Tommy Maximoff's Comic Origin: How Wanda's Other Twin Became Speed

We've already met Billy Maximoff, also known as Billy Kaplan or Wiccan, in the MCU, but I wanted to take a second to talk about his brother, Tommy Shepherd, or Tommy Maximoff. In the comics, Tommy is Wanda's other twin, a speedster who goes by Speed, and his origin is tied to Mephisto, a reincarnation, and a stint in a high powered prison.

Wanda made the twins from pieces of Mephisto's soul

Wanda used her reality warping powers to create the twins with parts of Mephisto's soul. When Mephisto reabsorbed those pieces into his soul, they ended up essentially going back in time and being born within the bodies of other kids who were alive. It's a lot, so bear with me. These two people, who were going to live different lives, were now Billy and Tommy Maximoff, but they were also Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd.

Tommy was reborn in Springfield, New Jersey, which is about 45 minutes from Manhattan, where Billy Kaplan was raised, and about 30 minutes from where Wanda and Vision's family home was. It kind of makes more sense why Billy Maximoff was only in the next town over in Agatha All Along, because even in the comics the twins weren't that far from that family home or from each other.

Tommy went from juvie to a real prison after vaporizing his high school

Tommy's new parents divorced when he was young, which made him a little bit of a troublemaker. He was in and out of juvie for most of his young years. Then Tommy accidentally vaporized his entire high school with his powers. He can run so fast that it disintegrates things on an atomic level, which is terrifying.

After that, he was arrested and thrown into real jail rather than juvie. He was sentenced to imprisonment in a high powered facility that was supposed to hold him easily, kind of like where Jessica Jones goes in Jessica Jones, though it's not the same facility. Tommy also explains that while he was there, he was experimented on to become a super weapon.

The Young Avengers broke Tommy out using a program Vision made

After Hulkling gets captured by the Super-Skrull, the Young Avengers end up breaking Tommy out. They don't entirely trust him yet, and they're really unaware that he and Billy could be twins, except for the fact that they keep commenting on how much they look alike. They locate him using a program Vision made to find a team of Avengers in case something happened to the Avengers or in case more heroes were needed.

That same program was used to locate all of the Young Avengers. After the run in with the Super-Skrull, where the Super-Skrull actually calls them Tommy and Billy Maximoff, Billy finally kind of understands that Tommy is his twin and that they must be Wanda's children reincarnated. He bases this on their names, their appearances, Tommy's white hair and speed matching his uncle Pietro, and Billy's powers being similar to Wanda's. Speed looks a lot like Pietro, but he also has a lot of the same personality traits.

As Speed, Tommy fought in Civil War and searched for Wanda with Billy

Taking on the name Speed, Tommy helped rescue Hulkling, fought alongside Steve Rogers in Civil War, and even spent a little time with the Runaways. The Runaways are a group whose parents were all part of a cult, and they now spend their time trying to help other people. Nico Minoru, who got really popular within this last year but has been popular for years before that, is part of that group.

Tommy also teamed up with Billy to try to find Wanda during her disappearance. They traveled to places including Wundagore, which you may remember from Multiverse of Madness, and even headed back to Jersey. Billy is a little bit upset about that, since they left from Manhattan and could have gone there first. They end up finding Master Pandemonium, who knew their backstory because he was a servant of Mephisto. He tells them how they were kind of reincarnated and transmorphed into these other children's bodies, and that's kind of how they learned their true origin.

Later, when the Young Avengers find a group using their name, they confront them, and Tommy actually recognizes one of its members from his time in juvie.

I think Tommy is the overlooked Young Avenger who deserves time to shine

So Tommy is a mutant, a child's soul inside another kid, and also something of a Quicksilver dupe for the Young Avengers. He's oftentimes forgotten in a lot of stories. There's an entire run where the team needs to go find him because he got kidnapped, and they kind of just forget he was there. Then he shows up at the party at the end, totally fine.

That's kind of what the Agatha joke is getting at. He's the less talked about Young Avenger, because Billy has kind of taken the spot, since he has cooler powers or whatever. But he's not a ripoff of his uncle. I think Tommy needs some time to shine, so hopefully we'll see him in the future.

Would you like to see Tommy Shepherd's Speed show up in the MCU alongside Billy?