Today, we look at the way that Marvel has explained how Hulkling, who was conceived during the Kree/Skrull War storyline, is somehow already a teenager.
This is "Provide Some Answers," which is a feature where long unresolved plot points are eventually resolved.
Just recently, I talked about how there still is no explanation for how two members of the Young Avengers, Wiccan and Speed, are teenagers when their mother, Scarlet Witch, sure did not give birth to them over a decade ago. However, there actually IS an explanation for the same problem with one of their teammates, Wiccan's husband, Hulkling.
WHO IS HULKLING?
Introduced in 2005, the Young Avengers were a team of young superheroes who each supposedly had some connection to an established Avenger and thus, when the Avengers were "disassembled," a protocol was put out to find the next generation of Avengers, a protocol started by Iron Lad, who was Kang the Conqueror as a teenager, trying to outrun his destiny to become a supervillain.
One of the members was Teddy Altman, who appeared to just be a teen version of the Hulk. However, he revealed that he technically did not actually have the Hulk's super-strength. This was because, as revealed in Young Avengers #4 (by Allan Heindberg, Jimmy Cheung, John Dell, Drew Geraci and Justin Ponsor), Hulkling was actually a shapeshifter who just gave the IMPRESSION that he would "Hulk out"...
That was in keeping with the original hook of the Young Avengers, where none of the first four members were actually who they said they were (Asgardian was actually the magician, Wiccan, Hulkling was a shapeshifter, Patriot was using Mutant Growth Hormone to give himself powers he claimed came from the Super-Soldier Serum and Iron Lad was, of course, Kang). However, that was his new status quo...for a few issues.
WHO ARE HULKLING'S PARENTS?
In Young Avengers #9 (by Heinberg, Cheung, Dave Meikis, Dell and Ponsor), Hulkling's whole life was thrown out of whack when he was attacked by the Super-Skrull, who claimed that Hulkling was a Skrull. They went to Hulkling's home and it was revealed that his mother WAS, in fact, a Skrull!
However, the Super-Skrull quickly reveals that Teddy's "mother" was not his biological mother. This was revealed AFTER the Super-Skrull then accidentally kills Teddy's mom!
In the next issue (by Heinberg, Cheung, Rob Stull, Meikis, Dexter Vines and Ponsor), the Super-Skrull gives Teddy the lowdown on his heritage, that he is the son of the Skrull princess Anelle.
The Skrull warrior is evasive on who Hulkling's father is, though, but the reason is made clear very soon when a group of Kree warriors attack and it is revealed in Young Avengers #11 (by Heinberg, Cheung, John Livesay, Jay Leisten, Meikis, Matt Ryan, Jaime Mendoza and Ponsor) that Hulkling's father was the Kree legend, Mar-Vell, who was known on Earth as the superhero, Captain Marvel (this occurred during the Kree/Skrull War, when Mar-Vell was a captive of the Skrulls along with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver)...
Okay, so wait, Hulkling was conceived during the Kree/Skrull War? Marvel continuity is obviously a bit complex, but there's no way that the current continuity allowed for the Kree/Skrull War to have taken place so long ago that a baby conceived during it would already be a teenager, right? So what was the deal?
HOW IS HULKLKING A TEENAGER ALREADY?
Like the whole Wiccan/Speed problem, the answer for years was to just avoid answering it and just pretend that it wasn't a huge issue. Hulkling, at least, didn't have the added confusion of souls being mixed into the mess like the Speed/Wiccan situation, but it was still a tough thing to understand, since the Kree/Skrull War just couldn't have been THAT long ago in Marvel history.
Finally, though, the answer was revealed in Lords of Empyre: Emperor Hulkling #1 (by Chip Zdarsky, Anthony Oliveira, Manuel Garcia, Cam Smith and Triona Farrell). In a flashback, we see the destruction of the Skrull homeworld by Galactus. Among the people who were killed in that attack was Anelle herself and before she dies, she reflects back on her lost child and she reveals that in order to properly protect her baby (who, due to its mixed Skrull/Kree heritage, was quite a big deal), she had one of her handmaidens take him and hide (the handmaiden took on the human identity of Teddy Altman's mother) and as an added piece of protection, they actually traveled to Earth in the PAST through time travel technology I had no idea the Skrulls had...
So there ya go, Teddy is a teenager already because he traveled to Earth in the past as a baby. Not a bad solution at all!
Hulkling's dual heritage was later used in Empyre as the basis for placing him as the king of basically both the Skrulls and the Kree and, in effect, the emperor of the universe, which was the end result of that storyline (which also involved Hulkling marrying his longtime boyfriend and teammate, Wiccan). This sure beats having to put a three-year old on the throne, which is what they would have had to do if there were no time travel shenanigans involved.
You do have to wonder why the Skrulls didn't use their time travel technology to, you know, avoid being killed by Galactus when the homeworld was destroyed. Or perhaps we'll see some more Skrulls pop up as time travelers in the future?
If anyone else has a suggestion for a comic book plot that got resolved after a few years (I tend to use two years as the minimum, as otherwise, you're probably just in the middle of the actual initial reveal of the storyline, ya know? But I'll allow exceptions where a new writer takes over a storyline and has to resolve the previous writer's unresolved plots), drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!