Agatha All Along's biggest mystery may be that it's setting up a little-known Marvel character

Agatha for life is one of the most mysterious entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far. Much of the show remains completely under wraps despite all the information revealed in the first two episodes. The pasts of characters like Rio Vidal are still under wraps, leaving plenty of room for fans to speculate. Even those with comic book origins, like Lilia Calderu and Jennifer Kale, haven't been fully explained yet, and there's still the possibility that the MCU will play with their backstories and spin them into something entirely new.

One of the biggest sources of mystery has been the character of Joe Locke. Promotional materials refuse to use his name, referring to him only as Teen, and the show has continued this trend. This has led to much speculation about his true identity, but fans may be missing the best and most interesting theory about who he really is.

Who is that teenager, according to fans?

For the most part, fans believe that Teen's real identity is Billy Kaplan – better known to many as Billy Maximoff, one of Wanda's sons. This would make sense, especially given the void Wanda's death has left in the magical community within the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the fans who cry for his return in every new project. Incorporating Billy into future stories would be a way to continue his legacy, especially in the eyes of those who feel his story came to an abrupt end after Multiverse of Madness. It would also provide some much-needed queer representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, once again delivering on the promise that Agatha for life it will be “the gayest Marvel project ever.”

Billy made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in WandaVision along with her twin brother Tommy. They didn't play a major role in the story, mostly because they were just children during the events of the series. After all, they were just manifestations of Wanda's psyche and her desire to recover from Vision's death during Avengers: Infinity War rather than ever truly being people. He and his brother were kidnapped by Agatha as a way for her to lure Wanda to her and discover the source of her power (which would be an interesting thing to Agatha for life to address whether this is Billy Maximoff returning to the series). He appeared again in Multiverse of Madnessbut once again, her existence was little more than a way to represent what Wanda wanted to regain through her villain arc, rather than a true explanation of who she was.

It looks like the MCU is moving towards introducing the Young Avengers, which would further justify Billy's inclusion in the franchise as a whole. In the comics, he is one of the most important members of the team, even acting as their leader at times (though he has often led them down the wrong path). In the comics, Billy Kaplan is the reincarnation of Wanda's son who inherited her powers. During the Children's Crusade, he was one of the few who wanted to find and help Wanda after the House of M disaster rather than believe that she was destined to be evil forever. He goes on to form a relationship with one of the other Young Avengers, Hulkling, and becomes a crucial part of their success in their battle against Mother. It's impossible to bring the team to the screen without involving Billy in some way, and this would be an interesting way to do it.

The teenager may actually be Nicholas Scratch

• Nicholas Scratch is the son of Agatha Harkness.
• In the comics, as he grows up, he becomes the father of the Salem Seven after rebelling against his mother.

However, Billy Kaplan is not the most interesting answer to discover Teen's true identity. Instead, they should take the approach that he is Nicholas Scratch, a much lesser-known Marvel character, but one who could perhaps serve the story of Agatha for life better than Billy could have done. The show has already hinted at Nicholas' existence in some small capacity. Agatha wanders around his room while still under Wanda's mind control in the first episode, though she doesn't seem to register anything about who this character is. It'll be up to the audience to figure out what his relationship with Agatha was (at least until future episodes gradually reveal the truth, just as WandaVision done with its central mystery many years ago). The details of his identity are kept tightly under wraps. Agatha can’t hear him say his name, preventing the audience from learning anything about him. When she asks him where he’s from or anything else about his life, his voice fades. Agatha can still hear everything else in the world, but no clues as to who this boy is. He’s a secret to our protagonist and therefore to us, leaving room for all sorts of theories about what his role will be as the story progresses.

In the comics, Nicholas Scratch was Agatha's son. Like Agatha, he was originally a resident of New Salem (which is interesting, considering a crucial part of Agatha's backstory in the MCU is her expulsion from Salem) when Agatha led the community there. However, when she left to seek a normal life, she began to see her mother as the villain in her story. She led a group of New Salemites who kidnapped Agatha with the intention of burning her at the stake, though she was eventually able to free herself and turn the people of her beloved town against her now-evil son. Nicholas Scratch eventually allied himself with Mephisto (who, it's worth noting, many believe will appear in the series) and even became the source of the Salem Seven, the main villains of the series up to this point.

Why would it have made more sense for him to be Nicholas rather than Billy?

The first episode teases that the loss of Nicholas Scratch is a problem that still plagues the series' main character today. When she enters her room, we sense a quiet sadness in her that contrasts sharply with the exaggerated, excitable, calculating attitude we have come to expect from Agatha Harkness. Her death is portrayed as the thing that made her cold and unfeeling while in the detective universe, which she had built under Wanda's spell, suggesting once again that she hasn't fully recovered from the death of someone so fundamentally important to her. Promotion for the upcoming episodes suggests that the “child sacrifice” Jennifer Kale alluded to when Agatha visited her in the second episode may have been the loss of her own child. A still shows Darkhold sitting in a pram instead of a newborn, suggesting that she may have traded her own flesh and blood for power at some point in her life. Additionally, the second episode of the series highlights the existence of “blood witches,” as they are called. These are the children of other witches, such as Alice Wu-Gulliver, who ends up joining Agatha's coven. It's possible that this information was given to the audience just to let them know what was going on, but it may have been a deliberate way to hint at the idea that Teen is descended from a witch like Agatha.

If Teen were Nicholas, it would be a more interesting relationship for the show to explore than delving into whatever happens between Agatha and Billy, since the two barely interacted throughout the entire run. WandaVision. Is he mad at her for mistaking him for power? Does he even know who he is? Since he's so interested in witch culture, is he okay with him being abandoned if it means he inherited some of that power too? It would add more depth not only to him and his proven obsession with Agatha, but also to Agatha herself, and therefore make the show easier for the audience to engage with. Confronting what she did to him could be one of the tests Agatha will face on Witch Road, and it will certainly be the emotional heart of the series.

There may also be some significance to the fact that Teen first appeared alongside Rio Vidal (who, it's worth noting, is also one of the more mysterious figures in the series, since she didn't originate in the comics like everyone else), and could shed some light on the complicated history between Agatha and Rio that seems to drive the events of the series.It’s pretty much been explicitly confirmed that the two were once romantically involved and that something terrible happened between them that caused their love to turn into cold hatred. After all, they want each other dead, no matter how charged their interactions are in the present. This could also have something to do with Agatha and Teen’s relationship. It could be that Rio was the one who chose to sacrifice Nicholas to the Darkhold if that’s what happened, and that’s what led to the downfall of their relationship. If that’s the case, then Agatha will have to explain to her son why he was taken from her, making it all that much more heartbreaking. Regardless of the true cause, it would be much more interesting for Teen to be Nicholas than Billy, and that’s just as plausible.