Iron Lad



He is an adolescent version of Kang the Conqueror, armed with a bio-metal suit that responds to mental commands. He is responsible for assembling the Young Avengers. Even though being a human, his aging is slowed down, significantly.

Origins
Nathaniel Richards was a scholar born in the 30th century. Bullied as a youth, his throat was slit by a bully, Morgan, and he was hospitalized for a year. Recovering, he studied science and his ancestor's history tapes of the heroic age. Bored with the perfection of his society, Richards became fascinated with history and discovered the time travel technology created by one of his ancestors, Doctor Doom. The man who would become Kang embarked upon a life of conquest and adventure, exploring and ransacking time era after time era, under such guises as Pharaoh Rama-Tut, Kang the Conqueror, and others. He established strongholds and kingdoms across time. As Rama-Tut, he meant to claim the mutant destined to become Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur, as his heir. He was thwarted in this scheme after encountering two of his ancestors in the Fantastic Four, as well as the West Coast Avengers. By his constant time travel, he diverged countless temporal counterparts to himself, each capable of independent existence and further travel. In his various guises, Kang often came into conflict with the heroes of Earth-616, especially The Avengers.

Iron Lad
Nathaniel was rescued by his adult Kang counterpart moments before his long-term hospitalization by bullies. Kang, hoping to change a very painful moment in his life, outfitted his younger self with a suit of psychokinetic armor that responded to his thoughts and gave him a glimpse of his future as a conqueror. Horrified at the life of evil his future self described, he took the time travel technology that he was given and transported himself to the past, hoping to avoid his sinister destiny.

Upon finding the Avengers disbanded, he downloaded the remnants of the then-destroyed Vision's operating system into his armor. This revealed a fail-safe plan created by the android to reform the Avengers should they disband or fall in action. Through this plan, the young Kang assembled his new team, the Young Avengers, with the sole purpose of defeating his future self and reshaping his own future. He modeled his armor after the Avenger Iron Man, calling himself Iron Lad.

Kang came looking for Iron Lad, wanting to return his younger self to his proper place in the time-stream. He battled the teen heroes and was seemingly gaining the upper hand when Iron Lad, with tears in his eyes, ran Hawkeye's sword through Kang's chest. This killed Kang, but the ramifications caused several changes to the timeline, including all the Avengers being dead. Iron Lad realized that the only way to restore everything was to go back in time and become Kang. The Young Avengers had to wipe his mind before he went back, but before they did he asked them to forgive him for the actions he would commit in the future.

Most recently Kang ensured that Iron Lad would become a version of himself. Although believed to have been seriously wounded by a sword battling the Young Avengers, he has continued to observe their activity.

Children's Crusade
After Wiccan's powers overloaded and the Avengers decided to keep him under observation, Hawkeye and the other Young Avengers broke Wiccan out of holding and began the search for the Scarlet Witch. Accompanied by Magneto and Quicksilver, the team traveled to Transia and then to Latveria before discovering a depowered and amnesiac Wanda engaged to Doctor Doom. The rediscovery of Wanda did not go unnoticed though, as the Avengers soon arrived on the scene. A battle with Doom's Doombot army soon broken out and was only stopped by the arrival of Iron Lad.[3]

Iron Lad teleported the Young Avengers and Wanda into the timestream. They all went into the past, and met reanimated Jack of Hearts, who is explode. After that Wanda remembered who she is, regained her powers and returned herself, the Young Avengers and Scott Lang into the present.[4] She then finally confirmed that Billy and Tommy are indeed her reincarnated sons.[5]

Wanda's increased powers are revealed to be the result of her gaining a connection to the life force itself. A ritual intended to undo the Decimation was interrupted by Patriot, leading to the powers being transferred to Doctor Doom. He intended to usher the world into utopia, a utopia in which he would rule. The Avengers and X-Men teamed up to defeat him, in the process, Stature is killed by Doom, and the villain escapes after losing his powers when they overloaded.

Iron Lad proposes to save Stature through the Timestream but Vision refuses, ending with both of them battling each other, Iron Lad destroying Vision and then taking off through the timestream, even after Wiccan warned that this is the moment in time where he becomes Kang the Conqueror, but he implies he will be better than Kang himself.

Powers and Abilities
The armor Iron Lad wears is capable of energy blasts (similar to Iron Man's repulsor blasts), flight, hacking into computer systems, generating magnetic fields, time travel, as well as changing its appearance based upon Iron Lad's thoughts. Iron Lad's armor shares a lot of similarities with Iron Man's armor seeing how it was inspired by Stark's design. The suit was made by his older self that he stole in order to travel to the past, in disguise.