The Last Annihilation: Wiccan & Hulkling #1, part of the titular company wide crossover at Marvel, hit stands September 1 and was an instant best seller according to Amazon — the stand-alone issue which retailed for $4.99 is selling for between $15 and $22 on their site.
The Last Annihilation centers on the return of Dr. Strange’s greatest nemesis,Dormammu, who having possessed Ego the Living Planet, set out to conquer five planets, including Skrullos and Hala (The Skrull and Kree homeworlds respectively). Early in the crossover, Wiccan left to protect Skrullos, while Teddy Altman/Hulkling remained to defend Hala.
Above: The Last Annihilation: Wiccan & Hulkling #1 variant by David Lopez
Wiccan and Hulkling is a best seller… please Marvel give the people what they want with an ongoing pic.twitter.com/Wgw1adhpsm
In case you missed it, after the events of EMPYRE, last year’s Marvel company wide crossover, Teddy is now Emperor Dorrek-Vell and Billy is Prince Consort and Court Wizard of the Kree/Skrull Alliance.
They have also ascended to become one of, if not the most powerful couples, in the Marvel Universe, and have been über popular since they debuted in the pages of Young Avengers #1 in 2005. Which is why we (and fans) are wondering why they don’t already have their own series.
THE LAST ANNIHILATION : WICCAN AND HULKLING SPOILERS • • • • • • • “i am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” is from the song of songs. the phrase shows up in ketubahs, which are manuscripts in jewish weddings as proof of marriage. reading this made me really sob pic.twitter.com/6FjBGXafgT
— az | VOTED BEST BILLY KAPLAN-ALTMAN STAN (@transbillykplan) September 1, 2021
Marvel and DC have both struggled with regular best selling ongoing series that aren’t Wolverine or Batman. They have also wrestled with, to varying degrees of success, with prominently featuring LGBT characters who aren’t derivative — i.e. Captain America, Robin (Tim Drake), Superman (Jonathan Kent)— problems easily solved with a Wiccan/Hulkling ongoing.
The Supreme Intelligence Lives On When Marvel Boy (Noh-Varr) identifies an interfacing chamber once used to communicate with the Kree Supreme Intelligence, he somehow “recycles” the Intelligence, bringing it back online in a strange new form. Hulkling shudders at the thought of its return, calling it “an undead fascist hive-mind.”
CBR: “First introduced in 1967’s Fantastic Four#65 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Supreme Intelligence was developed over one million years ago by the Kree in an effort to surpass the Skrulls in the long running war between the two interstellar races. Upon death, the minds of the greatest Kree generals, scientists, and philosophers were assimilated into the Intelligence, which eventually became a being with its own mind rather than being a compilation of many. Eventually the Supreme Intelligence would replace the Kree government almost entirely before becoming a messiah-like figure to many of the Kree.”
After coming online, the Intelligence begins ranting and raving in a disturbingly ominous manner, its words being cut off by strings of numbers and error notifications. The Intelligence, or rather what is left of it, acknowledges the coming incursion of Dark Dimension and initiates a countdown to destroy what remains of the planet, possibly under the thrall of Dormammu.
Billy Kaplan/Wiccan May Be the Demiurge When Wiccan encounters Dormammu on the Skrull holy world of Ny’Ni-Ahn, he calls him the Demiurge. The Demiurge, as you may recall, is the villainous variant of Billy Kaplan possessed by the evil sorcerer Moridun from Earth-616.
Born at the dawn of time, Demiurge is the sentient life force of Earth’s biosphere who seeded the Earth with ‘pieces’ of its own life essence, giving birth to the Elder Gods. First introduced in 1982’s ThorAnnual #10, eventually all of the Elder Gods, save for Oshtur and Gaea, descended into degeneracy, becoming life-destroying demons. To stop them, Gaea meditated, and mated with the Demiurge, conceiving within her a force to fight them, Atum.
Dormammu says Billy is a genuine mystical powerhouse, “but has not yet reached his true potential.” Taking up Wiccan in his arms, Dormammu considers killing him and “taking care of the fatal egg before the serpent hatches.”
Wiccan uses the proximity to drain mystical energy directly from Dormammu — giving him more than enough power to repair Teddy’s shattered Excelsior sword. Then, using the Nega-Band wedding rings they share, the pair are able to swap places from across the galaxy.
Hulkling then takes up the enchanted and magic-negating blade and run it through Dormammu’s chest (and hopefully doing some serious damage to the monstrous magical threat) while Wiccan arrives back on Hala and effectively gives the defenders of the universe a major win over Dormammu.
It is a reminder how much power the son of the Scarlet Witch possesses.
the last annihilation : wiccan and hulkling spoilers : . . . . . okay so we’re still building this up to be a big big moment and that’s kinda scary. someone just tell him already please idk how much longer i can wait for his reaction pic.twitter.com/C955ByvkE9
It also could be seen as an ominous foreshadowing of what Billy may do were he were to learn that Abigail Brand, the head of S.W.O.R.D., has been keeping the death of the Scarlet Witch on Krakoa a secret from him and Hulkling.
Happy release day Wiccan and Hulkling fans!! Here’s a playlist to celebrate LAST ANNIHILATION finally being here!
The comic clearly reinforces the central place the characters occupy in the Marvel U.
Writer Anthony Oliveira said in an interview earlier this year, that “It’s such a joy to be working on these characters who were such an important part of myself growing up, and getting to work with Al Ewing again as he tells this larger magnificent space opera is such a pleasure. He and editor Darren Shan have been so generous with their conversation and our mutual fondness for continuity deep dives means this one is a treasure trove for “billyteddy” fans and old-school cosmic Marvel fans alike.”
Happy release day Wiccan and Hulkling fans!! Here’s a playlist to celebrate LAST ANNIHILATION finally being here!
Oliveira in an interview with AIPT in June said that what makes Hulkling and Wiccan such a wonderful couple for Marvel is “they were the blueprint. They truly were. When I was a kid, I couldn’t believe what was happening when I was buying those comics — I truly believed I was making it up, that it was wishful thinking. Two scions of pillars of the Marvel Universe — the sons of Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel themselves! An heir to two empires, and to the Avengers legacy! — built into the heart of its stories, and unabashedly in love. So fully three-dimensional, with so much chemistry and affection. It was magic. It still is.”
Above: writer Anthony Oliveira.
Oliveira’s use of the word blueprint is telling.
In many ways Annihilation is just that: a blueprint for what a Wiccan/Hulkiling ongoing might look like. He says in that same interview that his favorite qualities of Billy and Teddy is “their patience and kindness with each other. They are each other’s favorite person, and they are endlessly fascinated and delighted by each other’s strange quirks, odd turns, passions and frustrations, and fears. They’re two sweet nerds who found one another, against all odds, and then also happened to find out they also have superpowers. That is a rare gift — it is not something everybody gets.’
Speaking of their ability submerge their individualities and act as a unit, “this is precisely the joyous challenge of The Last Annihilation. In the present day of the story, Billy is on Skrullos, Teddy is on Hala; they never speak to each other.”
And so the issue is full of flashbacks throughout their lives, and we see how much impact they have had on each other, how much they have chosen to commit to each other. And meanwhile, in the present day, they are confronted with the same question: who, then, are you alone? And the forces confronting them rush to tell them what they are, that they are not enough, that they are monstrous or compromised or weak.
“When they parted in Emperor Hulkling,” he continues, “they promised each other they’d never be alone, no matter how lost they felt — I wanted to think seriously about that promise, the radical generosity of it. ‘Love dares the self to leave the self behind,’ as the poet Anne Carson said. This is a story about that dare.”
Oliveira says that he loves both characters equally.
“There are pieces of me in both of them,” he said. “I have Billy’s unsureness about himself, his anxiety, his tendency to retreat into fantasy and geeking out, and we both channel that anxiety into a need to be perfect, to study hard and get it right and impress our will upon the universe until it looks the way we want it to look. And so the flip side of that is the wild, creative parts of himself — but also the tendency for the world to go white, and for him to wonder what just happened, and to deal with the fallout.”
“In Teddy,” he notes, “I see the part of myself that wants to give the world its trust; that wants to risk being vulnerable to see if something greater can come of it. We built the spine of Emperor Hulkling around a motto I hold very close — be brave enough to be kind, which ended up being a large part of his arc as he came into his kingship in Empyre. It takes radical hope and risk, but I think it is risk worth taking. Teddy has lost so much, been asked to do so much, and it would be easy to let that embitter or harden him. He does not let it. I aspire to that.”
#marvelcosmic The Last Annihilation: Wiccan and Hulkling Spoilers // . .
TEDDY AND BILLY LOVE EACH OTHER AND THATS WHY I BELIEVE IN LOVE ???? GOD DAMN IT pic.twitter.com/HHXgW7P1Ph
Answering a final fan question, on advice “you would give to queer writers trying to carve out their own path.” Oliveira’s answer sounds almost like a manifesto for an ongoing series: “Find your peers, and lift them up — you will all rise together. Find your mentors, and listen carefully. Surround yourself with talent you admire. Be generous with your time, careful with your trust, and thoughtful with your words. Build a platform that is yours — you will need it. Be compassionate to those you work with and those who came before you. And when they give you the ball, kick it as far as you possibly can. It won’t be all the way. But someday someone else will kick it farther.”
“Remember that they will always resent queer art. They will try to bully you and stifle you and when you succeed beyond your wildest imaginations, they will belittle you and wonder why you didn’t do more or go further and complain that you’ve ruined something that was not yours to ruin. When this happens, remember your imperative. And so this above all: to thine own self be true. And be brave enough to be kind.”
‘Nuff said.
The Last Annihilation: Wiccan & Hulkling #1, by Anthony Oliveira, Jan Bazaldua, Rachelle Rosenberg and VC’s Ariana Maher is on sale now.
