Wiccan: Witches' Road (2026 series) #4

This issue begins with a flashback to the end (in the Imperial event) of Hulking's reign as Emperor of the Kree/Skrull Alliance (and Wiccan's role as his Court Wizard). Teddy Altman and Billy Kaplan survey a host of dead bodies. Teddy's beating himself up for being unable to prevent the carnage but then turns to blaming Billy for not using his god-like Demiurge powers to rewrite reality so that it never happened. But then he apologises to his husband. Billy has a surge of memories of bad times:- School bully John Kessler. The Warden of the Cube prison. The future Demiurge Moridun. And the end of Children's Crusade with Ant-Man (Scott Lang) holding his dead daughter Cassie (Stature) while Scarlet Witch comforts her 'sons' Billy and Speed (Tommy Shepherd).

Earlier in this series it was suggested that the Demiurge abandoned Billy when he left Earth for his imperial space role and moved on to a young girl who seems to have some connection with Billy's past. We see her now waking in a bed in the witch Baba Yaga's hut where Morgan Le Fay brought her last issue. But Baba talks to her as the Demiurge and claims that she was the 1st student of the language of magic that it wrote when the Earth was young. She tells the girl she can take away her sadness and pain, and that of the whole world, forever. But outside the room we see Morgan holding a puppet of the girl.

But now we see Wiccan where we left him last issue in the Witches' Road pursued by giant elemental beings. He reaches the top of a cliff overlooking the sea and leaps off. But then rises riding the broomstick Yaga gave him. He slashes 1 of the elementals with Hulkling's Star-Sword Excelsior and then catches some of its tears in BY's magic gourd, thereby achieving another of the tasks of his Quest. But he still has to get the heart of his 1st love.

He continues on his way with Hulkling as a puppet (courtesy of the witch). But elementals' legs(?) thumping into the sea around them make him fall off the broomstick into the water and they surface to find themselves near 1 of Roxxon's oil platforms that the elementals are attacking. They climb onto the rig and are attacked by zombie Roxxon employees. Wiccan slashes them with the sword but 1 of them breaks his forearm. He manages to get into a bunk room and shuts the door against them.

Billy confesses to Teddy that's this is all his fault. It seems that he deliberately got rid of the Demiurge, but only after what Teddy said to him in the flashback and the memories it stirred up. He also remembered how his 'mother' Wanda Maximoff used *her* power to rewrite the world into what she wanted (in the House Of M event), and worried that he might do something similar. Teddy apologises but Billy is now wallowing in self-pity. Teddy tries to rouse his self-confidence. But before he can succeed they hear loud noises from outside. They cautiously exit to see the zombies all down, And then they see the elemental giants being fought by Scarlet Witch and Storm (who decided to get involved last issue).

Job done the heroines descend to the boys. Wanda (now Sorcerer Supreme in her series of that name) comforts her son and Ororo Munroe greets diminutive Hulkling. Scarlet Witch magically mends Billy's arm but she says she can't return Teddy to his normal state because there's a curse on him that will kill him if she does. Billy says he needs to confront Baba Yaga and Morgan but they'd sense Wanda and Storm if they came with him. He needs to get inside the hut quietly and quickly. At which point of course his brother Tommy, the superfast Speed, joins them. After they bring him up to, ahem, speed he offers to zoom Billy and Teddy to the witch's hut while Storm and Ororo will follow in the X-Men's jet. Billy will rescue the Demiurge and Teddy's body and then the others can all attack.

When the brothers get to the hut they see Sluga the (not-so-)Mindless One on guard outside but Speed whisks him off to the peak of a distant mountain. Billy enters with Tommy and the Billy-puppet. But Baba Yaga is ready for them as a giant spider. She breaks 1 of Speed's ankles while Wiccan is attacked by knife-wielding puppets. Then she sets fire to a puppet of Billy and he bursts into flame. Now everything's up to puppet Teddy.