10 Wiccan Comics For ‘Agatha All Along’ Fans to Read

The story of Billy Kaplan begins with the story of Billy Maximoff… sort of. When the synthazoid (fancy made-up word for android) Vision joined the Avengers, he and the Scarlet Witch Wanda Maximoff formed a special bond. That bond led to the heroes’s marriage and the birth of their twin sons, Billy and Tommy, as depicted in 1986’s Vision and the Scarlet Witch #12.

How, exactly, can a synthazoid father children? Marvel doesn’t bother to answer that question at first. But when the incredibly talented but incredibly problematic John Byrne started writing Wanda in Avengers West Coast, he began a sadly frequent story trope about her being too powerful and susceptible to madness. The first incident to insight that madness occurred in Avengers West Coast #51-52, in which the Z-grade villain Master Pandimonium reveals that Wanda inadvertently created the twins from shards of the soul of Mephisto, Marvel’s devil. Master Pandimonium absorbs the twins, effectively killing them, and driving Wanda mad.

A bit sexist? Yes. But the story does give us the image of Pandimonium with the babies at the end of his hands.

So how does Billy Maximoff become Billy Kaplan? That’s a long story, one that gets partially told in the wonderful and convoluted Young Avengers, written by Allan Heinberg and penciled by Jim Cheung. The Young Avengers debut right after the Avengers: Disassembled storyline, in which the Avengers get destroyed by… Wanda Maximoff (I told you, this happens a lot). With the Avengers gone, a group of teen heroes based on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes appear, including Iron Lad, Patriot, Hulkling, and Asgardian.

Through a series of time-travel shenanigans, we learn that Iron Lad is in fact an adolescent Nathaniel Richards (don’t get hung up on the name, we don’t have time to get into it), who will grow up to become the baddy Kang the Conqueror. With no Avengers to stop Kang, the younger and more virtuous version puts together his own team, which includes Billy Kaplan as the Thor-based Asgardian. By the end of the story, Billy takes the name Wiccan, which only starts a strange journey of self-discovery.

The second major arc of Young Avengers fleshes out the family relations of the team, which adds to the line-up Ant-Man’s daughter Cassie aka Stature, and reveals that Patriot is the grandson of Elijah Bradley, a the unofficial first Captain America. For Wiccan, that exploration includes finding Tommy Shepherd.

Even though he has different biological parents, Tommy looks almost exactly like Billy. Furthermore, where Tommy differs from Billy, namely his white hair and super-speed abilities, he matches Wanda’s twin Pietro Maximoff, aka Quicksilver. “Family Matters” further builds up Billy’s ties to the Maximoff family, even if the comic isn’t ready to commit yet.

Even if mainline Marvel wasn’t ready to commit to the connection between Wiccan and the Scarlet Witch, the Avengers weren’t going to wait around. Still reeling from Wanda’s betrayal, Captain America and Iron Man take notice of Wiccan’s reality-warping powers getting out of hand, and go to bring him in.

The fight between the Avengers and the Young Avengers drives The Children’s Crusade. The brainchild of Young Avengers creator Heinberg and Cheung, the storyline doesn’t reflect well on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, who come off as reactionary and uncaring about their former teammate. But the storyline captures the rebellious spirit of Billy and his team, all while solidifying the connection between Billy Kaplan, Tommy Shepherd, and Billy and Tommy Maximoff. Also, Doctor Doom shows up, which is always a good time.

Coming out of The Children’s Crusade, writer Kieron Gillen and artists Jamie McKelvie and Mike Norton launch a new volume of Young Avengers, one with a more upbeat pop art sensibility. In addition to adding a new set of young heroes, including a (slightly) more trustworthy teenaged Loki and the very powerful and very irritable America Chavez, the Young Avengers 2.0 features a more confident and settled Wiccan.

With his identity issues settled, Billy is able to enjoy his life with his brother Tommy (who now goes by Speed) and his romance with his boyfriend Hulkling, aka Teddy Altman. The more mature and grounded Billy makes for a natural mentor for the new young heroes, and fans will appreciate the more upbeat nature of Gillen, McKelvie, and Norton’s take on the characters.

Like the Teen Titans and Justice League over at DC, the Young Avengers often operate as the JV club to the big show. The New Avengers aren’t exactly the same thing as the hallowed team that includes Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. But they are proper Avengers, which makes Wiccan’s inclusion—alongside Hulkling, White Tiger, Power Man, and other young adults—something of a graduation.

Written by Al Ewing, one of the best and most inventive creators in modern comics, and illustrated by Gerardo Sandoval, New Avengers follows a team put together by the super-rich mutant (and former X-Force member) Sunspot. Sunspot recruits Clint Barton aka Hawkeye to be the responsible adult, which threatens to make Wiccan a kid again. But given Billy’s natural sense of responsibility and Clint’s natural lack of responsibility, Wiccan soon proves to be the real leader of the New Avengers.

It’s sort of fitting that Billy gets to lead his own Avengers alongside three other misfits, dubbed Wiccan’s Kooky Quartet. After all, comic book fans know that Billy’s mother Wanda and Uncle Pietro first joined the Avengers when all the original members save for Captain America (who isn’t quite original, but close enough) quit. To fill the ranks, Cap recruited reformed villains Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Hawkeye, earning the title Cap’s Kooky Quartet.

In New Avengers #8, by Ewing and Sandoval, Wiccan forms his own team of New Avengers, along with Hulkling, Squirrel Girl, and eventually original Kooky Quartet member Hawkeye. The story occurs alongside a lesser Marvel crossover called Standoff!, which involves a secret black site that may or may not be connected to the Avengers, which dulls some of the excitement. But even with that caveat, the New Kooky Quartet shows off Billy’s leadership skills.

In Agatha All Along, Billy has a relationship with a sweet kid called Eddie. We don’t know much about him, but comic readers cannot help but hope that Eddie is Teddy Altman, the founding Young Avenger known as Hulkling. Initially introduced as a kid version of the Hulk, Hulkling is in fact the son of shape-shifting Skrull princess Anelle and the first Kree warrior known as Captain Marvel. Even movie watchers who don’t know about the first, male Captain Marvel know that the Kree and Skrulls hate one another, which explains why Anelle hid her son on Earth after the death of his father.

Thus, it’s not gamma radiation but Kree powers and Skrull shapeshifting that allow Teddy to become the Hulkling. In the crossover story Empyre, it’s those same qualities that force Teddy to take the throne of a newly combined Kree/Skrull empire. Teddy may now go by Emperor Dorrek-Vell, but he’s still the man that Billy loves. And that’s why, in the middle of the galactic battle depicted in Empyre, the couple have a secret wedding, pledging themselves to one another forever.

Anyone who saw Venom: The Last Dance knows about Knull, the god of the symbiotes who comes to reclaim Venom from Eddie. Even though Knull recently got his big screen debut, he’s a relatively recent character, who’s really only had one story—the 2021 crossover “King in Black.” “King in Black” is basically the same plot as the third Venom film, in which Knull comes to Earth to claim his symbiotes, taking over lots of Marvel heroes and villains in the process.

To be clear, “King in Black: Wiccan and Hulkling” is a very tenuous tie-in, the very issue that anyone who wants a single coherent story should skip while reading King in Black. That said, it’s also delightful. Written by Tini Howard and illustrated by Luciano Vecchio, the story is a (mostly) stand alone tale in which the couple’s belated honeymoon gets further delayed by an invasion of Knull’s symbiotes. It’s a nice bit of character work, which elevates it beyond a dumb cash-in.

Billy and Teddy have come a long, long way. The two felt like outcasts when they met as a pair of queer high schoolers. But now they lead a galactic empire and go on deep space adventures, including run-ins with Doctor Strange villain Dormammu, who threatens to conquer multiple planets in the crossover The Last Annihilation.

The Last Annihilation recognizes that duality. The one-shot Last Annihilation: Wiccan & Hulkling by writer Anthony Oliveira and artist Jan Bazaldua splits its time between an A-story with Hulkling as the emperor of the Kree/Skrull alliance and Wiccan as a Doctor Strange-level wizard and a B-story with Billy and Teddy finding one another as teens. The story shows off superhero storytelling at its best, at once high-concept and character driven.