Billy Kaplan is forced to go down, down, down the road in his landmark first-ever(!) series with Wiccan: Witches’ Road #1.

It’s somewhat hard (but not too hard) to believe, but Wiccan: Witches’ Road is the first solo series to star the son of the Scarlet Witch himself, Billy Kaplan. Following an Infinity Comics title he headlined with his husband Hulkling as well as his live action debut in Agatha All Along, Billy finally gets to be the protagonist of a (non-digital exclusive!) comic book, which is naturally cause for celebration among his longtime fans.

Set sometime after the events of this year’s Imperial event, Wiccan: Witches’ Road follows a depowered Billy on a quest down —you guessed it— the fabled Witches’ Road to not only save a wounded Hulkling’s life and regain his magic, but prevent the world from elemental chaos as well.

Despite the title obviously being lifted from the plot of Agatha and his presence in that series, Wiccan: Witches’ Road is mostly its own thing, taking more cues from the aforementioned Imperial than any recent developments in the MCU. (A certain sect of comic book fandom will be very, very relieved by this.) You don’t have to have read that event to understand this one though. All you need to acknowledge is that the status of outer space is a mess, forcing Billy and Teddy into an unappreciated predicament that leads into this story.

Making his Marvel debut with this limited series, writer Wyatt Kennedy does a good job of putting all the pieces in play without it having the unsatisfying feeling a lot of #1s often tend to give. It’s a deceptively tricky thing to accomplish! You don’t want to throw too much in this soon, but you don’t wanna leave too much for later; this is an especially bad problem in the era of decompressed storytelling and writing for the trade. Not an issue here. Artist Andy Pereira’s style also works really well for a Wiccan series, and there’s lots of detail on each page as well as some appealing flourishes that make the art of Witches Road stand out. (Bryan Valenza’s colors, respectively, are bright and vibrant.) There was a lot riding on the first ever Wiccan series, and thankfully the creative team of Wiccan: Witches’ Road deliver.