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WARNING: The following contains spoilers for X-Factor #10 by Leah Williams, David Baldeon, David Messina, Lucas Weneck, Israel Silva & VC’s Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
In their relatively short lifetimes, the Young Avengers have experienced some extraordinary hardships. Speed, in particular, has had a fairly difficult life. Most recently, Tommy Shepherd went through a rather horrifying moment when he discovered the body of his mother, the Scarlet Witch.
Speed found his mother’s body at the end of X-Factor #10, the final issue in the “Hellfire Gala” event. Recently, Speed has been spending plenty of time on the mutant island-nation of Krakoa. It’s Tommy’s relationship with Prodigy which has kept him coming back, appearing as a recurring character in the pages of X-Factor. For this reason, Speed attended the Hellfire Gala with his boyfriend.
After the party, Tommy stumbled upon Wanda Maximoff’s body. Not realizing who she was at first, Speed went over to the Scarlet Witch to help. Realizing that the body belonged to Wanda, Eye-Boy tried to stop Tommy.
Yet it was too late, and Speed found his mother, seemingly dead. This moment was especially heartbreaking, as Tommy desperately called out to his mother, tearfully calling her “mommy.” Eye-Boy had to hold back the distraught Speed, who frantically asked who did this to his mother.
This moment must be especially difficult for Tommy, since he spent most of his life disconnected from the Scarlet Witch. Tommy grew up with Frank and Mary Shepherd as his parents, until he ran into Billy Kaplan, the Scarlet Witch’s other son. Speed and Wiccan almost immediately realized that they were twins, which changed their lives forever.
From this point forward, Speed and Wiccan spent much of their time searching for Wanda in an attempt to confirm the suspicion that they were her children. Speed, however, was still skeptical, generally humoring Wiccan’s search for the Scarlet Witch. It wasn’t until 2011’s Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #6, by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung, that Wanda had her memories restored following “House of M,” recognizing Billy and Tommy as her children.
Even then, Speed was initially cold towards his mother. This was understandable since Tommy was scared that Wanda would just disappear on them all over again. After spending so much time away from his mother, with only a short period of time to connect with her, Tommy must truly be devastated to find Wanda dead.
Finding Wanda’s body is horrifying enough, but this is also the latest in a series of horrors which Tommy has faced. When he first appeared in 2006’s Young Avengers #10, by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung, Speed had been captured and experimented upon for months.
Tommy was only a teenager, experiencing nothing but pain and struggle through the formative years of his life. Even after being rescued by the Young Avengers, Speed had his entire life thrown upside down, realizing that his origins were much darker than he believed. In 2008’s Young Avengers Presents #3, by Robert Aguirre-Sacasa and Alina Urusov, Wiccan and Speed went to Wundagore Mountain while looking for the Scarlet Witch. There, Master Pandemonium appeared before the two Young Avengers, rocking their worlds to the core.
Pandemonium not only confirmed the belief that they were the Scarlet Witch’s children born of Mephisto’s energies, but also revealed that their pasts were nothing but chaos and darkness. Now, after spending so much time focused on the horrifying truth behind his origins, it seemed that Tommy was enjoying a brief period of happiness.
Tommy and Billy had reconnected with their mother, and Speed enjoyed a relationship with Prodigy. Now, however, it seems that Speed’s moment of happiness has been torn away from him, losing his mother again. For Speed, it must be horrifying to feel his suspicions are confirmed, seeing his mother leave him once more.
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