William “Billy” KaplanWiccan

One of Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch, and Vision’s twins, Wiccan has wide-ranging, powerful magical abilities and may be capable of much more than his mother’s chaos magic, as he learns and expands his powers.

A Kind of Magic

The Avengers’ Vision and Scarlet Witch have twin children via Wanda’s magic. An extraordinary occurrence, considering Vision is a synthetic being and Scarlet Witch is a chaos magician. Unwittingly created from two lost souls, the twins are actually born from fragmented energies of the hell-lord Mephisto. Believing the twins are fragments of his own lost soul, evil mage Martin Preston, AKA Master Pandemonium, is manipulated by Mephisto into abducting them, but they are seemingly reabsorbed into the reconstituted Mephisto; however, the twins’ souls had been so transfigured by the Scarlet Witch’s magic that they temporarily destroyed Mephisto, and the souls are set free, believed destroyed. Despite this, the children are reincarnated as actual people.

Wiccan, born Billy Kaplan, is one of those reincarnated people.

When young, Billy Kaplan realizes he’s gay, and so takes a lot of abuse from classmates. With an encouraging word from a random encounter with the Scarlet Witch, Billy decides to stand up to his bully, John Kessler, when the next opportunity presents itself. Unluckily for him, the electrokinetic aspect of his powers manifests at that exact moment, and Kessler is nearly killed.

Billy begins to practice his magic powers in earnest, and wishes to find Wanda again, to whom he felt a special connection. Unfortunately for Billy once again, his desire to do so came right as the Avengers disbanded in disgrace, so he could not get in touch with her. Thanks to Vision, a failsafe program was put in place that gathers Billy (originally calling himself the Asgardian), Theodore “Teddy” Altman, AKA Hulkling, the time-traveling teen Nathaniel Richards, AKA Iron Lad, and Elijah Bradley, AKA Patriot, together. This new team becomes known as the Young Avengers.

Magic Man

Wiccan’s powers are extensive, unpredictable, powerful, possibly mutant, and most definitely magical. Typically, his abilities manifest as electrokinetic energy from his hands, which Wiccan can manipulate in numerous ways—both offensively and defensively. Wiccan can also teleport himself and his teammates over long distances, fly, create objects from thin air, levitate objects, project force, energy, ice, heat, and fire, and create force fields and other solid energy objects. He can also heal himself and others. His abilities seem limited only by his imagination and power of concentration, although his spells apparently do not work unless he can hear himself casting them.

Wiccan is still a young man and so is learning more and more about his powers as he practices; it is possible he will become one of the world’s most powerful sorcerers given enough time. Regardless, he is an invaluable member of the Young Avengers.

You Put a Spell On Me

One of Wiccan’s primary adversaries happens to be a fellow Young Avenger—a teenage Loki. Both are magic users, but Wiccan tries to use his powers for the good of the team and humanity, while Loki’s magic is manipulative, self-serving, and ultimately destructive. To Wiccan, Loki represents where his own powers could lead him if he doesn’t remain vigilant and careful.

The evil Mother, a parasitic being from another dimension, is also a great enemy of Wiccan. She first poses as Hulkling’s parents, and then actually brings them back under her control, with her ultimate goal of seeking to gain mastery over Wiccan and his vast powers.

Do You Believe in Magic?

Wiccan’s chief allies are the other Young Avengers, especially Teddy, also known as Hulkling, whom Wiccan dates off and on. He also befriends and fights alongside such heroes as America Chavez, AKA America, Noh-Varr, AKA Marvel Boy,  and David Alleyne, AKA Prodigy.

Wiccan’s relationship with his best friend and sometimes boyfriend Hulkling makes them an unlikely couple: an impulsive magician paired with a super-strong, yet level-headed Skrull. Their relationship survives many ups and downs, not the least of which is the suggestion from the manipulative Loki that Wiccan use his magic to keep him and Hulkling together.

Voodoo Child

Soon after the Young Avengers formed, Billy began dating Teddy, AKA Hulkling. Their relationship would be tumultuous for its entire existence. Kate Bishop, AKA Hawkeye, and Cassie Lang, AKA Stature, joined the Young Avengers soon after, and convinced Billy to change his codename to Wiccan, noting he wasn’t an actual Asgardian.

While attempting to tell his parents he was a Super Hero, Wiccan inadvertently came out as gay instead; so, though they learned about his sexuality, they never discovered his magic powers.

Soon after, the Super Skrull attempted to kidnap Hulkling, also a Skrull in disguise, leading to the death of Teddy’s mother. In the wake of this, Hulkling was captured by the Kree.

In order to rescue Hulkling, the Young Avengers recruited another member, Tommy Shepherd, AKA  Speed. Wiccan and Speed looked almost identical except for hair color, and they eventually learned they were the reincarnated twin children of the Scarlet Witch and Vision. During the first Super Hero Civil War, the Young Avengers placed themselves firmly on the side of the resistance, fighting against the Superhuman Registration Act. During one of the biggest battles of the conflict, Wiccan was tranquilized to halt his teleportation powers, and his allies had to flee without him. After Wiccan was locked up, Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, led a group that broke Billy and his fellow anti-Registration prisoners out, utilizing Hulkling’s shapeshifting ability to free even more resistance fighters. They then joined Cap’s Secret Avengers. 

In the time after the Civil War, Billy and his teammates challenged a new team calling themselves the Young Avengers. They came to a compromise by combining forces against threats like Bob Reynolds, AKA Sentry, but the new members weren’t ultimately cut out to be Avengers. They separated and would be called the Young Masters. 

Billy and the Young Avengers then became involved in the fight against the Skrull’s Secret Invasion and Norman Osborn’s Siege on Asgard. Stephen Strange, AKA Doctor Strange, also approached Billy during this period as a potential candidate to succeed him as Sorcerer Supreme. After his powers overloaded, Billy was held by the Avengers. The Young Avengers broke him out, and the team began to search for the Scarlet Witch. The team eventually located her, now amnesiac and engaged to Victor Von Doom, AKA Doctor Doom. A vicious battle with a horde of Doombots ensued, and it was only the timely arrival of Iron Lad that saved them all. After a quick trip to the past, Wanda’s memories and powers were restored.

Back in the present, the team battled Doctor Doom, who had succeeded in his goal of stealing Wanda’s powers. In the ensuing melee, Doom blasted Cassie and killed her. Iron Lad offered to jump to the past again and save Cassie, but Vision refused his offer. Iron Lad then annihilated Vision and disappeared, but not before Wiccan informed him that Iron Lad’s path to becoming his older self, Kang the Conqueror, was secured.

The Young Avengers disbanded and Wiccan fell into a state of deep depression. Hulkling proposed to him, which seemed to help, as did a ceremony where Captain America initiated all the Young Avengers as full-fledged Avengers.

The team re-formed after Wiccan accidentally brought a parasite called Mother into their dimension, posing as Teddy’s dead mother returned to life. This brought a young incarnation of Loki to the team, who was secretly manipulating both Mother and Wiccan, wanting to release Wiccan’s ultimate form, a terrifying beast called Demiurge.

To that end, Loki truly returned Teddy and Billy’s parents to life, but under the influence of Mother, then convinced Wiccan to lend his vast magic powers to Loki for ten minutes to save the day. Wiccan agreed, only for Loki to use Wiccan’s teleportation powers to flee.

Feeling guilty, Loki came back and helped the team escape Mother’s mind-controlled army, though as a consequence, Billy and Teddy couldn’t go anywhere near their resurrected parents ever again. The Young Avengers then decided to explore the universe instead, with the ultimate goal of returning and defeating Mother when they were ready.

The young mutant Prodigy joined the team during this period with a warning: Wiccan’s twin brother Speed had been kidnapped by someone who looked like Patriot. Their interdimensional chase led them to Mother’s dimension before the Young Avengers were ready, and in the ensuing chaos, Hulkling and Patriot were left behind. A massive spell cast by Billy brought in evil clones of the Young Avengers that distracted Mother and allowed their remaining teammates and the rest of the team to escape again, but Mother added the clones to her army. Wiccan quit the Young Avengers after that, convinced, through a manipulative suggestion of Loki’s, that Wiccan and Hulkling were only together because Wiccan’s magic made it so through inadvertent reality manipulation.

Mother managed to return to the Young Avengers’ dimension and threaten the world, prompting Wiccan to temporarily become his full-potential self, the Demiurge, to stop her once and for all.

It was this decision, along with reconciliation with Hulkling, that gave Wiccan the strength to destroy Mother and the army of evil clones for good.

Wiccan and Hulkling then joined the New Avengers, financed by Roberto Da Costa, AKA Sunspot, who was heading a new, altruistic spinoff of Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.). Wiccan and Hulkling learned that Hulkling was a kind of chosen one among Kree/Skrull hybrids to a secret space society called the Knights of the Infinite. Taken to the Knights of the Infinite’s castle, Wiccan and Hulkling discovered an evil wizard named Moridun and, with the help of their fellow New Avengers, drove the wizard away.

Secretly, the wizard possessed Wiccan’s subconscious, and the New Avengers learned that in the future Moridun would take over Wiccan completely and use him to destroy reality. The Avengers of the future escaped to the present day, and opposed Sunspot’s team, including Billy, who was now calling himself Demiurge and already under Moridun’s control.

It was only due to the timely influence of Hulkling that Billy was able to drive away Moridun’s consciousness, sending the future Avengers back to their own time and ending the threat.

The New Avengers team splintered and then disbanded soon after, with Sunspot giving Billy and Teddy a luxury Central Park apartment as a parting gift. The couple decided to focus on themselves and forgo heroics for the time being.

Teddy was soon asked to lead the new incarnation of the Kree-Skrull Alliance as their Emperor and shared this news with Billy. Teddy accepted but learned from one of his subjects prior to his coronation that his relationship with Billy must cease as it was seen as a weakness. Though Teddy put on a brave face in front of his subjects, he relayed his true feelings to Billy out of earshot. Billy understood the pressures Teddy faced and departed, but not before reassuring his love that he would be at home on Earth waiting for him.

They kept in touch and soon got married in secret and the Young Avengers reunited once again for the private ceremony in Vegas. Teddy's demanding position as the new King of Space put the super-spouses’ honeymoon on hold, resulting in a long-distance relationship.

Billy was soon contacted by Johnny Storm, AKA Human Torch, and Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel, who shared an interaction they had with Emperor Hulkling, who had planned to use the Pyre to detonate Earth’s sun and end the growing threat of the plantlike race known as the Cotati. Seeing the interaction for himself through magical means told Billy one thing: that Emperor Hulking was not the man he married, literally. Billy used his magic to locate Teddy and sure enough, he found him in the imposter Emperor’s brig wearing a Skrull inhibitor mask. The imposter was revealed to be Teddy’s grandmother, former Skrull Empress R’Klll, and she had already activated the Pyre. She and her forces attacked Billy, Teddy, Johnny and Carol, but a carrier wave was unleashed and attacked Skrull minds, disabling them. The troop regrouped and while Teddy stayed behind to help his people against the imposter, Billy, Johnny and Carol teleported to Earth’s sun to contain the pending explosion. Thankfully their ally Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, disabled the detonation.

As the intergalactic war with the Cotati came to an end, Billy and Teddy married in a royal celebration on the Alliance’s flagship, and Billy, taking Teddy’s last name and adding it to his own, was dubbed Prince Consort and Court Wizard.

The newlyweds finally went on their honeymoon with Accuser Lauri-Ell as their security guard, and stayed at a beachside resort on the Shi’ar’s Little Chandilar. But their celebrations came to a quick close when a horde of Symbiote dragons attacked. They leapt to action to save Little Chandilar.

Teddy checked in with home where reports confirmed that Knull, God of the Symbiotes, and his army of dragons were attacking their way across the galaxy. As such, Billy and Teddy led an evacuation of Little Chandilar but not before more dragons attacked, who were in fact Talos’ crew who had been infected by the Symbiotes. Billy freed them with magic and they continued with the evacuation. 

The super-spouses soon split up to protect the galaxy from being gobbled up by a Dormammu-possessed Ego the Living Planet. With five planets in the crosshairs, they joined their allies the Guardians of the Galaxy and S.W.O.R.D. Though separate, they fought the Mindless Army and knew they were never alone, fighting for each other and winning the day.