The latest Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series Agatha All Along, which premiered on Disney+ this week, spins out of WandaVision, another MCU show in which magic and mystery went hand-in-hand. In WandaVision, the central question was how Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany’s Vision ended up as a married couple in an ever-shifting sitcom reality, since Vision, y’know, died onscreen in Infinity War (and not in a reversible, Thanos-snap type of way.)
WandaVision ended with its primary antagonist Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) imprisoned inside her own sitcom-verse, so one question Agatha All Along has to answer in its early episodesâwhich dig into Mare of Easttown the way WandaVision dug into family sitcoms, casting Agatha as a grizzled detectiveâis how she’ll get out and return to reality.
But by the end of the first two episodes that hit Disney+ last night, another question looms: Who in the world is âTeen,â the character played by Heartstopper star Joe Locke, and what’s his significance to the broader story of the Marvel universe?
Yes, you read that rightâat least for now, Locke’s character name is âTeen.” It’s what Agatha decides to call him after discovering that he’s incapable of explaining his true nature. Someone or something has placed a spell on Teen that prevents him from divulging anything about himself; the first time he tries, a thread appears across his face and sews his mouth shut. Later, in episode two, the audio drops out when he attempts to recount his backstory; Agatha turns up the radio to make sure her hearing isn’t betraying her.
Of course, the fact that some magical force doesn’t want herâand by extension, the audienceâto know Locke’s character’s real identity has only stoked speculation about who he’s really supposed to be. The most likely explanation? He’s a grown-up version of Wanda’s son Billy, who audiences last saw in WandaVision. Billy’s costume in the Halloween episode of that show may have been a nod to his eventual future: In Marvel’s comic-book continuity, a reincarnated Billy becomes Wiccan, a teenage superhero with reality-warping powers similar to his mother’s. Created by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung in the series Young Avengers, Wiccan was also one of Marvel’s first prominent gay characters (possibly also reflected in Agatha, which shows us Teen dodging a phone call from his boyfriend at one point.)
Locke’s Teen looks a lot like Billy/Wiccan, and given how interwoven WandaVision and Agatha All Along are, if this isn’t deliberate foreshadowing it’s deliberate misdirection. It’s possible, of couse, that Teen might be Wiccan but not Billy. In the first episode, there’s a brief tease involving a character named Nicholas Scratch, who’s Agatha‘s son in the comics. Narratively, it makes a bit more sense for Agatha to be paired with her own son instead of Wanda’s; it would add personal stakes to Agatha’s journey while teeing up Wiccan to appear in a potential Young Avengers movie, something Marvel’s already laid the groundwork for by introducing Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan and Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop.
But weâll have to join Hahn, Locke, and the rest of the showâs star-studded cast across their nine-episode magical mystery tour to find out for certain.
