy to say that the politicians (aside from President Sam Wilson/Captain America and a few others) aren't worth saving from The Dark Avengers and The Leader's spider army since they have been nothing but insensitive and rude assholes towards the Young Avengers and Sam Wilson as the president.
*Realism-Induced Horror: In the appropriately titled DLC "The Invasion of Intelligenca", Todd Phelps/HulkKing is a childish and immature but slightly cunning incel and the founder/moderator of a Intelligencia who targets the MCU hero community (especially women and POC) for petty reasons (like not being the original Avengers) and have an devoted and loyal fanbase that will defend his abhorrent acts, particularly from terrorism to stalking to assassination attempts to racism to even harassment (including having the audacity to say it completely justified and warranted). Like many horrors in the game, People like him can actually exist in real life, mostly notable, "Marvel Fans" on social media like Andrew Tate, Nerdrotic, Geek & Gamers and few others launched hate campaigns, targeting MCU actresses like Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) and Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch) on their gender and religion just for clout and ad revenue.
*Recused from The Scrappy Heap: G'iah, Cassie Lang and Riri Williams were better received than the respective projects they were introduced (In Cassie and G'iah's case, since Riri is pretty much reviled by the fandom in general for her behavior in Wakanda Forever) from for being useful and helpful to the Young Avengers.
**Reviled villains like M.O.D.O.K. and Dar-Benn are improved.
*Shout-Out: One of Ty and Samantha's nicknames given to them are Luke and Lyla, the main brother and sister duo from Lyla in the Loop (which has the people who worked on Lyla in the Loop as the main writers/producers).
**Plushies of Stu can be seen in Coney Island and few places.
**A statue of Lydia holding a younger Luke with big poofy hair and standing next to a younger Lyla can be seen in the 80s' museum level.
**Adam and Riri's sleepwear resemble Lyla and Luke' pajamas.
**The Technovore's malfunctioning noises sound eerily familiar to Lyla's crying in the episodes, "Lyla Out Of The Loop" and "Uh-Oh".
**Moving away from some Lyla in The Loop nods, one of Battlestar and Punisher's signature move of getting too close to an enemy and splitting the opponent's hand in half is a nod to Extraction 2 where Tyler Rake (portrayed by MCU alumni, Chris Hemsworth) did the exact same thing to a prisioner during his extraction mission.
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*Periphey Demographic: Despite being a game for younger kids, It's gained a massive following from grown adult and teen side of MCU fanbase for its mature storytelling, intriguing gameplay, great humor, wide array of playable characters and genuine critiques of politics considering both Trump and Elon became infamous in the 2020s.
*Sweet Dreams Fuel: TBA
*Spiritual Successor: With the younger side of Marvel' heroes fighting a villainous yet legitimate governmental organization, This is the closest thing we ever get to MCU's adaption of both Dark Reign and Outlawed. 
**It could work as a modern Spy Kids video-game adaptation.
**The 1970s Avengers DLC is the closest thing we get to an kid-friendly (lightly) adaption of James Gunn's The Suicide Squad film with a superpowered team fighting a mad scientist and a giant creature.
**It also seen as of what Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League should've been if done correctly in the everything department under the right hands.
**It's basically The Spectacular Spider-Man meets The Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes crossover if it was made into a video game.
*Win Back the Crowd: The Young Avengers Initiative brings back what everyone love about Traveller's Tales/TT Games and succeed what Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League fails to have: better traversal system, tolerable humor. consistent tone, great plot with a sizeable amount of skates, wide array of playable characters, optional states and locations you can visit, better characterizations and overall being a better game with heart in general.
*Older That They Think: This isn't the first time that Spider-Man is in a team of superheroes.
*What Does It Mean, It's For Kids: The game is considered to be the most mature game that TT Games ever produced despite being a kids game, tackling some pretty heavy subject matter (like propaganda, corruption, dictatorship, sexism, incelibacy, expectations and prejudice) having body horror and regular cussing, In the 1970s Avengers DLC, they give the middle finger to the censors and decides to put things like extreme body horror (High Evolutionary's Hellspawn for example), more mature themes (such as capitalism, grief and war-profit), mild swearing (like *ss, s**t and c**p for example) and sexual innuendos and Midnight Sons DLC is one of the more creatively graphic fights scenes, and remember, this is from the same people who made and wrote Lyla in The Loop and its episodes (a pre-school show for PBS Kids).
*What Does It Mean, It's Not Political: Ross's time as President and his terrible decision-making resembles what could happen if Trump's Project 2025 plan went through (and his supporters, including HulkKing are obviously parodies of Trump supporters) while The High Evolutionary is clearly a jab at Elon Musk's plans for the future.
*Unexpected Character: Nobody expected (pleasantly) Odin Borson and The Ancient One to be playable characters in the 1970s DLC.
**Seeing Captain America (Sam Wilson) in the game is unexpected.
**MCU versions of Adam Warlock, Werewolf by Night, Mar-Vell/Captain Marvel, Melina Vostokoff/Black Widow, Elsa Bloodstone, Joaquin Torres/Falcon, Howard Stark/Iron Man and more as playable are pleasant surprising, but the most surprising is Isaiah Bradley as Battlestar.
***Seeing The Punisher, a Marvel character associated with TV-MA content in a rated E-10 game is an unusual sight, it's not his first time.
**Seeing Brad Davis becoming the Molten Man is highly unexpected.
**Having Robert Downey Jr. back in the MCU right before his portrayal as Dr. Doom in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, even when he's not Tony Stark is certainly a heartwarming sight to behold.
**The guest characters are: Jake Long, David Xanatos, Ron Stopabble and Caesar.
***The special guests' spiritual advisor is none other than Luke Loops.
**Dave Peth, Fracaswell Hyman and Huy Tran, the people who worked on Lyla in the Loop (the game references the most), let alone a modern PBS Kids show for preschoolers being involved in a MCU project is certainly out-of-field, even for the franchise's standards.
***In the prototype logo, Lyla, Stu and Luke (from their aforementioned PBS Kids show) are present in the TT Games logo ala Illumination Entertainment did with the Minions.
*Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Young Avengers (especially Joaquin) are meant to be look at a negative light, but they mean well aside from getting into a little trouble from time to time.
*Unintentionally Unsympathetic: HulkKing, Damage Control and the politicians are meant to be in a right for banning all crime-fighting and heroes for all of the damage they caused (though understandably), but ends up being much more hard to root for a group where they go after the young superhero team for doing what is right and give them grief and in Todd Phelps' case, scarring female members for 2 months.
*Visual Effects of Awesome: The art-style for What If...? already gained some positive reception but the crew at TT Games with addition help from 10:10 Games has made some visual improvements (in the details of the clothing, technology and powers, character designs, facial expressions and the fluid animation, even the settings and water are almost looking photo-realistic) and it make people realize that this is the same video game studio that made the beloved Lego games from their childhood, most compared the visuals and graphics to Red Dead Redemption 2.
**The Technovore is a creatively well-done monster through stop-motion and blends wonderfully with the characters and the setting.
*Values Resonance: The Avengers (both Young and 1970s) were fighting against fascism, corruption, propaganda and capitalism, and the politicians/billionaires (minus President Sam Wilson/Captain America, Howard Stark, now redeemed and a few others) were portrayed as villainous, money-grabbing scums. They're the reason why they're called Earth's Mightiest Heroes for a good reason.
**Incel-like characters like Todd Phelps are rightfully portrayed as individuals that need to be treated as a serious threat to everyone and their livelihoods considering how Andrew Tate became extremely infamous for his worst crimes against his victims.
**The Avengers (both 1970s and Young) are depicted as genuinely, positive friend groups, which is a rare feat in any form of media (considering how Penny's friend group from The Proud Family franchise is considered to be extremely toxic).
Category:Tropes
Category:YMMV