New 'WandaVision' Sequel Explains Missing 'X-Men' Reboot Character

One of the recently unveiled trailers at D23 that I found the most exciting was the one for VisionQuest. It’s understandably being marketed as the conclusion to a trilogy of Disney+ series that began with WandaVision in 2021 and continued with 2024’s Agatha All Along. However, this is the MCU we’re talking about, which means VisionQuest also pays off projects from before WandaVision and will inevitably impact events that have yet to transpire.

One of those MCU projects that has yet to be made is the upcoming X-Men reboot, which will finally see the Fox era left behind as beloved characters are overhauled for a more seamless integration into the Disney franchise. While we’ll see some of the Fox-verse X-Men actors as part of the Avengers: Doomsday cast, the movie is being treated as more of a farewell tour for them rather than any kind of permanent reprisal of their Marvel roles. That being said, the new X-Men cast is still missing a character who has thrived in the Fox movies. VisionQuest has just explained their absence, though.

The New ‘VisionQuest’ Trailer Finally Introduces the MCU’s Quicksilver Replacement

This Explains Why the New ‘X-Men’ Cast Has No Speedster

Behind-the-scenes legal goings-on mean Pietro “Quicksilver” Maximoff was once one of the few characters to which both Marvel Studios and Fox shared the movie rights. As such, he was played by Evan Peters in Fox’s X-Men movies and by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the MCU. While Quicksilver has only appeared once in the MCU, when featured in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, Peters’ iteration of the comic book speedster appeared in four X-Men movies and even snagged an uncredited cameo in 2018’s Deadpool 2. Peters’ Quicksilver rapidly became a fan favorite thanks to his iconic, yet tranquil, slo-mo sequences.

With Taylor-Johnson’s character already dead in the MCU, and the Fox-verse right on the cusp of becoming defunct, it seems unlikely we’ll see either version of Quicksilver on-screen again. The X-Men reboot would have been the perfect opportunity to bring him back, but again, Quicksilver has already lived and died in the MCU via Taylor-Johnson’s role in Age of Ultron. That’s why VisionQuest is so important in this respect. Although bringing in another version of Quicksilver would need a whole bunch of sci-fi canon rewrites for the MCU timeline to continue making sense, VisionQuest is giving us the next best thing.

The third installment in the WandaVision trilogy is showcasing the return of Tommy Maximoff (Ruaridh Mollica), just as Agatha All Along brought back his brother Billy (Joe Locke) – AKA Wiccan. While the brothers began as magical conjurings of Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) in her grief-stricken state, Agatha All Along revealed that Billy’s consciousness survived and made its way into a new body outside the Hex. The same thing appears to have finally happened for Tommy, with Mollica’s character making his way to be reunited with his father, Vision (Paul Bettany), after growing up in Scotland.

Just as Billy’s new form regained his original powers from WandaVision, Tommy is also highly likely to have re-inherited the same superspeed as his late uncle. If so, then he can go by the name Speed, as he does in the comics. Speed’s powers are essentially identical to those of Quicksilver’s, so if the MCU did want to bring in a new version of the character once played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, it would feel unnecessarily complex. Speed and Quicksilver do exist side-by-side in the source material, but on-screen, it’d simply muddy the waters to replicate this part of the Marvel universe.

Speed Is Technically the MCU’s Second Quicksilver Replacement

Sticking strictly to the MCU’s Sacred Timeline, Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character was the first version of Quicksilver, and his death in Age of Ultron ruled out any future appearances from the Speedster. On the other hand, WandaVision certainly toyed with the possibility. In an incredibly meta casting decision, the Disney+ series brought in Evan Peters to sort of reprise his Fox-verse role, but in the MCU. It ultimately turned out he was just a regular guy called Ralph Bohner who was caught under Wanda’s spell, but the enchanted necklace placed around his neck by Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) granted him the same powers as Wanda’s late brother. When the combined magic of Wanda and Agatha was taken away, Ralph lost his superspeed and was no longer governed by the implanted memories of being Pietro Maximoff.

I must say that even to this day, I’m a little annoyed by the fake-out. I would have loved the crossover tease that was being implied, but I guess it would have opened too many cans of worms. That said, it was Fake Pietro who was present when Tommy’s powers originally manifested, which makes both on-screen versions of Quicksilver feel like they’re all part of the MCU’s Speed backstory. Handing off that void left behind by their absence for Tommy to fill, and allowing him to become Speed, feels like a great way to keep the torch burning in a way that both looks to the future and honors the past. I guess all that remains to be seen is if VisionQuest is serving as a springboard for Speed to eventually become an X-Man like his uncle from another universe, or if Tommy’s (presumed) status as a non-mutant in the MCU means he’ll align himself with a different superhero team like his mutant comic book counterpart.