Wiccan: Witches' Road (2026 series) #5

Wiccan (Billy Kaplan) lost/abandoned his Demiurge power (and he and his husband Hulkling (Teddy Altman) lost the leadership of the Kree/Skrull Alliance). The witch Baba Yaga turned Teddy into a little puppet and sent Billy on a quest down the Witches' Road with a talking fox for company. They met the new Demiurge who seemed to be a girl Billy knew briefly as a youngster. The fox turned out to be the sorceress Morgan Le Fay, who took the Demiurge to her mother Yaga. Help arrived in the form of Billy's 'twin brother' Speed (Tommy Shepherd) plus their sort-of mother Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff), who's now Sorceress Supreme, and her fellow-Avenger Storm (Ororo Munroe). Billy, Tommy and puppet-Teddy entered Yaga's hut to rescue the Demiurge and Teddy's real body, but they were met by Baba Yaga with the Demiurge power who broke Speed's ankle and set fire to a puppet of Billy and thus the youth himself. Only puppet-Teddy remains free to act.

We now see that Hawkeye (Kate Bishop) has been searching for her fellow ex-Young Avengers and she's seeing the village (from #1) being attacked by horned monsters (Leshy). The young girl Katerina is still there with the village doctor (who it seems is her father) and she's calling out for Billy to save them. But Kate's exploding arrows save them instead. Ororo and Wanda fly in and promise to get the villagers to safety. Wanda asks Kate what she's doing here and learns that America Chavez (another ex-YAer) told her what happened to Billy and Teddy (in the Imperial mini-series) and came looking for them. Katerina asks Scarlet Witch where Billy is and she says her son's going to fix everything.

But Billy and Tommy are in the state Baba Yaga left them last issue, and puppet-Teddy has run into lots more puppets. But they too are Yaga's victims and they let him pass to where he finds Morgan who explains to him that Baba is consuming the Demiurge and she'll rewrite the laws of magic and 'cleanse' the Earth of humanity. Billy assumes Yaga has restored her daughter to her full power, but Morgan says she's only given her enough power for 1 simple spell. He asks her to use that spell to help them, not because it's the right thing to do but for petty revenge.

Wiccan is still burning and Speed is speed-hobbling around trying to put out the flames, but Billy says it's magic fire. Then Billy remembers the giant's tears he'd collected in a magic gourd on his quest and tells Tommy to let that 'water' out. It surrounds him and douses the flames. Then still-injured Tommy carries his brother out of BY's hut only to face Yaga herself in her current form of a giant winged spider. She causes vines to entwine Speed and the spits acid at him. But Morgan appears in all her glory to pick up Wiccan and confront her mother. Yaga tells her she's no threat. But then 'Morgan' is revealed as only a simple disguise spell, and behind the disguise is Hulkling back in his body with his magic Star-Sword which he hurls through Baba's throat(?) and she retreats.

Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Storm join them. Wanda tries to heal her sons but she has to contend with Baba Yaga continuing to rewrite the mystic language. Hulkling uses his Skrull-heritage shapeshifting to grow wings and fly Wiccan to safety while Kate and Ororo use their non-magic abilities to attack Yaga and Speed fights off the Leshy. However Billy gets a vision of the Demiurge girl calling him for help and he tells Teddy to take him back to the fray and drop him into the main foe's huge gaping mouth.

Inside he finds the young girl in a winter scene from their shared past with a fallen snowman, but also a statue(?) of a golden dragon made of flowers. He now asks the Demiurge why she chose him rather than someone like Wanda or Magik. She counters that *she*'s someone *he* invented to talk to, and he promises never to 'throw her away' again. He picks a flower from the dragon and gives it to her and they set out to resolve the current conflict.

Outside Scarlet Witch is battling Baba Yaga while everyone else fights the Leshy, when suddenly Wiccan, reunited with the Demiurge power and riding the dragon Fin Fang Foom, emerges from Yaga's mouth. He uses his own mantra-magic to reduce the foe to her original old-witch form and then turn vegetation into chains to hold her. Baba Yaga points out that she's done what she originally promised and reunited him with his power, and he 'thanks' her for that. He then frees the souls of Yaga's collection of puppets. And because Morgan helped he also restores all *her* power, and hopes not to regret it as he leaves BY in her hands.

In an epilogue Billy and Teddy visit Billy's birth parents (Billy and Tommy are 'reincanations' of the sons of Wanda (and Vision)) and settle in for a couple of weeks of time out. But next morning Billy slips out, and later he takes his husband to see what will be their new home. It appears to be a tree with the sigil for home inscribed on it. And when Teddy says "home" they are transported to Baba Yaga's hut where her servant, the (not-so-)Mindless One named Sluga has tidied the place up. Billy shows Teddy around and they start planning to make it their own.

This series began #1 with narration by Baba Yaga. And it now ends with such narration suggesting that maybe this was her plan all along.