Warning: Spoilers for Spider-Woman #9!The dark secret origin story of the Assembly, the newest team of Avengers sidekicks, has just been unveiled. The Assembly are still fairly new to the Marvel Universe, having just acquired Spider-Woman as a mentor and being dubbed as surpassing the Champions as a new young super-team. However, that bright future may be in jeopardy, as the team’s true nature has finally been revealed.

The preview for Spider-Woman #9 – written by Steve Foxe, with art by Ig Guara – suggests that the heroes of rhe Assembly were all trained by HYDRA, without any of them even knowing. The shocking truth of their origin story immediately threatens to reshape their fledgling role as a Marvel superhero team.

The shocking revelation not only changes the Assembly and its members forever, but risks giving the hero community a reason not to trust them, before they have a chance to truly earn that trust.

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Cadet Marvel Liberty and the rest of the Assembly in Spider-Woman #7

After a brief, obscured glimpse in 2024’s Web of Spider-Man #1, the Assembly first officially debuted in Spider-Woman #7, saving Spider-Woman’s life from Zzzax. The group – comprised of Cadet Marvel, Hellrune, Titan, Moon Squire, and Liberty – was presented as local San Francisco teens, all inspired by The Avengers to become superheroes. In Spider-Woman #8, each member of the team revealed how they each got their powers, but something seemed off, as member Liberty experienced sudden headaches and mysterious flashes of experimentation in her memories.

Further, the issue revealed Titan was revealed to actually be a disguised Gremlin, from the evil Echidna, HYDRA’s tech company. Now, in Spider-Woman #9, Liberty asks Jessica Drew for help in understanding what these strange flashbacks could mean – leading them to uncover the uncomfortable truth, that everything she knows about herself could be lies supplanted into her brain by HYDRA. Moving forward, readers need to be prepared for further revelations that the rest of the Assembly were experimented on in the same manner, or worse.

Marvel’s Latest Generation Of Heroes Could Be Over Before It Begins

The Assembly’s HYDRA Connection Changes Everything

A HYDRA logo, glowing in the darkness.

As promising as the Assembly seemed to be once they officially debuted, their time in Marvel’s universe may already be ending. It turns out that they may have never been primed to be Marvel’s new Champions after all, but instead, another obstacle in front of Spider-Woman as she investigates HYDRA. However, there is also a chance that the super-team becomes rebranded under a new iteration, especially if Liberty is able to recover from her PTSD. In any case, Spider-Woman’s guidance may ultimately be what helps save the modern young Avengers-inspired squad.

The Avengers 2012 Poster

The Avengers

The sixth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers is an action superhero film that sees the heroes assembled across the franchise face off with a deadly galactic threat. With the arrival of Thor’s brother, Loki, heroes such as Captain America, The Hulk, Iron Man, and Black Widow are brought together to stop him from unleashing an alien race upon earth.