Wiccan & Speed

Billy Kaplan (aka Wiccan), is spending time with his Young Avengers teammate and boyfriend Teddy Altman (aka Hulkling). He tells Ted about a recurring nightmare he has. In it, he is celebrating his 8th birthday and the Avengers are guests at the party. Its here that he meets his real mother, the Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff). Each dream is slightly different, but one of the other Avengers usually comments about how quickly Billy is growing up and how he’ll be a lady killer. In response, Wanda would say the credit isn’t hers, saying that Billy has his father’s eyes. That’s when the demon Mephisto would appear and grab the boy. Billy always wakes up from these dreams with a deep sense of dread.

The dreams have gotten worse since the war,[1] and Billy is now feeling pressure to find the Scarlet Witch. Not only to confirm if he is her son after all, but perhaps prevent Wanda from going off the deep end again like she has in the past.[2] That’s when Speed (Tommy Shepherd) arrives to help Billy in his quest. Teddy wants to join them, but Bill needs him to stay and use his shapeshifting powers to pose as him so his mother doesn’t know he has gone out and is using his powers.[3] With Teddy up to speed, the two identical boys head to their first destination, Genosha.

The first place they stop is the last spot that Wanda was publicly seen, the ruined city of Genosha.[4] When Tommy brings up his issues with Billy being in a relationship with a Skrull,[5] Wiccan tells him he’s not getting into it and for him to show respect to the people who died here. After a moment of silence, Billy suggests they split up to search the island. However, Speed already checked the entire place out while Wiccan was on his way and the place is deserted. They next go to the nation of Transia, the place where Wanda was born and also turn up nothing.[6] That’s when Billy suggests they go to the place he wanted to go in the first place, somewhere they could have taken a bus.

He then teleports himself and Speed to an abandoned suburban home in New Jersey. This is the home where the Scarlet Witch lived for a time with her then husband the Vision.[7] The place looks like it hasn’t been lived in for years, but they spot a silhouette through one of the upstairs curtain and they think it might be the Scarlet Witch. When Speed tries to race inside to meet her, he suddenly vanishes in a crack of lightning. Tommy then finds himself in what appears to be Hell.

Billy figured it was a trap, after casting a spell of protection, enters the building freely. Inside he comes face-to-face with the evil sorcerer known as Master Pandemonium (Martin Preseton). Summoning a mystic staff, he prepares to do battle as Pandemonium begins summoning demons from the sleeves of his cloak. When Preston is struck by one of Billy’s mystical bolts he recognizes the magic and tells the boy to cease fighting. Billy is forced to comply and is told that his magics are identical to those used by the Scarlet Witch. He didn’t realize that the two intruders were twins and could not have suspected they still existed. He then teleports himself and Wiccan to Hell to be reunited with Speed just long enough to bring him back to the earthly realm.

This is when Pandemonium explains what he knows. He goes over how the Scarlet Witch’s children were created of magic. At the time he collected their souls thinking they were part of his own, only to learn that he was actually assembling the soul fragments of the demon Mephisto.[8] Realizing the horrible thing he had done, Martin eventually sought to find peace and solitude by squatting in Wanda’s old house. The only thing he can add is that the two boys before him come from a past of darkness and chaos and that they best embrace it. Since Master Pandemonium isn’t doing anything but wallowing in his own past, Wiccan decides it is best to live and let live and the two boys take a bus back to New York. Even though their search has come up empty handed, Billy believes that their true mother is out there somewhere and that, for now, is enough for him.

When Billy finally returns home it is late at night and he finds Teddy sleeping in his bed. He wakes him up and tells him how things went. Even though they didn’t find Wanda, he had time to bond with his alleged brother and it turns out he kind of likes it. Even though his past is a mystery and his future unknown, in this moment Billy feels alive in the moment and that’s the real magic.

Recurring Characters

Young Avengers (Wiccan, Speed, Hulkling), Master Pandemonium, Rebecca Kaplan

Continuity Notes

1. Billy is referring to the then recent superhero civil war. See Civil War #1-7 for the core story.

2. Billy (and Tommy)’s relationship with the Scarlet Witch is complicated. Here are the details:

   • In Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3, Wanda used her magic to impregnate herself. In issue #12 of that series she gave birth to twin boys she named Billy and Tommy.

   • Later, the children were stolen by Master Pandemonium, who was on a mission to collect the soul fragments of Mephisto. He alleged that the boys were fragments of these souls and when he gathered them, the twins ceased to exist and over time, Wanda eventually forgot about them. See Avengers West Coast #52.

   • Years later, Wanda went mad after she was reminded that she had children. She then went on a rampage that kills some of her fellow Avengers, destroyed their mansion, and led to the team disbanding. See Avengers #500-503 and Avengers: Finale #1.

   • Not long after that, the Scarlet Witch has gone missing after she altered reality briefly in House of M #1-8. Readers at the time have learned that she is currently living in her native Transia with no memory of who she was, as seen in New Avengers #26.

   • Billy and Tommy learned of the possibility that they are the reincarnations of the Maximoff twins in Young Avengers #11. This will ultimately be confirmed in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #6.

3. As we learned in Young Avengers Presents #1, Billy’s mother has been keeping a close eye on her son because he continues to be an unregistered superhuman. She has forbidden him from using his powers unless he joins the Initiative, a special training camp to train young superhumans to be registered government agents that opened its doors in Avengers: The Initiative #1.

4. Genosha was once a thriving mutant nation until it was annihilated by Sentinels in New X-Men #115. At the time of this story, everyone believed that the Scarlet Witch was a mutant since her first appearance in X-Men #4. It’s later revealed that she is not in Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5. The truth is that she was experimented upon by the High Evolutionary while still a baby. In order to cover up his work, he made it so she (and her brother Pietro, aka Quicksilver) would register as mutants if anyone examined their DNA.

5. Teddy is actually half Skrull. In Young Avengers #9-12 we learned that Altman is the son of Skrull Princess Anelle and the Kree Captain Marvel.

6. That Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch grew up in Transia was first depicted in Avengers #31 (although the place wasn’t given a name until issue #36 of that series).

7. Seeking a normal life, the Vision and the Scarlet Witch moved to New Jersey in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #1. They remained living there until they rejoined the Avengers and relocated to California in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #43. This was also the home where Tommy and Billy Maximoff first lived, as per Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #12.

8. This would have been in Avengers West Coast #52. But there is more to the story. See, at the time, Mephisto’s soul was shattered into pieces by Franklin Richards in Fantastic Four #277 (or at least that’s what he told everyone, he is the Lord of Lies after all). He transformed Preston (a washed out actor and studio exec) after an automobile accident under the false pretense that he was collecting the fragments of his own soul back in West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #9.

Errors

• In this story, Wiccan states that the Vision and Scarlet Witch lived in Creskill, New Jersey. This is incorrect per the Vision and Scarlet Witch limited series, which identify that they lived in Leona. The two towns are only six miles apart, so it’s not a massive difference. One could assume that Wiccan was merely mistaken and even if he got the name of the city wrong, his spell knew where he actually meant. It’s magic after all.

Topical References

• When thinking about Wundagore Mountain, he comments that if Harry Potter had a vacation destination it would be here. Harry Potter is the titular character of a series of books published by author (and infamous TERF) J.K. Rowling that began publication in 1997. At the time this comic was published the series was at the height of its popularity. It has fallen out of favor, particularly due to Rowling’s anti-trans statements in recent years. That said, this should be considered a topical reference as you could likely (or will) find a more contemporary example to use here.

• Master Pandemonium is depicted watching his old movies on a CRT television using a VCR and VHS tapes. This should be considered a topical reference as this has long since become an obsolete technology.