So You Want to Watch WandaVision, but Don’t Know the MCU
Even if you have never heard of the MCU, it is pretty much a certainty that you have come into contact with it in some way. Since its start in 2008 with Iron Man, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become a cultural behemoth that has brought joy to millions, has been held in derision by quite a few, and has earned its Disney overlords so much money. So, so much money…
It’s now 2021 and let’s say you’ve barely given a single Marvel movie your undivided attention, when something called WandaVision suddenly has the internet aflutter. The review aggregators are quite positive (91% on Rotten Tomatoes, 77% on MetaCritic) and for about ten weeks your nerdy friends would not shut up about it. So you want to give it a shot; you’re still stuck at home anyway, right? Might as well use that Disney+ subscription you got for the kids.
You can’t just jump into the MCU at this point, though. There are 23 movies that precede WandaVision, and that seems like a really steep hill to climb. You could try to watch Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, but even just reading those titles gives you anxiety. And to enjoy those movies, you would also need to watch a few others and before you know it, you’ve become the very thing you used to make fun of.
But fear not! In less than 1 700 words, I will give you all the information you need (and some you don’t) to fully enjoy the best (and so far, only) tv show of the MCU. Yes, I had to publish this article before Friday, because that’s when Falcon & the Winter Soldier comes out. Don’t worry your pretty little head about that, though, and let’s jump in.
THIS ARTICLE HAS SPOILER FOR THE MCU (AT LEAST FOR AGE OF ULTRON, CIVIL WAR, INFINITY WAR, ENDGAME, PROBABLY MORE). OBVIOUSLY.
WandaVision
WandaVision is a show about Wanda and Vision, a not so ordinary couple in a not so ordinary situation. Look, I’m not going to talk too much about the show itself, because part of the joy is the slowly unfolding mystery. But there are four topics that need some explanation before you can confidently dive in: Wanda and Vision, the Mind Stone, and Ultron. We’ll start with just a few sentences on the Avengers, in case you can’t tell your Iron Mans from you Spider-Mans or your Ant-Mans. (There’s a lot of Mans, and a few Captains …)
The Avengers
Founded by Nick Fury under the auspices of S.H.I.E.L.D. (it stands for Strategic Homeland … You know what? Don’t worry about it.), the Avengers brought together different superheroes under a single banner to combat threats too great for any single one of them. While the line-up changes from movie to movie, and S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t exist anymore (it’s a long story), it’s enough to know that, for this article, ‘the Avengers’ is shorthand for ‘the good guys’.
Wanda
Wanda Maximoff was born in the fictional Eastern European country of Sokovia, just behind her twin Pietro. Their childhood was a relatively happy one, until their parents died when the twins were about ten years old. An American air raid devastated their city and house, killing their parents and trapping the twins under the rubble, an unexploded missile mere feet from them, beeping menacingly. (It is unclear why exactly the American military bombed a civilian population, but not quite a shocker that they did.) The twins remained trapped there for several days, their world consisting only of each other and the missile, a shiny Stark Industries logo on its side. Tony Stark, of course, is the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist (and man-child) who would later become Iron Man.
After being rescued, the newly orphaned Wanda and Pietro radicalized quickly, their anti-American (and anti-Stark) sentiment culminating in them volunteering as guinea pigs for Hydra, the Nazi deep-science division that has continued their attempts to spread fascism well into the modern day. These experiments tried utilizing the Mind Stone (more on that in a moment) to give people superpowers. Wanda and Pietro were the only ones who survived. He got superspeed, she got telepathy and telekinesis. This made them formidable foils for the Avengers, and powerful allies of Ultron. Ultron?
Ultron
Shortly after the Maximoffs got their powers, the Avengers cut off Hydra’s last head and retrieved the Mind Stone (we’ll get there when we get there!). In a bit of characteristic hubris, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner (who, when he’s not smashing things as the Hulk, is, like, a really smart guy) use the Mind Stone to finish Ultron, a global defense AI meant to protect the Earth from extraterrestrial threats. In a shocking twist, the AI goes totally nutso, thoroughly trashes Stark’s butler AI Jarvis and escapes to enact the ultimate security plan: destroy all life on Earth. The Maximoffs, unaware of its genocidal tendencies, but totally on board with killing the Avengers, team up with Ultron for a spell and give our superheroes a good whacking. Ultron, being a bit vain, then tries to combine the Mind Stone with supermetal Vibranium to create a synthetic, godlike body.
Unfortunately for Ultron, as it starts uploading its consciousness to this new body, Wanda manages to read its mind for the first time and sees its genocidal plans. A little superheroing later and both the twins and Ultron’s synthetic body are in possession of the Avengers. In a baffeling Hail Mary, Stark decides that the best course of action is to upload his restored butler AI Jarvis to the synthetic body. While this is, at best, a questionable idea, he gets support from fellow Avenger and literal god Thor, who had a vision backing up Stark’s crazy scheme. And so, the Vision is born. The Maximoffs join the Avengers and Ultron is ultimately defeated, but not before Pietro dies heroically saving a dude saving a child.
Vision
The newly minted synthezoid - not Jarvis, not Ultron, but something, someone new - is on the side of life, which is a good thing, as he is rather powerful. He can fly, shoot energy beams and phase through matter. He’s also quite indestructible. Trying to adapt to being alive, he finds a companion in Wanda, who is now quite alone.
Wanda, Vision and the Mad Titan
The Mind Stone is one of six Infinity Stones, ingots of compressed essence, each containing immense power. The six stones are Space, Reality, Time, Power, Soul and Mind. Only the most powerful beings can wield even one of the Stones. So when the Mad Titan Thanos decides to collect them all to wipe out half of all life in the universe, people are understandably a bit nervous. Vision perhaps most of all, what with the Mind Stone embedded in his forehead. By the time Thanos starts to enact his plan, Wanda and Vision’s relationship has blossomed into True Love™. So it is with a heavy heart that Vision suggests destroying the Stone in his head in the hopes of thwarting Thanos. This is made extra painful due to the fact that only Wanda could, theoretically, destroy it, since her powers come from the same source. The Avengers attempt to remove the Stone from Vision’s head first, hoping that he could live without it. As Banner puts it: “Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays. Jarvis, Ultron, Tony, me, the Stone, all of them mixed together, all of them learning from one another. […] [I]f we take out the Stone, there’s still a whole lot of Vision left. Perhaps the best parts.” But Thanos arrives too quickly and is too powerful, having collected the other five Infinity Stones already. Wanda manages to hold him off for just long enough to destroy the Mind Stone and Vision with it.
Victory? Alas, Thanos uses the Time Stone to undo the destruction of the Mind Stone and Wanda is forced to watch her lover die a second time as the Mad Titan tears the Stone from his head. When Thanos snaps his fingers a moment later, turning half of all life in the universe to dust, Wanda welcomes oblivion, an escape from her overwhelming pain.
Five Years Later
Five years later the Avengers undo Thanos’ Snap with a little time-travel shenanigans, bringing back all the people and creatures he had turned to dust. This includes Wanda. It does not, unfortunately, include Vision. And so Wanda is left alone, without her parents, without her brother, and without her Vision. Alone with nothing but her grief.
Wrapping up
On that cheery note, you have all the information you need to watch WandaVision and not feel completely lost. I’ll go over a few secondary characters below who show up in WandaVision, characters who have already played some role in the MCU, but this is more for my own completionist tendencies than for your enjoyment.
Monica Rambeau
Monica Rambeau, daughter of Maria Rambeau and friend of Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel. We last saw Rambeau at the end of Captain Marvel, when the titular hero left Earth in the mid-nineties. Monica was twelve at the time and had already earned the nickname ‘Lieutenant Trouble’ by the age of six. Both her mother and ‘auntie Carol’ are/were Airforce fighter pilots.
Darcy Lewis
A former poli-sci major who interned with doctors-in-astrophysics Foster and Selvig, Darcy Lewis got swept up in the events of the first two Thor movies for a measly six college credits. Smart and with an anti-authoritarian streak, the current state of her studies is unclear.
Jimmy Woo
An FBI agent and youth pastor, Jimmy Woo is a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who was recruited by the FBI after the organization’s collapse. While enforcing the house arrest of Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, he is intrigued by Lang’s penchant for sleight-of-hand card tricks and enrolls in an online magic course. His life would never be the same.
Now go forth! Enjoy the show and spread the word!
