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You're so much like your mother.

Agatha Harkness[source]

History

Origin[]

Billy and his brother Tommy Maximoff were the twin children of Wanda Maximoff and Vision, born inside the Hex anomaly, created by Wanda's Chaos Magic in Westview. Their existence was highly unnatural, as Wanda's pregnancy progressed from early signs to full birth in less than a full day. Originally Wanda and Vision expected one kid and argued over his name. Wanda wanted to name their kid Tommy, because "it is a nice, classic, all-American name", but Vision wanted to name him Billy, after William Shakespeare. They argued during the entire pregnancy, but when the child was born Vision gave in and named him Tommy. Ironically, they had twins, so when the second child was born Wanda named him Billy.[8]

Westview Anomaly[]

William Maximoff (Earth-199999) from WandaVision Season 1 6 002

Original body

The twins were toddlers for only few days, and then aged themselves directly to 5-year-old kids, with appropriate intelligence, speech and personalities. They found a dog crying alone outside of their house, so they brought it in and wanted to make it their pet, but Wanda and Vision disagreed, telling them what taking care of a living being is a big responsibility and they can't have a pet until they are at least 10 years old. Hearing this, the twins gleefully aged themselves again into 10-year olds and named the dog Sparky. Unfortunately, the dog hadn't lived for long and died later that day. The twins were heartbroken by Sparky's death and wanted to age themselves again to avoid the grief and pain, but Wanda convinced them to stop, because it was a wrong solution to deal with their emotions. Tommy then begged Wanda to resurrect Sparky, because she "can fix everything". Wanda was shocked and tried to convince them what there are some things that couldn't be changed and the death is forever, but Billy argued back that earlier she said that "family is forever" and Sparky is their family, so she should bring it back. To Wanda's further shock later that day her deceased brother Pietro seemingly returned to life and came to her house.[9]

William Maximoff (Earth-199999) from WandaVision Season 1 9 001

Billy using his powers against the S.W.O.R.D.

Next day the twins went to celebrate the Halloween with their mother and uncle. "Pietro" used his superhuman speed to gather all the candies and soon Tommy displayed the same power. In meanwhile, Vision, who started to suspect that something was wrong in Westview, went outside the town. He accidently crossed the border of the Hex anomaly and his body started to dissolve. Billy telepathically felt his father's pain and heard the thoughts of the S.W.O.R.D.'s agents who believed that Vision was dying. Billy run back to Wanda and she expanded the borders of the Hex to save Vision.[10] This greatly overexerted Wanda's powers and caused them to glitch the next day, so she asked the neighbor "Agnes" to take care of the twins for a while. The twins went to Agnes' house, and soon Billy noticed what he can't hear her thoughts. Agnes then revealed her true identity as an ancient witch Agatha Harkness and captured the twins to use them as hostages to force Wanda to reveal how exactly she managed to cast such a powerful magic that created the Hex.[11][12]

Death[]

During the confrontation with Agatha, Wanda finally realized how much her actions harmed the citizens of the Westview and decided to disperse the Hex, but then discovered that bodies of Vision, Billy and Tommy also started to vanish, because their existence was tied to the Hex and they couldn't exist without it. Wanda nevertheless decided to disperse the Hex. She and Vision went back to their home with the kids, where after tucking them in bed she tearfully said goodnight to Billy and Tommy shortly before the Hex receded entirely and Billy and Tommy's bodies disappeared with it.[7]

A New Life[]

William Maximoff (Earth-199999) from Agatha All Along Season 1 6 002

Billy in William Kaplan's body

Unknown to Wanda, Billy's soul actually survived by entering the body of 13-year-old William Kaplan who had just died in the car crash near Westview the same moment the Hex was dissolved. Accidentally, earlier that day another witch secretly placed a sigil on William Kaplan that protected him from all witches, so Billy's existence wasn't discovered by Wanda.[2]

Billy woke up in a Eastview hospital without his own or William Kaplan's memories. The only thing he remembered was the name "Tommy", but he didn't know whose name it was. He soon discovered that he can hear William's parents thoughts who were extremely worried about him and hoped what he could regain his memories and become their son again while also fearing what he would never be himself again. To appease them Billy decided to embrace identity of William Kaplan and pretended to recover from his "amnesia".[2]

Learning the Truth[]

As he grew up, he studied witches and witchcraft to figure out who he was and what happened at Westview. In the process he learned about the sigil on his body and its effect and also assembled a spellbook with a variety of useful spells.[2]

Three years later Billy entered a romantic relationship with a boy named Eddie,[4] and eventually decided to tell him what he actually hadn't regained his memories and believed that he wasn't actually Billy Kaplan.[2]

To learn the truth about the Westview, Billy managed to contact Ralph Bohner who had been in the past controlled and enchanted by Agatha Harkness to act as Pietro. Billy learned from him about Wanda and Vision having twins Tommy and Billy, speedster and mind reader. Realizing that he was actually Billy Maximoff, he also learned that Agatha was still living in the Westview under Wanda's spell. After further research, Billy also learned of the Witches' Road, which he could use to find Tommy.[2]

Agatha Harkness' Coven (Earth-199999) from Agatha All Along Season 1 3 001

Gathering the Coven

Billy broke into Agatha Harkness' house and was able to use one of the spells he had learned to break Wanda's spell on Agatha. Shortly after she was attacked by Rio Vidal who tried to kill her, but Agatha managed to convince her to stop and wait until she got magic back. Rio agreed, but revealed what she already told the Salem Seven where they can find Agatha. Learning this, Harkness wanted to quickly run away, but Billy convinced her to help him enter the Witches' Road lying that he wanted to do it for power. He used the threat of Salem Seven's upcoming attack to force Agatha to agree, since she desperately needed to regain her powers in order to survive their attack.[13][2]

Agatha was curious how he managed to break the spell cast by the Scarlet Witch, and asked who he was, but discovered that he have a sigil placed on him that protected his identity from being discovered by any witch. Not being able to learn his true identity, Agatha started to call him just "Teen", while also sometimes mockingly calling him her "pet" or "familiar". They then gathered Divination Witch Lilia Calderu, Potion Witch Jennifer Kale, Protection Witch Alice Wu-Gulliver and "Green Witch" Sharon Davis (who actually wasn't a witch and was brought in by Agatha instead of an actual Green Witch whom she had believed was Rio Vidal) to assemble a coven to enter the Witches' Road.[4]

Witches' Road[]

Agatha Harkness' Coven (Earth-199999) from Agatha All Along Season 1 3 003

First Trial

During their first trial, the members of the coven had to drink poisoned wine and then create a potion to cure from it or die from the poisoning or drowning. As Billy was an underage, other witches forbid him from drinking the wine. Agatha actually also hadn't drank it, which prevented the trial from proceeding. Other witches tried to convince her to drink and Billy eventually forced her to do it by attempting to drink the poison himself. His unpoisoned blood eventually turned out to be an ingredient of the potion and with it the witches managed to cure themselves and finish the trial. Unfortunately, Sharon Davis died after the trial, presumably because she drank more poison than others.[14]

Agatha Harkness' Coven (Earth-199999) from Agatha All Along Season 1 4 002

Second Trial

Back on the Road, Billy dug a grave and buried Sharon Davis. The witches then discovered that he had a sigil placed on him, and Billy pretended that he wasn't aware about its effect. They then used the spell from Billy's spellbook to summon a new Green Witch directly to the Witches' Road, who turned out to be Rio Vidal. Agatha was infuriated, but had no choice but continue with the trials. Their second trial was to defeat Alice Wu-Gulliver's family curse. Billy was seriously injured during the battle with it, but managed to hold on until the coven killed the Curse, before collapsing from the blood lose. Returning to the Road, Jennifer Kale managed to heal him with a potion.[15]

Agatha Harkness' Coven (Earth-199999) from Agatha All Along Season 1 5 003

Third Trial

Unknowingly to the Coven, when they summoned Rio Vidal to the Road, they left the door open. The Salem Seven managed to use it to follow them to the Road in order to kill Agatha. To escape from them, Billy suggested to use the brooms and others reluctantly agreed. The Coven managed to reach the third trial, during which they summoned the ghost who turned out to be Agatha's mother Evanora Harkness. To finish the trial, they had to punish Agatha by abandoning her. Other witches of the Coven agreed and only Billy opposed this decision. Evanora possessed Agatha to stop her from leaving, Alice Wu-Gulliver tried to help and used magic on Agatha to banish Evanora's ghost. Inadvertently it activated Agatha's power and she absorbed all of Alice's magic and seemingly killed her. Billy was horrified and accused Agatha of using everyone to regain her powers, not caring for their lives at all. Billy claimed that he doesn't want to be a witch if it means that he would use others to achieve his goals. Agatha gloated over his claims, saying that he wasn't any different and was just like his mother. Billy was shocked that she somehow realized that he was Scarlet Witch's son even with the sigil on him. In a panic, he mind controlled Lilia and Jennifer to grab and throw Agatha into the swamp, and then telekinetically pushed them into it as well.[3]

Since his identity was no longer a secret, Billy destroyed the sigil. Agatha managed to crawl out of the swamp and congratulated him for surviving the Hex against her original expectations and told him to not blame himself for using William Kaplan's body, as he did it to survive just like witches for centuries were doing everything they can to survive. Billy decided that he no longer needed Agatha and would finish the Road on his own, but she ridiculed him, because he can't control his powers and couldn't manifest them at all without experiencing extremely strong emotions. Billy reluctantly agreed and they proceeded to look for the fourth trial.[2]

Agatha Harkness' Coven (Earth-199999) from Agatha All Along Season 1 7 003

Fourth Trial

On the way Agatha asked if he have any questions for "his mother's ex-best friend", but Billy retorted that Wanda wasn't his mother, he already had a mother. But then asked if Wanda was really dead, but Agatha wasn't sure herself. The fourth trial was to read a person's fate with Tarot, with swords falling from the ceiling all around them for every wrong reading. Billy and Agatha attempted to read the Tarot for each other with no success and the ceiling started to slowly go down. After one of the swords almost impaled Billy, Lilia Calderu and Jennifer Kale suddenly entered the trial as well. Billy apologized for pushing them away from the Road and explained what he hadn't knew about his powers and if he knew he would have saved Alice. Lilia then attempted to read Billy's fate with Tarot, but the swords continued to fall, indicating that the reading was still wrong. Eventually Lilia realized that she was the one whose fate she should read and managed to finish the reading before the ceiling completely descended. Lilia sent the rest of the coven out of the trial, but she herself stayed behind and used the Road's rules to kill the Salem Seven.[5]

Billy and Jen were disheartened by Lilia's death, but Agatha forced them to continue to walk the Road as they had the last trial to finish. The trial was for a green witch and required them to grow something in the empty room with no soil, seeds or water. Agatha pinpointed that potions are related to earth magic, so Jen should be able to do it, but Jen argued back what her powers are bound and she can't do it. During the quarrel Agatha suddenly realized that she was the one who bound Jen's powers almost a century ago, but she hadn't knew it was Jen. Jen then performed the unbinding ritual to free herself and regain her powers. As she got that she wanted from the Witches' Road, Jen was immediately expulsed from the Road. Neither Billy no Agatha have powers needed to complete the Trial, so Agatha instead decided to help Billy to get what he wanted. Under her guidance he managed to find Tommy's soul and transferred it into the body of a boy who was just drowned to death. With his wish fulfilled, Billy was also expulsed from the Road.[16]

Against the Death[]

Agatha managed to finish the last trial on her own and exited the Road, but she hadn't regained her powers. She was attacked by Rio Vidal who actually was Death. To thank Agatha for her help, Billy interfered in the fight and telekinetically pushed Death away. He then attacked Agatha to let her absorb his magic and repower herself, but asked her to not take everything. Agatha absorbed a lot, but eventually pushed Billy away to broke their connection. Unfortunately, even repowered she was still no match for Death. Death offered them a deal — one of them would die and she would let the other one leave. Agatha agreed, but it was actually just a trick to force Billy to agree as she had previously made another deal with Death — Agatha would convince Billy to willingly die, and in exchange Death would never come to Agatha again and when Agatha would eventually die, Death wouldn't take her away. Billy indeed agreed, but before Death could take him, Agatha absorbed some of Death's power and immediately died from it. In result she managed to fulfill conditions of both deals — she convinced Billy to give up, so Death now wouldn't take Agatha away after her death, but Agatha also died, so Death was unable to take Billy as well. Death kept her word and allowed Billy to leave.[16]

The Truth and New Road[]

Billy returned back to the house of the Kaplans, but when he entered his room he suddenly noticed Lorna Wu and the Coral Shores's poster on the wall, Ouija board, toys of various witches, like the Wicked Witch of the West, models of color trees, and a variety of other items that were parts of the trials on the Witches' Road. He had also recalled Agatha's words about the Road being just a legend and about him being exactly like Wanda and having the same tell. Billy finally realized that the Witches' Road actually never existed; just like Scarlet Witch subconsciously created the Hex anomaly out of her grief and desire to have a family, Billy subconsciously created the Road out of his strong desire to find Tommy and learn truth about himself.[16][17]

William Maximoff (Earth-199999) from Agatha All Along Season 1 9 001

Destruction of the Witches' Road

Agatha reappeared as a ghost and confirmed that the Road was indeed just a hoax. Billy freaked out and blamed himself for the deaths of Sharon, Alice and Lilia, believing that they were killed by his subconsciousness. Agatha retorted that she originally planned to kill entire coven she and Billy gathered, just like she killed countless desperate witches over the centuries by using the legend about the Witches' Road to lure them. So by creating the Road Billy actually managed to save one of the witches — Jen survived and even regained her powers.[17]

Billy was disgusted with Agatha, he returned back to her house in Westview and started the ritual to banish the ghost. Despite his spell working, she persisted and eventually revealed that she refuse to die, because she doesn't dare to face her son Nicholas Scratch in the afterlife. Billy consoled her as he believed that no matter what she did, Nicholas would've forgave her. Agatha said that Billy is the only person who actually believe in her and he reminds her about Nicky. Billy then used magic to destroy the Road he created and transformed the door to it into tombstone for Sharon, Alice and Lilia. He and Agatha then went on a new road to find Tommy.[17]

Attributes

Powers

  • Magic: Billy inherited magic from his mother, the Scarlet Witch, and was already able to use it when he was just 10 years old.[10] His powers were transfered to his new body alongside his soul,[2] but while he was able to cast spells[13][15][3] after studying witchcraft for three years,[2] he was unable to control his active powers without experiencing extremely strong emotions.[3][2] After finishing the Witches' Road he learned to control his powers.[16]
    • Telepathy: In his original body, Billy was able to hear people's thoughts and feel their presence across a city-wide range.[10][7] He was unable to control or stop hearing the thoughts of various citizens of Westview.[11] In his new body, the range of his telepathy was greatly reduced and Billy was now only able to hear thoughts of people directly in front of him still without conscious control. It usually activated when people around him experienced strong emotions towards him (like William Kaplan's parents' worry regarding the hopes and fears about their son's well-being or his boyfriend's concern) or when Billy himself experienced strong emotions, for example, when his strong desire to learn the truth about himself allowed him to read Ralph Bohner's mind.[2] Billy later learned to also send his own thoughts into the mind of another person to communicate with them.[16]
    • Mind Control: Billy was able to control minds of dozens of S.W.O.R.D.'s agents to force them to stop moving so his brother could disarm them.[7] Later, he was able to simultaneously control two powerful witches, Jennifer Kale and Lilia Calderu, and forced them to grab and throw Agatha Harkness into the swamp.[3]
    • Telekinesis: In his original body, Billy was able to freely use telekinesis to forcefully stop objects or beings. He managed to stop his superhumanly fast brother,[10] and later even an incoming bullet.[7] In his new body, Billy used telekinesis to push Jennifer Kale and Lilia Calderu away from himself, but was only able to do it during an emotional outburst,[3] and couldn't repeat it willingly later on to deal with Agatha Harkness.[2] After finishing the Road, he got his power under control and used telekinesis against Death.[16]
      • Levitation: He later learned to use telekinesis to simulate limited flight.[16]
    • Reality Warping: Just like the Scarlet Witch subconsciously created the Hex anomaly out of her grief and desire to have a family, Billy subconsciously created the Witches' Road out of his strong desire to find Tommy and learn the truth about himself. He then managed to consciously use this power to destroy the Road and transform its door into a tombstone for Sharon, Alice and Lilia.[16][17]
    • Soul Manipulation: Billy managed to find the soul of his brother Tommy and transfer it into the body of a boy who was just drowned to death.[16]
      • Reincarnation / Immortality: While Billy's body can die, he would automatically transfer his soul to the body of another person who had just died somewhere in the world.[7][2][16] This power made him effectively immortal, as even Death can't kill him and take him to the afterlife unless he willingly agrees to die and come with her.[16]
    • Spell Casting: Billy studied witchcraft for three years and compelled his own spellbook.[13][2]
      • Release Spell: He managed to cast a powerful spell that broke the Scarlet Witch's spell on Agatha Harkness.[13]
      • Summoning Spell: He cast this spell together with the rest of the Coven to summon a green witch to the Witches' Road.[15]
      • Hexenbesen: He learned this spell from other witches of the Coven and used it to enchant the broom in order to fly away from the Salem Seven.[3]
      • Banishing Spell: He used this spell in an attempt to banish Agatha's ghost.[17]

Weaknesses

  • Amnesia: He doesn't remember his life as William Kaplan before age 13 or his brief life as Billy Maximoff.[2] With Agatha's help he managed to regain the memories about only the last few minutes of his original life in Westview.[16]

Paraphernalia

Equipment

  • Homemade Spellbook: He studied witchcraft for three years and compelled his own spellbook.[13][2] It contained spells to free another person from mind control,[13] to summon a witch,[15] and an unknown number of other spells. He lost the book on the Witches' Road during the Coven's escape from the Salem Seven.[3] Lilia Calderu later found the book and returned it to Billy just before her death.[5]

Notes

Trivia

William Maximoff (Earth-199999) from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness BTS 001

Billy's statue in the Temple of the Darkhold

See Also

Links and References

References

  1. In WandaVision S1E03, WandaVision S1E059 and these episodes' credits, and in the in-universe "WandaVision" show's opening credits shown in WandaVision S1E05 his name was just "Billy". Only in the in-universe "WandaVision" show's opening credits in WandaVision S1E06 was his name listed as "Billy Maximoff". In the credits of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness his variant was listed as "Billy Maximoff" as well. Billy himself is the first one who actually pronounced his name as "Billy Maximoff" in Agatha All Along S1E06 and he is listed as such in the episode's credits. Full name "William" was never used by anyone and hadn't been shown in any credits, but it is indeed his full name as he was named by Vision after William Shakespeare, as per WandaVision S1E03.