Where have the youth gone? Here’s why Marvel TV needs more teen heroes
By Sabrina Reed
Marvel’s Runaways and Cloak and Dagger were canceled this year, leaving a teen-sized representation hole in Marvel’s live-action TV universe.
Marvel’s Runaways took its final bow on December 13, and while fans are still making their way through the season, they’re also having to contend with saying goodbye to this delightful band of teens saving themselves and Los Angeles one battle at a time. Season 3 of Runaways is also the last time we’ll see Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson from Cloak and Dagger. And with their exit, Marvel will be closing its shutters on the live-action TV teen hero brand until Ms. Marvel embiggens on the small screen for Disney Plus subscribers.
Diversity and inclusion, along with the importance of representation, has been the clarion call for decades across media formats. The call has grown louder and louder the further we’ve moved into the 21st century — and with encouraging results. But in the realm of live-action superheroes, representation has been light in regards to teen champions of justice.
To be fair to Marvel, they have done a better job than DC in recent years. Runaways and Cloak and Dagger are shows led by their teen characters. DC had Gotham, but in its earlier seasons, more time was spent with its adult characters than young Bruce. And while things began to shift as David Mazouz aged, that show is known more for Jim Gordon and its cast of villains.
Titans is currently airing, but again, the focus is primarily on the adult heroes — hence the lack of “teen” in the title despite the source material. Black Lightning has done the best job with teen hero Jen (aka Lightning), having real weight and presence in the narrative, but it’s still her father’s show. And come Spring 2020, DC TV will have a teen-fronted series by the name of Stargirl but that’s one show. Marvel had two, and they canceled them both.
When we talk about diversity and inclusion, that conversation also has to happen with an awareness about age. In the case of the current live-action superhero TV landscape, I’m specifically talking about adolescence and the importance of teens seeing themselves, their relationships, and their struggles represented on television by actors who don’t look like late 20-somethings playing 15 year olds.
Cloak and Dagger dealt with loss, police corruption, abuse, racism, trauma, and human trafficking whilst still giving Tandy and Ty space to deal with issues concerning friendship, romance, and family. The characters were world-wise and booksmart. They navigated their lives with an awareness toward their upbringing, for better or for worse, and they were teenagers dealing with their circumstances the best they could with the cards they had.
Runaways is a teen ensemble featuring black, Asian, latinx, LGBTQ+, and mentally ill leads. It’s main romance is between Nico Minoru and Karolina Dean, a bisexual and a lesbian whose storylines don’t revolve entirely around their sexual orientations. The show’s premise encapsulates the struggle between personal identity and the chokehold of legacy in the face of the atrocities committed by one’s parents.
Important work was being done with these shows, and teens were at the center of it. Now, without them, Marvel has left a hole in its universe. Yes, Ms. Marvel is on its way, and having a Pakistani-American Muslim girl from Jersey who’s obsessed with superheroes and ends up becoming one herself is just as important. But why do we have to live in a timeline where all three of these shows aren’t airing concurrently? If the point is diversity and the goal is inclusion, then Marvel should be committed to offering rich, diverse, topical, and fun TV programs for teens, too — and not just one story at a time.
There’s room for more than one or two live-action teen-led superhero shows in the Marvel TV universe. And teen viewers deserve to see representation of their age demographic front and center and in command of their own narratives. Why should the adults have all the fun? It’s not like adult fans of superheroes aren’t going to tune into teen shows, too. We were all teens once, and some of these characters captured our young minds and inspired us as well. I know the original comics run of Runaways did that for me. It stands to reason the live-action adaptations of these beloved characters did the same for the teens they represented.
Hopefully Ms. Marvel is just the beginning of the rebooted Marvel TV Universe for teens. It would be unfortunate if she were the only one of her kind, especially when Runaways and Cloak and Dagger were right there with established fan bases and an audience eager to see where their next adventures took them. Connecting Kamala Khan to their worlds would have been wonderful, exciting, and fresh. Three teen-led live-action Marvel superhero shows all connected to the MCU and all portraying different walks of life for teens in America. Truly a dream. One not realized but maybe one day. Here’s hoping.
Next. Marvel's Runaways Season 3 premiere review. dark