Speed doesnt need his own MCU TV series

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is on the cusp of a new dawn, and as Phase 5 comes to a close in 2005, fans are looking ahead to what comes next. There’s already a stacked roster of movies and shows for Phase 6 of the MCU, and with it, new teams are surely building from the sidelines. Although it seems inevitable that the Young Avengers will join the likes of the Thunderbolts, it remains to be seen whether they’ll be introduced through their own projects or piggyback off others.

Away from The Marvels’ post-credit scene teasing the Young Avengers with Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), Jac Schaeffer’s Agatha All Along just introduced another major player in the form of Joe Locke’s Billy Kaplan/Maximoff, aka Wiccan. The MCU now has one-half of the Maximoff boys all grown up and ready for action, but what about Speed? Tommy Shepherd/Maximoff is more than just Billy’s twin brother, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he needs a Disney+ series all of his own.

Who is Speed in the MCU?

The story of the Maximoff boys is a particularly convoluted one, with Tommy and Billy Maximoff being introduced back in 1986’s The Vision and the Scarlet Witch #12. Both turned out to be creations of Wanda Maximoff’s reality-warping powers and were actually fragments of the villainous Mephisto’s soul. Although Mephisto reabsorbed the twins, they were reincarnated many decades later as Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd.

Tommy Shepherd arrived on the scene as part of the Young Avengers in 2006’s Young Avengers #10 and sported the mantle of Speed. As his name suggests, Speed has superhuman agility and reflexes, making him not too dissimilar to Quicksilver…who just so happens to be his uncle in the comics. The character of Tommy Maximoff first appeared in the MCU for WandaVision and was most notably played by Jett Klyne toward the end of the series. The WandaVision finale then led to Tommy and Billy’s returns in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Although Tommy Maximoff is currently MIA in the Earth-616 timeline thanks to his soul seemingly being destroyed by Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) removing the Hex at the end of WandaVision, Multiverse of Madness proved there are alternate versions out there. Agatha All Along made it even simpler than this, with a big reveal that Billy’s soul was transferred into the dying body of William Kaplan at the exact moment the Hex was destroyed.

Similar to how Agatha All Along revamped Billy’s backstory by taking elements of his William Kaplan persona from Marvel Comics, fans are expecting a similar arc for Tommy Shepherd/Maximoff. Episode 6 confirmed that Billy’s modus operandi on the Witches’ Road is to reunite with his brother, making a cameo before the end of the series even more likely. Agatha All Along has also given the MCU’s first official mention of Mephisto, and with rumors that Sacha Baron Cohen is playing him in the upcoming Ironheart series, another major player in Tommy’s inevitable return is now on the board.

Vision Quest is the perfect place for Speed

Noted Marvel leaker DanielRPK recently claimed that Speed would be getting his own Disney+ series in the vein of Agatha All Along, but with Terry Matalas’ Vision Quest also on the horizon, that could be a whopping three standalones before the rumored return of Olsen’s Scarlet Witch. Vision Quest is tipped to be a WandaVision sequel akin to Agatha All Along, focusing on Paul Bettany’s White Vision and apparently bringing back Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s James Spader as the villainous Ultron.

There have been a lot of comparisons between Agatha All Along and The Wizard of Oz, and it would be in keeping with the latter if Billy doesn’t quite get what he wants at the end of the Witches’ Road. Assuming there’s at least a tease of Tommy, it would be a convenient cliffhanger to set up Vision Quest and make a subplot of the show about the boys reuniting before finding their father as the final piece of the puzzle before Scarlet Witch’s inevitable return to the MCU. Like Billy has sat in the shadows of Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha in her own show, it makes sense for Tommy to play second fiddle to his robotic father in Vision Quest.

There have been recent complaints that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been going for quantity over quality, which is something MCU overlord Kevin Feige has addressed. Secret Invasion hardly got glowing reviews, cost a jaw-dropping $200 million, and broke the franchise’s record for the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score. Elsewhere, the harshest critics branded Echo as an unnecessary way to cue Daredevil: Born Again, and there hasn’t been much buzz about Ironheart. The Don Cheadle-led Armor Wars was retooled as a movie, but again, that’s gone quiet. Despite Vision Quest only being tentatively penciled in for 2026, there hasn’t been much fanfare about its potential.

One way to generate hype would be to make Vision Quest a story about Vis and his kids ahead of Wanda’s eventual resurrection. Impatient viewers are tired of projects setting up projects, and with the Young Avengers teases feeling like they’re a long way off from becoming a full-blown movie or Disney+ series for these junior heroes, the last thing anyone wants is a six-episode miniseries revealing how Tommy Shepherd gains his powers and ruining the good work that Agatha All Along did in recapturing the magic of WandaVision. If Agatha All Along can explain Billy’s full backstory in under 50 minutes, there’s no need to bring Ralph Bohner (Evan Peters) back for a whole speedster series.

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