Why are people complaining about Wiccan being more muscular now?

Early twenties:

Age sixteen:

How doesn't this add up?

honestly i just think people aren't use to it yet. plus the images used of his new costume isn't the greatest of artwork. so that doesn't help

It's not the worst redesign imaginable, but I was pretty happy with his look in Young Avengers v2. The anime-inspired hedgehog hair is a dated eyesore and discordant with the style of the other books we've seen him in, and size-wise he's almost indistinguishable from Teddy, which feels off. You could argue it makes sense that he's more muscular, but I don't see why he should be. He was the same size at nineteen as he was at sixteen; twenty one isn't some magic age when you start putting on muscle.

I haven't read anything past the first issue, so I can't really speak to how the writer's handling his characterization. Other than that, I'm bummed/perplexed that they gave him to this book instead of Scarlet Witch.

@assguardian:

He was less muscular in v2 than in most previous depictions(see pictures above) to pamper to a bunch of fangirls going all cute gay boy, along with the remaining just gay and nothing else characterization, depressed, needs his hands held can't do a thing unless deus ex machina love.
He was also 17 in v2 and he is still considerably smaller than Teddys Hulkling form now, as you can see in every picture they stand next to each other in New Avengers. We don't know about his human form, because apparently the writer and artist didn't even do enough research to know thats Teddys real form, but Billy and Teddy were always almost identical in size in teddys human form.

@stahlflamme

You're right that their relative heights fluctuate on-panel, but Teddy was lot bigger than Billy in human form way back on the cover of #1 of the first Young Avengers. Considering he's protective and can change shape at will, It makes sense for him to choose a body that's substantially larger than Billy's.

The case can be made that Wiccan's poor characterization in v2 was as much because he's Wanda's son (and was lazily subjected to all the same bullshit tropes) as it was because Marvel wanted him to be some "generic cute gay guy." As a gay guy myself, I don't have a problem with him being less than hyper-masculine. Tumblr fangirls aside, his original concept was "male witch."

@assguardian: I don't even recall Teddys human form being on a cover and covers are pretty much the last place were you can find correct size ratios. With the exception of the Secret Invasion tie-in I can't remember a single time Teddy was more than slightly bigger than Billy in a comic even his Hulkling form has at one point be roughly the same size as Billy. And whats always with this Teddy being soo protective of Billy, when it being the other way around is the far more common occurence.

Gillen was literally pandering to his tumblr fanbase, there is no denying that, because its on tumblr. One of the main complains when it initially came out was how it focused to much on the tumblr crowd. Billys characterization was pretty much the same you can fight in every poorly written fanfiction by some twelve-year-old girl. But of course you're right starting with mental health problems that were previously resolved.

Male witch means literaly nothing for his size and muscularity, Doom is also a male Witch, his magic originating in his roman ancestry, which in Marvel at least only depicted supernaturally powerful women. Wiccan was already drawn as immensly muscular in the original series second arc the(picture is up there) and was also quite muscular in the first Young Avengers/Runaway crossover, in the Dark Reign as well and his original artist drew him with more defined muscles compared to patriot or Hulklings human form. Not to mention how Childrens Crusade was pointing at the similiarities between him and Magneto and Doctor Doom, both of which are often depicted as quite muscular.

And no he doesn't have to be hyper-masculine, but the complains about him being not the same character anymore and being made a complete different character are pretty damn stupid, if he has been depicted like that multiple times before and this artist draws every damn male character like that. Especially when writers like Gillen and Ewing depict him as a passive borderly depressive and fairly ineffecient character, that doesn't do anything unless told to or motivated by his relationship and can only positively effect the plot if some huge deus ex machina is around mostly one that makes everything a love save the day moment and his powers aren't even acknowledged to be magic anymore.

@stahlflamme:

It was #6, and he's hulked out, so I was wrong. Human Teddy's taller than him by a huge margin in their full-page kiss, though, and that was drawn by Cheung, the same guy who originated the characters.

Billy might be the only male legacy hero (or male hero, period) in comics who takes after a female character. Scarlet Witch had a large part to do with his original motif. You can read into that as much or as little as you want, but saying that's he's as much a male witch as Doom is, when it's an ineffectual element of Doom's backstory at best, is silly. Anyway, I don't have a problem with him being muscular. It's the rest of Sandoval's depiction of him - the oversized cloak, weird bangs, lipless face, etc., that feels like such a departure.

Again, though, I agree that he gets characterized poorly. But you seem to be conflating how masculine he looks with how much agency he has in a story. Those two things aren't identical.

@assguardian said:

Wiccans head is turned to the side in that picture if they were both standing upright Teddy would have like half an inch on him, which is the same in most pictures drawn by Cheung with them standing next to eacht other.

Dooms backstory, powers, look without his armor and motivation are all more similiar or linked to his mother. Sure he has his scientific geniues as well, but that does indeed not link to anyone, as his fater was just a doctor. Doom is essentially male "gypsy witch" with armor.

@stahlflamme:

No, look at their shoulders and where the smalls of their backs are relative to one another. Unless they're so short that half an inch makes that large of a difference, Teddy's clearly got some height on him.

And he's been patronizingly grabbing onto Billy's shoulder every time shit hits the fan for as long as they've been around: He's protective. Just because YA v2 and some corners of fandom took that dynamic and ratcheted it up to an asinine degree doesn't discount the fact that it's always been there. Given what we know about him, it makes sense to me that Teddy would want to be bigger.

Doom's not a witch. His mother having been one is a small element of his backstory that has no bearing on his character design and was added well after his establishment. He's an evil wizard in the long tradition of Sauron and every magical villain who came after, that's it. Trying to say that he parallels his mother or witches generally as closely as Billy does is a whopper.

Seems fairly even as far as shoulders and waist are concerned. Its not exactly an anatomical masterwork thought. Teddys hands have quite the size difference.

Here they look different, but you can see Teddy sitting higher up. Most of the time.

Oh, and yes they were actually quite short when compared to Captain America and a lot of other adult heroes.

Turning your head to kiss someone at or near your height does not produce that much of a height differential, and I'd argue that that page has more bearing in establishing their relative sizes than any other panel. It's not a hill I'm prepared to die on, though.

Not really the size during the kiss may have been altered for the sake of the composition of the picture. One might simply be taller, because Cheung thought it looked better when drawn that way. During the majority of their interaction in human form they are almost the same size, with Teddy being only minimally taller if anything. The kiss only came out seven years after their initial appearreance and as I pointed out the picture is not completely anatomical correct.

FTFY.

@assguardian: A) Cap is only 6'2 and was considerably bigger than Teddy at this point. B) You're not taking perspective into consideration with both heads being tilted. C) Thats not Teddys butt. D) Still one picture that might have been altered heights for artistic sake appearing almost seven years after the characters introduction, that is not entirely anatomically correct. Opposed to roughly their entire history drawn by the same artist. E) Can you please use the reply function, so I get a notification when you say something to me. Its in the upper right corner of my posts, when you move your cursor there.

@stahlflamme: It's a joke.

I'm just surprise they didn't give Billy Kaplan the hairdo where its shaved on the sides, but kept longer on the top for this series he is in. I'm not digging the dated Japanese animated hairdo. The illustration isn't great either . When it comes to the height of Billy and Teddy, Teddy is taller next to Billy when they are next to each other in comparison.