Who are Wiccan and Speed? Learn the complete comic book history of Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd, the reincarnated sons of Scarlet Witch and Vision, including their connection to Mephisto, the Young Avengers, House of M, Children’s Crusade, Hulkling, Prodigy, and Wiccan: Witches’ Road.

If there is one thing you can say about being a child of the Scarlet Witch, it is that your family history is probably never going to be simple.

For Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd—better known to Marvel fans as Wiccan and Speed—“complicated” barely begins to cover it. The twin brothers are connected to two of the most unusual and powerful figures in the Marvel Universe: Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, and Vision, the synthezoid Avenger. But while their lives began as the children Wanda and Vision desperately wanted, their existence quickly became tangled up with magic, Mephisto, lost souls, reincarnation, reality manipulation, and one of the biggest Avengers disasters in Marvel history.

Billy and Tommy were originally born as Wanda and Vision's twin sons in Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1985) #12. Their lives together, however, were painfully short. Years later, their souls resurfaced in two completely different families as Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd. Neither boy initially knew that he had a connection to the Scarlet Witch—or that he had a twin brother somewhere out there.

Eventually, the two found each other as members of the Young Avengers, taking on the identities of Wiccan and Speed. Since then, they have grown from confused teenagers trying to understand where they came from into powerful heroes with lives, relationships, responsibilities, and identities of their own.

And, naturally, because this is Marvel, their journey has involved more than a few demons along the way.

The Birth of Billy and Tommy

Wanda Maximoff wanted something surprisingly ordinary: a life with her husband, Vision, and a family of their own.

Of course, nothing involving the Scarlet Witch stays ordinary for very long.

While Wanda and Vision were living as husband and wife, Wanda used her extraordinary hex powers and magic to become pregnant. Despite the highly unusual circumstances surrounding the pregnancy, the birth itself happened in Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1985) #12.

And yes, Wanda gave birth to twins.

Billy and Tommy entered the world as the sons of Wanda and Vision, with Doctor Strange helping deliver them. For a brief period, the Maximoff family actually experienced something resembling domestic happiness. Wanda had her children, Vision was a father, and the twins were able to spend their early months growing up with their parents.

But there was something Wanda did not understand about how she had created her children.

Because Vision is a synthezoid rather than a biological human, Wanda's magic had effectively supplied the missing ingredients needed to create life. Unfortunately, those ingredients were connected to something far darker than either parent realized.

The twins' souls were connected to fragments of Mephisto, the demonic lord who had his own designs on those pieces of his essence.

That revelation would eventually turn Billy and Tommy's seemingly happy childhood into one of the strangest tragedies in Marvel Comics.

How Are Billy and Tommy Connected to Mephisto?

To understand Billy and Tommy's original fate, we have to talk about Master Pandemonium.

Before becoming one of Marvel's stranger supernatural villains, Master Pandemonium was a Hollywood executive named Martin Preston. After a horrific car accident nearly killed him and resulted in the loss of his right arm, Preston encountered Mephisto.

As demons and Mephisto-related deals tend to go in Marvel Comics, the bargain came with an enormous price.

Mephisto restored Preston's missing limbs—but replaced them with demonic beings in exchange for his soul. Those demons took the form of little children, creating an unsettling visual resemblance to Wanda's twin sons.

The connection between Master Pandemonium and the Maximoff twins eventually became central to the revelation surrounding Billy and Tommy's existence. Marvel later established that Wanda's magical creation of the twins had inadvertently incorporated fragments of Mephisto's soul.

The storyline was explored in West Coast Avengers (1985), particularly around issues #51–52, and it transformed what initially looked like a relatively straightforward superhero family story into something much darker.

Even Agatha Harkness, Wanda's mentor and a powerful witch in her own right, had reservations about the twins' existence. She understood that Wanda's ability to create life through magic came with consequences.

And those consequences were about to arrive.

Mephisto Reclaims the Twins

Eventually, Mephisto wanted his missing soul fragments back.

Master Pandemonium became the instrument through which Mephisto attempted to reclaim them, resulting in Billy and Tommy being reabsorbed and apparently erased from existence.

For Wanda, the loss was devastating.

These weren't simply magical constructs to her. They were her children. She had carried them, raised them, loved them, and built an entire life around them. Their sudden disappearance became one of the defining tragedies of her story.

Agatha Harkness subsequently used magic to erase Wanda's memories of the twins, believing that doing so would prevent Wanda from being consumed by the grief and trauma surrounding their deaths. Marvel later connected this tragedy to Wanda's increasingly unstable relationship with her powers and identity.

The loss of Billy and Tommy became one of the pieces of emotional history that eventually fed into the enormous chain of events surrounding Avengers Disassembled and House of M.

But there was a crucial detail that Wanda—and almost everyone else—didn't know.

The twins weren't truly gone.

The House of M Changes Everything

Years later, Wanda's emotional and psychological struggles reached a breaking point.

In House of M (2005), Wanda was manipulated and pushed toward creating an entirely new reality. With the encouragement of her brother Quicksilver, she reshaped the world into one where mutants stood at the top of society and her family was together.

And in this new reality, Billy and Tommy were alive.

They were once again Wanda's children, living as part of the family she had always wanted.

For a while, it seemed like Wanda had finally achieved her dream.

Then Wolverine began remembering his original life.

Logan's recovered memories became the first major crack in Wanda's new reality. Other heroes began remembering their lives as well, and eventually many of them confronted Wanda over what she had done.

The confrontation culminated in one of the most famous moments in Marvel history.

“No More Mutants.”

With those three words, Wanda once again altered reality—this time stripping the majority of Earth's mutant population of their powers.

The consequences of House of M would reverberate throughout the Marvel Universe for years. And somewhere within that chaos was the mystery of what had happened to Wanda's children.

How Billy and Tommy Became the Young Avengers’ Wiccan and Speed

Here's where Billy and Tommy's story takes its biggest turn.

The twins' souls had not simply been destroyed when Mephisto reclaimed them.

Instead, they eventually found new lives.

Billy was reborn as William “Billy” Kaplan, while his brother became Thomas “Tommy” Shepherd. They were born into different families and grew up completely unaware that they were connected to one another—or that they had once been the sons of the Scarlet Witch and Vision.

Billy eventually discovered his magical abilities and became the young hero initially known as Asgardian. He joined Iron Lad, Patriot, Hulkling, Hawkeye, and Stature as part of the original Young Avengers.

Tommy's story was considerably more explosive—quite literally.

His super-speed abilities emerged violently, eventually resulting in him destroying his school. He was subsequently held in a superhuman juvenile detention facility.

That is where the Young Avengers found him.

When Billy and Tommy finally came face-to-face, the resemblance was impossible to ignore. The two boys looked almost exactly like identical twins.

Because, as it turned out, they were.

The Young Avengers soon discovered that Billy and Tommy were not merely brothers. They were the reincarnated sons of Wanda Maximoff and Vision. The Super-Skrull revealed their connection during the events of Young Avengers (2005), while the rebuilt Vision later helped confirm the truth.

Tommy adopted the name Speed, while Billy eventually changed his identity from Asgardian to Wiccan.

And just like that, Wanda's lost sons were back in the Marvel Universe.

The Quest to Find Their Mother, Scarlet Witch

Knowing who your mother is would normally make finding her relatively easy.

That is not the case when your mother is the Scarlet Witch.

Following the events of House of M, Wanda had disappeared, leaving Billy and Tommy with plenty of questions and very few answers.

In Young Avengers Presents (2008) #3, the brothers began investigating their connection to Wanda. Billy was especially troubled by nightmares involving their mother and Mephisto, eventually convincing Tommy to help him search for her.

Their search eventually became the central storyline of Avengers: The Children's Crusade.

The Young Avengers eventually located Wanda in Latveria, where they discovered something almost absurdly Marvel: Wanda had no memories of her past, had no powers, and was engaged to Doctor Doom.

Billy's powers were also becoming increasingly difficult to control.

His ability to manipulate reality and magic made him frighteningly powerful, and the Avengers and X-Men began to worry that history might repeat itself.

Billy, meanwhile, wasn't interested in simply accepting that Wanda was dangerous.

He wanted to know his mother.

And he wanted to save her.

The resulting conflict brought the Young Avengers, Avengers, X-Men, Magneto, Quicksilver, Doctor Doom, and Wanda herself into one enormous family crisis.

Eventually, Wanda regained her memories and accepted Billy and Tommy as the reincarnations of her lost children.

For Billy and Tommy, it was the reunion they had spent years searching for.

But their family problems were far from over.

From Young Heroes to Marvel Superheroes: Where Are Billy and Tommy Now?

Well, unlike many Marvel characters who spend decades trapped in an endless cycle of teenage superheroics, the twins actually grew up.

Both Wiccan and Speed went on to have careers beyond the original Young Avengers. Billy became increasingly confident in his magical abilities and discovered that his potential was far greater than he initially realized.

In the 2013 Young Avengers series, Billy's destiny became connected to the Demiurge, an immensely powerful mystical entity associated with the evolution of magic itself. Marvel has subsequently described Wiccan as one of its most powerful Avengers, particularly because of the reality-altering potential he inherited through his connection to Wanda.

Billy also became one half of one of Marvel's most celebrated superhero relationships.

His longtime partner is Teddy Altman, better known as Hulkling, the powerful Kree-Skrull hybrid and heir to two alien civilizations.

Their relationship began during the Young Avengers era and gradually developed into one of Marvel's most important LGBTQ+ superhero romances. The two eventually married during Empyre in 2020, with Billy becoming the Prince Consort and Court Wizard of the newly united Kree-Skrull Alliance.

For someone whose childhood involved having his soul reclaimed by Mephisto, being resurrected in another family, discovering his magical powers, finding his lost twin, searching for his mother, and eventually marrying an intergalactic ruler, Billy Kaplan has had quite the life.

Tommy has had his own complicated journey.

As Speed, he has remained closely connected to the Young Avengers and has continued to use his super-speed abilities to fight alongside other heroes. His relationship with Prodigy, David Alleyne, became an important part of his personal life. Marvel has explicitly described the pair as dating after their time together with the Young Avengers.

The brothers have also continued to find themselves pulled back into supernatural conflicts involving their mother, Mephisto, and the strange circumstances surrounding their existence.

That became particularly apparent during The Trial of Magneto (2021), when Wanda was found dead on Krakoa. Billy and Tommy reunited as they attempted to understand what had happened to their mother, ultimately confronting yet another chapter in the bizarre history of the Maximoff family.

And even that wasn't the end.

Marvel's later stories continued playing with the brothers' relationship to Mephisto. In Marvel's Voices Infinity Comic (2022) #8 and Avengers Academy: Marvel's Voices Infinity Comic (2024) #19, younger versions of Billy and Tommy were once again caught up in attempts by Mephisto to reclaim them.

Most recently, Wiccan stepped into the spotlight again in his own solo series, Wiccan: Witches' Road.

The series launched in December 2025, bringing Billy and Hulkling back to Earth after their time in space. With Teddy grievously wounded, Billy is forced into a dangerous magical journey involving a dark witch and a mysterious threat to his soul. The story further explores the dangerous limits of Billy's magic and the consequences of tampering with the mystical forces surrounding him.

By early 2026, the story had escalated into a battle over Billy's soul, with the magical disturbances beginning to attract the attention of Earth's heroes.

So while Billy and Tommy may have started life as Wanda and Vision's lost children, they have long since become much more than that.

They are Wiccan and Speed.

They are Young Avengers.

They are brothers.

And, perhaps most importantly, they have spent years trying to define themselves beyond the enormous shadow cast by their mother.

That is what makes their story so compelling. Billy and Tommy aren't simply characters whose identities depend on the Scarlet Witch. Their entire history is about trying to understand where they came from while deciding who they want to become.

And considering the family they were born into—or, technically, reborn into—that might be the hardest superpower of all.

Bring the Marvel Universe Home

Love Wiccan, Speed, Scarlet Witch, Vision, the Young Avengers, or the wider Marvel Universe? Take your fandom beyond the pages and explore a collection of officially inspired pop-culture collectibles spanning Disney, Pixar, DC, Marvel, Anime, Transformers, Mortal Kombat, and more.

Shop your favourite characters and franchises and grab collectibles at up to 40% OFF before the offer ends! Click here to explore.