WandaVision’s Missing Link
Son of a bitch. They did it.
Warning: Spoilers ahead. If you are not caught up on the Disney+ show WandaVision through Episode 5 do not read on. The first episode of WandaVision — the first Marvel Cinematic Universe show to roll out on Disney+ — is weird. That’s a nice way to put it. A less nice way is boring. An even less nice way is bad. It’s a gimmick. But it’s also a full episode of that gimmick. It’s tedious. And it’s clearly intentional.
Episode 2 gets ever-so-slightly more interesting. Episode 3, more so as at the very end we finally get a teaser of the point of the gimmickry. By Episode 4, we’re basically back in the MCU we all know and love, though it’s unclear how long we keep going with the faux suburban sitcom schtick. The opening of Episode 5 makes it very clear: we’re sticking with it. But the seams are fully bursting. As is Vision. Then comes the end.
Wait. Who is that? Is that silver hair? Waaaaiiiittt. They can’t do that. Can they? Can they?! Whoa…¹
I somehow avoided spoilers despite watching the episode a few days late and I sincerely hope you did too, because it’s great. Well, it’s great assuming you’re in the subset of viewers who are both MCU completists and X-Men completists. Given the comicbook lineage — and specifically, the Marvel comic book lineage — presumably there is a high level of overlap. But undoubtedly it’s not 100%. First and foremost because the MCU has historically been much better than the X-Men franchise.² And that’s because Disney — and specifically Kevin Feige — was in charge of one, while Fox was in charge of the other.
Maybe you heard: those two companies are now one company. And while that wasn’t enough to save Dark Phoenix (or, apparently The New Mutants), there’s now reason to see real light in this tunnel.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, WandaVision, this seemingly bizarre spin-off that seemed like it was at best going to be a quirky throw-away is now the full-on missing link. The show rope-a-doped us for 4.5 episodes and then landed the knock-out punch.
Well, presumably.
I say that because I obviously have no idea what WandaVision intends to do with Pietro — the X-Men version of Quicksilver — back in the picture. But it almost doesn’t matter. The fact that he’s there points to a future where the rest of the X-Men find their home in the MCU, either one-by-one in the sideshows, or, presumably, in a major way in a major motion picture.
But the Pietro appearance — specifically this Pietro/Peter — points to a world in which the “younger” X-Men cast is also now free to enter the frame. Does that mean that James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, etc,³ would all agree to reprise roles after already playing the characters four times — the last two of which must have already been like pulling contractual teeth?
An even better question may be Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, and yes, Hugh Jackman, who had previously stated he was done after playing his part 60 or so times. But come on, he’s the Tom Brady of playing Wolverine.⁴
This unification was always the promise — and perhaps in its own small way, even part of the point — of Disney taking over Fox. But while we were all hoping and waiting for a huge movie reveal a la Spider-Man (still controlled by Sony, but under lease of sorts to Disney), Disney went for the total screwball curveball reveal.⁵
The long-lost brother trope meets the not-so-subtle character recast trope as a bridge between two universes and studios and franchises. Brilliant.
¹ It was a particularly big “whoa” for me as I had done the work years earlier to look up the fact that the the X-Men movies Peter Maximoff and the Avengers movies Pietro Maximoff were indeed one in the same character, despite the very different backstories. I like these kind of quirks — especially here since the two characters debuted within a couple months of one another in 2014: Pietro Maximoff first appeared in an end credits scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which was released on April 4, 2014; Peter Maximoff first appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past, which was released on… May 23, 2014— but you almost never see them attempted to be reconciled. And so cleverly!
² Yes, a few of them are good to very good. The first two Bryan Singer films are good. Third meh. The first of the rebooted franchise with the younger cast, First Class, is good enough with fun retro-vibes. The second of those, Days of Future Past, is actually good. And then there’s Logan, the James Mangold Wolverine spin-off, which is just legitimately a good movie (the first Wolverine spin-off is awful, and second one is decent). X-Men: Apocalypse is pretty bad. Dark Pheonix is a mess (for very clear reasons).
³ Presumably not Jennifer Lawrence who is— again, spoiler, but less so — dead at the end of Dark Phoenix. But maybe Sophie Turner, who they set up to be resurrected, of course.
⁴ He’s also only a mere 9 years older than Tom Brady. Also, the Tom Brady + Wolverine reference is intentional. #GoBlue
⁵ And yeah, can’t wait to see how they work Deadpool into this…
