I can’t think of anything to write about lately so I’m harnessing my love of sitting on the couch and eating bon-bons while watching TV to start writing episode recaps of WandaVision.
I saw the first two episodes last week and loved them. The Scarlet Witch is my favorite comic book character (tied with Storm). One of the earliest comics I remember reading was Avengers #234 in 1983, which explained her origin. I can tell this TV show is the product of people like me who grew up on Avengers comics in the ‘80s, and the show really seems to understand the characters of the Scarlet Witch and the Vision (there were a few impressively deep cuts from the comics).
This show is full of Easter eggs for comic fans so I’ll give my impression of what I think WandaVision is up to. Hold on, because I’m about to geek out.
Wanda Maximoff and her twin brother Pietro were born on Wundagore Mountain in Eastern Europe. Their father wasn’t in the picture and their mother died in childbirth so they were raised by a kindly couple in the fictional nation of Transia. After they developed their mutant powers, the townspeople turned on them and they had to flee. The mutant Magneto found Wanda and Pietro as teenagers and they became the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. They briefly joined Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and clashed with the original X-Men but soon realized they were not villains and joined the Avengers. Quicksilver drifted from the team after awhile but the Scarlet Witch was a core member of the Avengers for a very long time after joining in publishing year 1965.
A few years later, the Vision encountered the Avengers. The Vision is a synthezoid (an android with a human mind) created by the murderous Ultron, who was built by Hank Pym. The Vision got his name when he phased through a wall, startling the Wasp, who cried, “It’s some sort of inhuman vision!” He realized he was being manipulated, turned against Ultron and joined the Avengers. He was also on the team for a very long time. The Vision’s mind is based on the brain of Wonder Man (Simon Williams), a superhuman who was manipulated by the Masters of Evil into attacking the Avengers. Wonder Man appeared to die (he later returned) but the Avengers recorded his brain and personality, which Ultron gave to Vision. Thus Vision is basically Wonder Man’s brother.
Over time, the Vision and Scarlet Witch fell in love and got married. Eventually they left the Avengers to start a family. Although the vision has an artificial body, Wanda was able to use magic to get pregnant. She had twins, Billy and Tommy.
Tragedy struck a few years later. The Vision had accessed world government computers, and the affected nations teamed up to disassemble him and strip him of the top-secret knowledge he gained. Hank Pym and the Black Panther reassembled the Vision’s body but Wonder Man refused to give permission to recopy his brain. So the Vision lost all his personality and emotional connection to his wife. This devastated Wanda, who basically became a widow whose husband was still walking around.
Then, in a controversial story in Avengers West Coast in 1989, they found out their children weren’t real but a projection of Wanda’s subconscious—when she stopped thinking about them, they disappeared. Their souls were pieces of the essence of the demon Mephisto, whom Franklin Richards had shattered into pieces. Mephisto reabsorbed the children and the sorceress Agatha Harkness erased them from Wanda’s memory, thinking this was a mercy. However, years later, the Scarlet Witch remembered her children and had a breakdown that destroyed the Avengers. I hated that story because it leaned on the “hysterical woman” trope and also turned my favorite character into a murderer. The two children did later return.
Anyway, WandaVision. The show seems to understand the two characters. Wanda is a superhero who just wants what she sees as a normal life: A husband, kids and a house in the suburbs. She faced prejudice as a mutant and due to her Roma/Jewish heritage, and carries the burden of being Magneto’s daughter, so she’s gone through a lot. The Vision also just wants a more normal life. Since his first appearance, he has longed to be human and sees himself as an emotionless machine, which is ironic since he is nothing but emotion and cried in his second appearance in a comic when the Avengers asked him to join.
So the moment when the dinner guests ask why Wanda and the Vision don’t have kids—causing Wanda to tense up—was subtly powerful. I think the sitcoms are something Wanda created to process her grief and give her a space where she can lead a more normal life. But reality keeps intruding. The first episode was a Dick Van Dyke Show homage until it turned into a David Lynch movie—the scene where the Vison’s boss chokes and Debra Jo Rupp repeats “Stop it” right to the camera, getting more and more serious and speaking to Wanda as much as her choking husband, was stunning.
Is this warped reality Wanda’s doing or is she trapped in a world not of her own making? The radio voice asking “Who’s doing this to you, Wanda?” would imply the latter. However, there is precedent for the Scarlet Witch to warp reality. She appears to be telekinetic in the movies but in the comics, her powers have always been vague. She basically can create hexes that can have unpredictable effects—she’ll point at your gun and it will jam. Later they explained her powers as manipulating probabilities. Then she became a chaos magic user. (Wanda is not technically a sorceress but she has had some training. She was born with magic potential as her birth was influenced by the elder god Chthon.) In later years, the Scarlet Witch got a power boost and was able to warp reality. Once, under the influence of Morgan Le Fay, she transformed part of the world to medieval times and trapped he Avengers there. Later in the House of M story, with some manipulation by Quicksilver, she changed reality to give all the Marvel heroes what they wanted, which culminated in her stripping powers away from most of the world’s mutants.
I think everyone in the first two sitcom episodes has an analogue in reality. Agnes is Agatha Harkness, Wanda’s sorcerous mentor and the former nanny of Franklin Richards. Geraldine is Monica Rambeau, the first woman to hold the Captain Marvel title in the ‘80s, and a longtime Avenger. She was my Captain Marvel when I started reading comics so I’m happy they’re bringing Monica in. The guy in the beekeeper suit is probably from Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM). They’re not actual beekeepers but in the comics wore suits that looked that way. There’s a rumor that the blonde woman in the second episode is Mephisto.
I am very intrigued after two episodes and can’t wait to see where WandaVision is going.
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