Wiccan: Witches' Road (2026 series) #1

This issue opens with someone (who we'll meet later) briefly recounting Billy Kaplan's history. Some say he was born of a demon (Mephisto) to torment his mother (Scarlet Witch). Others says he had no father but was brought to life by his mother (Wanda again) but then abandoned by her. (These are both descriptions of his 1st brief life, but ignore the fact that he was then reborn earlier in time as his current self.) He (Wiccan) joined a group of heroes (Young Avengers) alongside a future king (Teddy Altman/Hulkling) who was his true love (they got married). The duo fought against their enemies but it (the Kree/Skrull Alliance) all fell apart (in the Imperial event).

Now we see a crashed spaceship and Wiccan crawling from it calling for Teddy. He pulls a metal shard from his side and then hears Hulkling calling *his* name. He frantically digs through bits of the ship until he finds his injured love. But when he tries to call on his magic power to heal him he finds it's gone. So instead he manufactures a crude stretcher to drag Teddy's body to hopefully find medical help. His guess is that they're somewhere in Eastern Europe, with no working comms. Teddy is amazed at Billy's handyman skills, and Wiccan tells him that he used to go camping with Kate Bishop (Hawkeye of the YA) and she insisted they avoid using their powers so he learned a lot of stuff. This was while Hulkling was out in space (though I can't figure out when this means). Billy recounts a tale of how Kate once broke her ankle and she refused to let him teleport her to hospital. She tried to limp home with a stick as a crutch but then broke the other ankle. So that's when he learned how to make a sled.

They pause to allow Billy to get his strength back but then they hear a scream. He leaves Teddy leaning against a tree and heads off to investigate, with Teddy's big sword slung across his back. He comes across a village of wooden huts full of dead bodies, but he finds 1 live little girl Katerina. But then he's grabbed by a monster with a horned animal skull for a head which he fights with the sword. He chops its hands off but they regrow as bone blades. A 'swordfight' ends with Wiccan disarmed, but Hulkling has followed him and leaps on the beast. Further fighting ends with Wiccan running the foe through with the sword and Hulkling setting it on fire with a lighted lantern.

Meanwhile Katerina has fetched the village doctor who takes them home and patches them up. Teddy gets confined to bed. Katerina brings Billy some flowers. The doctor tells them this village spurns modern technology like phones so there's no way to call for help. And if they try to leave they'll have to get past the forest spirits, the Leshy, like the 1 they fought. They used to be good but tricksy but now they've turned murderous. It started when Roxxon built a facility nearby, until a witch set the Leshy on them to kill them. Now she rules them. Our hero decides to confront her. The Doc tells him head west and follow the moon and the path will reveal itself. But beware of the fox.

Billy tells Teddy where he's going and Teddy insists on coming with him. On the way, watched by eyes in the undergrowth, Teddy asks Billy if the witch will know his mom (Wanda). Billy doubts it but Teddy says it's a small universe (where all Marvel chars wind up meeting each other). Billy suggests they keep quiet about Scarlet Witch being the most powerful witch in the universe, and himself being the Demiurge. Then they see a house with lighted windows and a half-height door. A fox arrives and tells them to run away, and then it enters through the door and they follow it. The door slams behind them and the room is dark until a fire lights in a grate. A monster (looking rather like a vegetative Mindless One) hits Hulkling. And then someone else beheads Wiccan.

Billy awakens to see the monster called Sluga and an old woman he calls mother trying to shoo away the fox. She's the voiceover at the beginning. She tells him she's a witch like himself, and they can talk now that Hulkling's 'sleeping'. Now he sees that Teddy seems to be a statue dripping wax, and he also sees his own body in a chair. And we see that Billy is only a head carried by the witch.

She tells him she knows who he is and that he's lost his magic, and that if he wants it back he must listen to her. She calls him Merlin-son and tells him that while he's been away (in Kree/Skrull space with Emperor Hulkling) the world has fallen into chaos that will destroy it. It needs the balance provided by Wiccan, the Demiurge. She says that she *used* to be a tamer of elementals like he is but she's now old and so *he* must save the world. His elemental magic has left him because he left the world. Billy doesn't know what she means by elemental magic but she ignores him and says he must go down the Witches' Road. He asks who she is and she replies that she's the mother of all witches, Baba Yaga. And we see that her house has risen up *out* of the ground to reveal another floor and a half, and it's now running along on giant chicken legs.