Intellectual properties and universes are starting to collide in Westview. Quicksilver from the X-Men cinematic universe shows up on Wanda’s doorstep. He’s very different from the Avengers’ Quicksilver. He goes by Peter, not Pietro, and he doesn’t appear to have a sister. He’s much less serious than the Quicksilver in both the Marvel movies and comics. His father is implied to be Magneto rather than Baron von Strucker (which is significant since in the comics, Strucker was a literal Nazi while Magneto survived the Holocaust).
It appears that due to the corporate merger, after 20 years, the X-Men and Avengers will finally meet on TV and probably soon in film. In comics, the two have a long history, as the X-Men and Avengers titles both debuted in the same month in 1963. The two teams have often been allies and occasionally rivals, due to their very different natures. The mutant X-Men are feared and hated by a lot of the public, despite them having saved the world countless times (the Marvel general public is famously stupid, short-sighted and ungrateful, much like real-life America). The Avengers are much more popular and mainstream, with universally respected heroes like Captain America and socialites like the Wasp, although they have had conflicts with the public since their Upper East Side mansion attracts its share of danger and destruction. (The Fantastic Four are the celebrities of the Marvel Universe, with in-universe comics and licensing deals. Reed Richards actively cultivated celebrity out of guilt for being the one who pushed for the trip into space that gave his friends their powers and changed their lives.) It will be interesting to see if and how the TV and movies reconcile the different tones of the comics.
The Avengers and X-Men have had several links between them. One is the Beast, an original X-Man who was an Avenger for years in the ‘70s and ‘80s, making him probably the mutant most accepted by the public. Rogue debuted as an Avengers foe before attacking Ms. Marvel, losing control of her power and turning to Professor X for help. Magneto has been a foe of both teams and later, an ally of the X-Men. His parentage of the Maximoff twins was subtly revealed in issues of Uncanny X-Men and Avengers that came out the same month in the late ‘70s: Magneto, who resembles Pietro, sees a photo of his late wife and she looks exactly like Wanda. So eagle-eyed comic readers knew he was their father before any of the characters did, which was cool.
The Avengers and X-Men also had seesawing popularity. The Avengers comics sold well in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, while the X-Men title was canceled at one point in the early ‘70s. After Chris Claremont revived the X-Men title in 1975, their popularity grew to insane peaks it would stay that way through at least the early ‘90s. Meanwhile, during Marvel’s bankruptcy in 1996, the Avengers and other properties considered less valuable were spun off temporarily to another publisher. Things changed in the mid-2000s, when the Avengers were disassembled and reassembled with flashier members and became more popular than the X-Men, especially when the movies started.
But I digress. The bureaucrats at SWORD are painting Wanda as a villain for stealing the Vision’s body but I think it’s more complicated than that. His living will stated he didn’t want to be resurrected but I don’t think he would have wanted to be experimented on in a SWORD lab. As in the comics when the Vision was disassembled, Wanda loved him and wanted to at least give him a proverbial decent burial. She’s basically his next of kin.
Wanda leaves the bubble to confront SWORD, warning them that she has all she needs and they need to leave each other alone. But I don’t think she’s entirely in control here. She edits her own sitcom, disturbingly telling the Vision she can control him as the credits begin to roll. But the Vision then rebels and begins to question the reality around him. Wanda also appears to have nothing to do with Quicksilver appearing at her door.
I’m betting she’s under the influence of Agatha Harkness or Mephisto. As happened so many times in the comics, the Scarlet Witch may be getting a power upgrade from an outside source. It could also be the twins who conjured Pietro, trying to make their mother happy. We still don’t know the true nature of Tommy and Billy. The fact that they’re aging so quickly means they’re not real, at one point disappearing from their cribs in a subtle nod to the Avengers West Coast story that unravels them. (I wonder if aging them is a deliberate sly wink to Family Ties, which introduced a baby near the end of its run and suddenly aged him to 5 or 6 with no explanation.)
Wanda is powerful and may seem to be in control, but her reality is starting to crumble around her.
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