Marvel planned Agatha and VisionQuest around Wanda's twins — the team they were built for is stuck
Fans already rank the WandaVision trilogy among the MCU's best. VisionQuest's showrunner wants Children's Crusade next, and nothing is in the works.
Brad Winderbaum, who runs television, streaming and animation at Marvel Studios, says Agatha All Along and VisionQuest were planned from the start as two halves of one story about Billy and Tommy Maximoff, Wanda's twin sons. His remarks reached r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers on 16 October, two days after VisionQuest arrived on Disney+:
"The first one would be a portrait of one brother and the second would be a portrait of the other. We were fans of Young Avengers and Children's Crusade and those characters."
— Brad Winderbaum, head of Marvel Television
Marvel says "it was always the plan" a lot. This time the receipts are on screen. Agatha All Along ended on 30 October 2024 with Billy (Joe Locke) and Agatha's ghost agreeing to go and find his brother. VisionQuest has had Tommy (Ruaridh Mollica) in its promo from day one. For once, the masterplan wasn't assembled in the edit suite.
The plan that actually worked
Line the three series up:
- WandaVision (2021): Wanda conjures twin boys inside the Westview Hex. When the Hex comes down, so do they.
- Agatha All Along (2024): Billy, reborn in a teenager's body, works out who he is. The finale points him at Tommy.
- VisionQuest (2026): Vision, who has waited for a show of his own since Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015, finally gets one, and the other twin comes with it.
Fans have noticed. "Who could've guessed that a trilogy about the Maximoff family would wind up being one of the best in the MCU?" reads the top comment in that thread, with 140 upvotes. Fair enough.
The team nobody has commissioned
The trouble is the second half of Winderbaum's sentence. In the comics, Billy and Tommy become Wiccan and Speed, founding members of the Young Avengers, Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung's teenage team from 2005. Children's Crusade (2010–2012) is the story where they go looking for their mother. Marvel has spent five years seeding that roster: Kate Bishop in Hawkeye, Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel, America Chavez in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Cassie Lang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The Marvels ended in 2023 with Kamala at Kate's door, recruiting.
Then nothing. This week Winderbaum told Phase Hero's Main Character podcast that the Young Avengers project still hasn't moved:
"Sometimes you know you're sitting on something great and it takes a long time, and it hurts."
— Brad Winderbaum, on Main Character
VisionQuest showrunner Terry Matalas has said he would love to make Children's Crusade, and that nothing is in the works. The Marvels, the film that ended on that recruiting scene, took $206 million worldwide, the lowest gross in MCU history. One fan put the maths bluntly: Marvel wants it, "but Disney higher ups just don't see the value in spending money on those characters."
Read more: Ultron's parenting advice was the best part of VisionQuest — now fans see what it cost Vision
The Shang-Chi route
My view: the best-planned story Marvel has told since Endgame is heading for a dead end. Both series did their job: Billy knows who he is, Tommy has his father, and the next chapter has nowhere to air.
Marvel spent two series raising heroes for a team it won't commission.
Some fans expect Children's Crusade to be folded into Avengers: Secret Wars, due on 17 December 2027. Maybe. But a storyline swallowed by a crossover is not a series where Billy and Tommy are the point.
Ask Shang-Chi. His 2021 film made $432 million, the sequel still has no date, and his next confirmed stop is the ensemble of Avengers: Doomsday on 18 December. One commenter predicted exactly that fate for the twins: "nothing then side character in another movie to get everyone to shut up."
The VisionQuest finale lands on 11 November. It may be the last time Wanda's boys are the lead in a Marvel story rather than two faces in a very large crowd.
Read more: Marvel renewed Wonder Man and still couldn't save it — its TV boss can't explain why