Young Allies is the name of threesuperhero teams appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics.
TheGolden Age's Young Allies were a gang of kids whofought theAxis. Their line-up included the two keysidekicks (Bucky Barnes andToro) of then-prominentTimely Comics heroesCaptain America and theHuman Torch.[1]
Created byJoe Simon andJack Kirby as the Sentinels of Liberty, "a multiracial group of patriotic kids",[2] the group was led byBucky Barnes (Captain America's teenage sidekick), and initially made up of his four friends: Knuckles (Percival Aloysius O'Toole), Jeff (Jefferson Worthing Sandervilt), Tubby (Henry Tinkle), and Whitewash Jones (Washington Jones).[3] The group appeared in a text feature inCaptain America #4 (June 1941), but were swiftly moved into the comic-proper to help Cap in his battles, and became popular enough to be spun into its own title.
InAmerican Comic Book Chronicles: 1940-1944, Kurt Mitchell andRoy Thomas take a negative view of the group, describing the four new characters: "Jefferson "Jeff" Sandervilt was the brainy kid, Percival Aloysius "Knuckles" O'Toole the tough kid, Henry "Tubby" Tinkle the fat kid, and (alas) Whitewash Jones the harmonica-playing, watermelon-loving, racist-caricature kid".[1]
According toJess Nevins' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes, "they primarily fight Axis agents: theRed Skull, Agent Zero, the Monk, the Black Talon, the Khan, the Owl, and so on. There are also ordinary gangsters and name criminals like the Doll-Devil, the Python, and the Mad Fiend of Horror Castle".[4]
Launched in summer 1941 after only a couple of appearances in the pages ofCaptain America, the "Sentinels of Liberty" were revised, renamed "The Young Allies" and joined by theoriginal Human Torch's sidekickToro.[5] By this time, Simon and Kirby were in the process of leaving Timely forDC Comics, and relationships were strained, so while the first issue of theYoung Allies series was pencilled by Kirby (under the shared "Charles Nicholas" pseudonym), it was written byOtto Binder. By issue #2, Kirby had left, and the art duties were taken over byAl Gabriele and formerCaptain America inker (and then penciler, in the wake of Simon and Kirby's departure)Syd Shores; art duties would change considerably over the course of the title's run. A youngStan Lee began writing with the third issue. It is not known who wrote the second, although Lee began his tenure as series editor with that issue.
The first issue saw the (mostly non-superhero) team fight Captain America's nemesis theRed Skull, and is often labelled as "the first ongoing comic to team up characters from two or more other Marvel series".[3] The team frequently traveled the world to participate inWorld War II skirmishes and, in keeping with the somewhat exaggerated scope of the series, eventually literally beat up all three major Axis leaders:Adolf Hitler,Benito Mussolini, andHideki Tojo, something that none of their elders accomplished.
Young Allies Comics lasted until issue #20 (October 1946), and also appeared inAmazing Comics,Complete Comics andKid Komics.[6] Toro and Bucky would continue to team-up briefly, "as members of theAll-Winners Squad ... [b]ut Knuckles, Jeff, Tubby and Whitewash weren't seen again".[3]
In theYoung Allies Comics 70th Anniversary Special (2009), their comic book adventures are revealed to be fictional retellings of their real exploits. Their real names are Pat O'Toole, Washington Carver Jones, Geoffrey Worthington Vandergill, and Henry Yosef Tinklebaum. The first two are still alive in the modern day.[7] With the original series,indicia title was simply "Young Allies"--"Comics" was part of the cover title for only the first two issues.
| Young Allies | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Heroes Reborn: Young Allies (January 2000) |
| Created by | Fabian Nicieza Mark Bagley |
| In-story information | |
| Member(s) | Bucky (Rikki Barnes) I.Q. Jolt Kid Colt O and K Toro |
The second group of Young Allies was founded on theHeroes Reborn world, now calledCounter-Earth, after theAvengers andFantastic Four returned home and the planet suffered several devastating blows in the wake of their leaving. While several members share codenames with their predecessors onEarth-616, they have little else in common with the prior group.
The Young Allies came into conflict with theRedeemers, a US government-backed team related to theThunderbolts, while the Redeemers were supervised by Captain America, who, due to amnesia, had forgotten his time on the other Earth with the Allies'Bucky. The conflict was caused by Allies' creation of a hoax chemical weapons scare in the "main" Earth'sLatveria in an attempt to forceDoctor Doom, the then-ruler of Counter-Earth, to distribute food and medicine more evenly. When they left, Bucky was left sore that Cap thought she would be capable of really using aWMD, causing Cap to lie to Doom that other canisters had been hidden. Later, they encountered the Thunderbolts themselves on their homeworld, while a rift was threatening to destroy both worlds. When the crisis was resolved and the Thunderbolts returned home,Jolt remained behind with the team.
Later, theExiles visited Counter-Earth to save it from Proteus, in their teammate Morph's body. At first, Proteus convinced the Young Allies to fight the Exiles. The Young Allies later figured out the truth when Proteus was enjoying torturing the Exiles. Proteus seemed to be winning, but two cosmic entities known as "O" and "K" ripped Proteus away from the Exiles, saying that they've been waiting for him. They supplied Proteus with an army of nukes. Empress Dorma and Proteus soon clashed, resulting in Proteus taking Dorma's crown, drying up Atlantis, and killing her and her soldiers. The Exiles arrived with the Young Allies at Atlantis. Proteus then launched the nukes. Luckily, Colt and Jolt stopped the nukes without detonating them. Proteus had the Exiles and the Young Allies on the ropes when he put his crown back on. Unbeknownst to him, however, Blink rigged it with a behavior modifier, causing Proteus to believe he really is Morph and being trapped in Morph's body. The Exiles then teleported back to Panoptichron and sent the last remaining nukes into space. The Young Allies then thanked the Exiles for saving their world from the nukes, Dorma, and Proteus as they left.
As part of theHeroic Age line-wide relaunch, a new team andongoing series was introduced, written bySean McKeever, with art by David Baldeon.[8][9] McKeever has said:
The idea behindYoung Allies is that it's literally a group of young allies. It's not so much a team in the conventional sense as it is a group of like-minded people of the same generation. The basic idea for the book is that they're fighting for the soul of their generation. That comes to the fore immediately with the introduction of theBastards of Evil, who are the unwanted sons and daughters of supervillains of course ...[8]
Members includeNomad,Firestar,Spider-Girl,Gravity andToro (Benito Serrano).[8][9] The series was cancelled withYoung Allies #6.[10] They become a team inOnslaught Unleashed #1. They also appear with theAvengers Academy inAvengers Academy Giant-Size #1 (80-page one-shot), at the Avengers Academy prom night inAvengers Academy #13, theFear Itself: Youth in Revolt mini-series, and the "Spider-Island" saga.
Some of the comics have been collected intoindividual volumes:
