Did Agatha All Along Just Tease a New Avenger?

The trailer for Agatha All Along has finally hit the web and is teasing a witchy good time for the upcoming Halloween season. Arriving three years after WandaVision, Agatha All Along is the closest thing to a second season for the Emmy-nominated Marvel Cinematic Universe series. It sees Kathryn Hahn reprise her role as Agatha Harkness in a story that finds herself breaking free from Wanda Maximoff’s spell and looking to regain her powers by assembling a team of witches.

Agatha All Along is one of a few MCU titles for 2024, following Echo back in January and Deadpool & Wolverine set for July 26, 2024. While many are wondering what comes next for the MCU’s larger story following the firing of Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty being reworked into Avengers 5, and the numerous delays to Blade. Agatha All Along might, on the surface, seem like an odd detour for fans wanting to get onto the larger narrative. Still, the trailer might have just revealed a new Avenger while teasing future MCU projects, one that Marvel has been hinting at since the start of the Multiverse Saga.

Joe Locke Is Playing an Older Billy Maximoff/Wiccan

Joe Locke, best known for playing Charlie Spring in Netflix’s Heartstopper, has been cast in Agatha All Along since November 2022. Since his casting, fans had been speculating he would be playing an older version of Billy Maximoff, one of Wanda Maximoff’s sons from WandaVision, who Julian Hilliard previously played in both WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Given that WandaVision‘s Jac Schaeffer created Agatha All Along, it only seemed logical that Locke, whose character is described as a “gay teen with a dark sense of humor,” would be the adult version of Billy Maximoff who in the comics grows up to be the superhero Wiccan, one of Marvel’s most prominent gay characters.

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Wiccan debuted in Young Avengers #1 in April 2005 and was created by writer Allan Heinberg and artist Jim Cheung. Named Billy Kaplan, he was modeled initially to be the Thor stand-in for The Young Avengers and even went by the code name Asgardian. Over time, it was soon revealed that he and the character Speed were the reincarnations of the Scarlet Witch and Vision’s sons, with Billy being William Maximoff.

Some of his most famous storylines revolve around the search for his mother, culminating in The Young Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, and his relationship and eventually marriage to his teammate, Hulkling. Wiccan is the child of one of the most famous Avengers and a powerful magical user in his own right, so it makes sense that Marvel Television would introduce him in a magic-heavy show like Agatha All Along.

Agatha All Along Might Be Setting up The Young Avengers

The inclusion of Joe Locke as Billy Kaplan suggests that Agatha All Along will adapt much of Wiccan’s origin story from The Young Avengers comics, including the discovery of his relationship to The Scarlet Witch, learning he is the reincarnation of Billy Maximoff, and also how he first discovers his magical abilities. A more mature version of Billy also further ties into Marvel’s attempts to build up The Young Avengers.

The Young Avengers were created in 2005 as a group of teen superheroes modeled after The Avengers following the Avengers: Dissembled storyline. With no official Avengers team active in the MCU, Marvel is following the comics pattern and laying the groundwork for The Young Avengers to step into the spotlight. The first tease came all the way back in 2015 when Ant-Man introduced a young Cassie Lang, who, in the comics, is one of the founding members of the team and has gone by the name Stature and Stinger.

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With Phase 4, the MCU has started to fill up with teenage superheroes related to The Young Avengers. Billy and Tommy were first shown as kids in WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, with the teenage Eli Bradley/Patriot (Elijah Richardson) being shown in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and is rumored to be in Captain America: Brave New World. Hailee Steinfeld was then cast as Kate Bishop for Hawkeye. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness also introduced America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), while Cassie Lang finally suited up in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, played by Kathryn Newton. Other young heroes not part of the Young Avengers in the comics but could be in the MCU include Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), Ironheart (Dominique Thorne), and Hulk’s son Skaar (Wil Deusner).

After years of teasing, the plotline finally seemed to come into play in 2023’s The Marvels. The movie ended with Ms. Marvel recruiting Kate Bishop for a team of her own and hinting that she would recruit Cassie Lang. This means there is a good chance that Joe Locke will suit up as Wiccan by the end of Agatha All Along and will either seek out or be approached by Ms. Marvel to join the Young Avengers. What could The Young Avengers’ big task be? Agatha All Along‘s trailer might have spelled it out with the possible return of the Scarlet Witch.

The Return of the Scarlet Witch

The Agatha All Along trailer begins in WandaVision fashion, dropping the lead character into a television genre with Agatha inhabiting the world of a True Detective or Under the Bridge-type crime mystery. The mysterious body that is found is none other than Wanda Maximoff. While not shown, the trailer not only reveals the name on the body being identified in the morgue as W. Maximoff, but the clothes the dead body is wearing are almost identical to the clothes worn by the Earth-838 variant of Wanda Maximoff from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Since the controversial decision to make Scarlet Witch the villain in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, fans have clamored for her return to give the character redemption. Agatha All Along draws heavily from concepts in the Scarlet Witch comics, particularly Scarlet Witch Vol. 2 from 2015 to 2017 by James Robinson, which included the interdimensional plane of existence called the Witch’s Road seen in the Agatha All Along trailer.

If Agatha All Along is pulling from Scarlet Witch comics and also includes Wiccan, there is a good chance that the series might also be setting up the Young Avengers project. The most famous Young Avengers story is The Children’s Crusade, which focuses on the Young Avengers locating the Scarlet Witch, who has amnesia and is set to marry Doctor Doom. Now that fans know that The Fantastic Four is set in another reality of the MCU multiverse, this could mean Young Avengers is a multiverse movie where the team looks for Wanda Maximoff across the multiverse and finds her with Doctor Doom.

Be it in a movie or a Disney+ series, The Young Avengers is coming soon to the MCU and could be announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2024. Agatha All Along might be a key series in setting the story up and could be a vital part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s larger plans for the franchise. All will be revealed when Agatha All Along debuts on Disney+ for a two-episode premiere on September 18, 2024.