The meta goes deep on WandaVision. This bit might be unintentional, but there's poetry in Marvel Studios launching its first foray into TV shows with a show about TV shows. Some history:
The previous Marvel TV properties were (mostly) run by Marvel Television and Jeph Loeb. They did some brilliant work, but the MCU films largely ignored the goings-on over there.
Now everything is in one house. It has the potential to be a huge freaking mess.
Part of the problem is how to insert the "first family" of Marvel comics into the MCU timeline. The Fantastic Four are old-school. The MCU heroes we know looked up to them and went to them for advice. Now they are going to get an MCU origin story. That's a conundrum.
Kevin Feige is a big comic nerd with a whole team of comic nerds, and one of them was probably like:
"Hey, did you know the witch who mentored Wanda was a nanny for the Fantastic Four? Maybe she could be in this."
Wanda is the ultimate glue in the Marvel Universe, being both a mutant and an Avenger. She first appears in an X-Men comic, but becomes an early (not quite original) Avenger, and her identity is more closely tied to the latter.
Fox and Marvel fought over her before Marvel said:
Until now, Marvel Studios has not been allowed to have mutants in their films, because Fox owned the rights to the X-Men. No mutants! They couldn't even mention them! How insane is that?
It's only as insane (at times) as the Scarlet Witch herself. I remember when House of M came out, and us weekly comics readers lost our collective, oversized brains.
Wanda was bending reality and causing a ruckus. Then she said these 3 words:
And like that -- *poof* -- they were gone. Most of them, anyway. A handful of really lucrative characters remained for $$$ reasons.
In some ways House of M was a reaction to a Marvel comics problem: too many mutants were being created. The universe was getting messy.
Wanda, who began her comics career as a bad guy before becoming an Avenger and saving the world multiple times (like in the films), has always wrestled with her past, her pains, and her powers.
WandaVision is nailing this.
But the real genius is that Marvel is about to introduce mutants into the MCU in a way that pays homage to the comics.
Wanda rid the world of Mutants, but she also brought them back. Her fight to shape reality was both a destructive and creative force.
In the last two episodes, we've seen Wanda's brother return from the dead, but he's the version from the X-Men franchise! We've seen her turn Monica Rambeau into a mutant! And now the nanny for the Fantastic Four (her old mentor) is the primary antagonist!
A whole lot is being done in a show that some have said is about nothing.
There are so many layers upon layers and nice little touches. From the retro costumes, to the decade-nailing advertisements, to the screen ratio changes, to the evolving way that TV stories have been told, all while launching a new TV venture that breaks every mold!
When my partner heard me waxing philosophically about how brilliant WandaVision is, she asked what made it so good. I realized that the full enjoyment would require a lot of prior reading and film-watching.
I'm sure WandaVision is an entertaining watch for non-comic-nerds, but it's absolute nirvana for us geeks. This is the episode when the parents get back together, when all the kids move under the same roof, and the storytelling potential explodes with opportunity.
We will someday see an MCU scene with the Scarlet Witch and Reed Richards, one with She Hulk and Wolverine, maybe even a fight between cosmic Spidey and the Incredible Hulk. And looking back, it'll be Wanda who opened that door.
As a postscript: the ad for Nexus, which looks like every awful prescription drug commercial, is it's own self-contained genius. The Nexus in the comics connects all possible realities. The multi-verse is also being launched in this show where "not much happens."
