A classic Marvel Comics story featuring the Scarlet Witch and the Avengers could be the key to unlocking WandaVision – and phase 4 of the Marvel movie universe. In WandaVision, Marvel Studios’ first original series, unlikely couple Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) move to the suburbs of Westview after the events of Avengers : Game over. When Wanda airs decades-old reality sitcoms that she seems to have created herself, and conjures up a happy evening with her late wife and twin sons Tommy and Billy who have just been born, they begin to suspect that not everything is as it seems in television land.
After the Avengers traveled through time and parallel dimensions to undo the Thanos (Josh Brolin) debacle that wiped out half of all life in the universe in Endgame, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has confirmed that the multiverse connections will take place before and after Dr. Strange in Multiverse Madness. Feige also revealed that WandaVision will form a free trilogy with Spider-Man 3 and the Doctor Strange sequel, in which wizard Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) will mentor the reality-shifting Wanda.
The Madness multiverse is also directly linked to the upcoming Disney + Loki series, which may feature the eternal Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) before he hits the big screen in Ant-Man and Wasp : Quantum Mania.
If Wanda’s nosy roommate, Agnes (Katherine Hahn), is secretly Agatha Harkness, the former witch and mentor to the Scarlet Witch from Marvel Comics, then WandaVision has three key characters needed for the story of Avengers Disassembly and House of M. When Episode 4 introduces the possibility that Wanda is a secret villain of WandaVision, it’s reminiscent of the darker-than-hell story that ran through the West Coast Avengers in the late 1980s:
Normal in each channel
Agatha worries about Thomas and William, mutated and synthesized offspring, and shocks Wanda by telling her that her children will disappear if she doesn’t think of them (Avengers West Coast #51). Wanda rejects Agatha’s accusation that the twins are abnormal children, and refuses to believe that Thomas and William simply cease to exist when Wanda is busy.
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
When Master Pandemonium attacks the Avengers with a horde of demons and kidnaps the twins, the villain discovers that the super-demon Mephisto has scattered his soul after dividing it into five pieces. When Wonder Man talks about Bewitched – one of the classic sitcom influences on WandaVision – a furious Wanda loses her temper and throws herself at her vengeful companion, Wasp.
From a distance, Immortus, one of Kang Victory’s personalities, watches.
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A Small Step Beyond Illusion
Agatha reveals that Wanda’s children are born of her desire for a normal home, and that they become manifestations of Wanda’s will through a combination of magic and her mutant powers. Because vision is a complex machine, Agatha explains, Wanda used her probability modification abilities to give the couple a chance to start a family – but even Wanda’s immense abilities can’t create life (West Coast Avengers #52).
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
The Avengers confront Master Pandemonium, who has kidnapped Wanda and Vision’s children to replace the missing pieces of her soul – only to discover that Thomas and William are the pieces of Mephisto’s soul, thought to have been destroyed by Franklin Richards (The Fantastic Four #277). As the demon re-consumes her missing parts and restores her essence at the cost of Wanda’s loss of her children, Agatha defeats Mephisto by erasing the twins from Wanda’s memory.
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As if they were never.
Agatha explains: Wanda dreamed her whole life of a normal existence, forever stripped of her mutant gifts. She wanted a family so badly – in her eyes the ideal symbol of a peaceful and happy life – that she suffered from what in a human woman would be a hysterical or imaginary pregnancy. In this case, no children are usually born… but Wanda’s ability to change the probabilities created Thomas and William. Twins to make their dream come true twice. Since her power could not create real life, she unconsciously reached out to capture anything that could serve as a soul for newborns. What they caught, still very much weakened by their recent breakup, are two of the missing pieces of Mephisto!
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
To spare Wanda the pain of losing her children, Agatha shuts down that corner of her mind – and makes sure the twins will never be there for Wanda (West Coast Avengers #52).
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Darker than Scarlet
Nearly comatose after weeks of turmoil (West Coast Avengers #53), Agatha observes an unconscious Wanda as Magneto – Wanda’s super-villain mutant father, a relationship reestablished decades later – removes her from Earth (Avengers #313). Wanda’s nervous breakdown turns into a villain when she returns to California and attacks the West Coast Avengers (West Coast Avengers #55).
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
Agatha tries to bring her student to her senses by telling Wanda that her mind has been disturbed by the recent tragedies. Freed from her new power, Wanda tells the trapped Avengers that her ability to change the odds means she can change the universe at will (West Coast Avengers #56). Just by thinking about it, Wanda can turn even her smallest quirk into reality.
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Pawn to queen
After leaving with Magneto and her twin brother Pietro (West Coast Avengers #57), Wanda teams up with Magneto despite Quicksilver’s attempt to save her. Immortus continues his plan to rule the ages as a Time Lord and puts Wanda in a trance during the battle with the Avengers.
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
Just when Quicksilver begins to suspect that Magneto has been manipulated by someone more powerful than him, the time traveler discovers himself and accepts Wanda as his queen (West Coast Avengers #60).
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Revelations
Immortes transports the Avengers to Limbo, where it pits Earth’s mightiest heroes against the zombie enemies of the Legion of the Living to prevent them from interfering in matters vital to current events in many realities, including this one (West Coast Avengers #61).
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
Agatha’s Immortal, who is at the root of Wanda’s misfortunes – her growing power, her increasing alienation from humanity and her non-existent children – realizes that Earth’s timelines are in danger of unraveling.
Immortal reveals that an all-powerful trio called the Guardians of Time – who may or may not have made their appearance in the MCU in Loki – have appointed him as guardian of the flow of time for the duration of his life as Kanga: from 3000 BC to 4000 AD. Chr. His task: track all time travel across seven millennia, untangle the realities generated by the various Kangas.
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The final fate of the Scarlet Witch
Finally, the Immortal reveals that he has manipulated Wanda’s life over the years because the Scarlet Witch is a being of the Interconnection, belonging to all possible timelines and all realities and divergences simultaneously. Thanks to Wanda’s power, all futures can be protected and controlled by Immortus, a self-appointed Time Lord.
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
The Immortal explains that her staging of Wanda’s tragedies and the resulting trauma will make her vulnerable to becoming her powerful and indispensable puppet (Avengers West Coast #61 and #62).
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Emptying the Multiverse
Agatha, in astral form, tries to reach the charming Wanda, who has become a living source of energy for Immortality. Agatha urges her to rid herself of the excess of power that immortality has brought out in her, desperately telling Wanda that without the ability to alter the probabilities of the cosmic timeline, she will be useless to her. When Wanda’s love for her teammates pulls her out of her trance, the Immortal curses Agatha for creating new divergences that he believes will cause irreversible damage to the myriad realities that already exist – and possibly threaten the entire multiverse.
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
When Wanda tries to regain this power to avoid a cosmic catastrophe, the Time Guardians intervene and prevent her from reabsorbing these powers (West Coast Avengers #62).
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Future risk
The Timekeepers explain to Immortus that his only goal is to turn a certain Nexus creature, the Scarlet Witch, into an energy source. They explain: Immortus would then use this probability power to protect important events that must occur in different time frames to secure a particular future, including one in which the timekeepers have a vested interest (West Coast Avengers #62).
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
The trio shows that Immortus could only use an existing being, not create one. When Wanda managed to reverse their fate, they were forced to intervene. They warn that if this power were to cause chaos among the deadlines, all futures would be in jeopardy – including those in which we ourselves were born!
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Large real estate
When the Immortal reveals that the Guardians of Time never told him exactly which future they were protecting, they tell the Avengers that their selfless actions were for the greater good of the cosmos.
(Photo: Marvel Comics)
If we cease to exist through the timeline described, the loss to the Multiverse would be profound, say the Timekeepers, who send the mutant energy exiled by the Scarlet Witch to immortality. They condemn him to an immobile existence in limbo, transforming him into the almighty energy vessel he was meant to be for Wanda, and Wanda returns to the Avengers (West Coast Avengers #62).
New episodes of Marvel’s WandaVision preview on Friday on Disney+.
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Foreword
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