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WandaVision (2021)
205 Plays1 year ago
Comic fan Scott Honig stops by the show to discuss the MCU's debut streaming series, WandaVision! We talk about the interesting things the series did, the incredible performances, the internet speculation, and Wanda's legacy since.
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Leave a voice message to play on the show. You can also apply to be a guest on the show.
PARAGONS OF EARTH is a comic book project I’m developing with Thomas Deja and Eric Johns. You can support the project by visiting crowdfundr.com/paragonscomic.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Paragons of Earth'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey guys, before we get into the episode, I wanted to tell you a little bit about Paragons of Earth, the exciting new superhero comic I'm working on with Thomas DJ and Eric Johns. For this comic, we've unearthed a number of obscure and forgotten Golden Age superheroes, plucked them from the depths of the public domain, and completely redesigned and reinvented them for the modern day. It's an exciting cast of characters, and we're throwing them up against the threat of a Lovecraftian apocalypse.
00:00:24
Speaker
It's got action, it's got drama, it's got alternate dimensions and alien worlds, and it's even got a giant shark and Hawaiian shirt. What else could you want? But in order to make this comic a reality, we need your help. The comic is crowdfunding now, and you can help support it by going to crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic.
00:00:42
Speaker
That's Crowdfunder Without the E dot com slash Paragons Comic. You'll be able to find that link in the show notes, so please double check if you didn't quite get it. Please help make this comic a reality. We are counting on your support. And now, on with the show.
Exploring Wanda's History and Relationships
00:01:26
Speaker
Oh, Wanda, moving on up. So where are we now? The Avengers Compound. It was the first home Vision and I ever shared. Pietro was dead and I was in a new country, I was all alone. Vision? I apologize, I don't mean to intrude. You don't?
00:01:57
Speaker
Well, I suppose yes, I did intend to come in here. And now? And... well, whatever is your preference.
00:02:27
Speaker
It is funny because of the grievous injury the man just suffered. No, he's not really injured. How can you be certain? It's not that kind of show. Wanda, I don't presume to know what you're feeling, but I would like to know. Should you wish to tell me, should that be of some comfort?
00:02:54
Speaker
What makes you think that talking about it would bring me comfort? Oh, see, I read that... The only thing that would bring me comfort is seeing him again. Sorry.
00:03:30
Speaker
It's just like this wave washing over me again and again. It knocks me down, and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I can't. It's just gonna drown me. No. No, I won't. How do you know?
00:04:01
Speaker
Because it can't all be sorrow, can it? I've always been alone, so I don't feel the lack. That's all I've ever known. I've never experienced loss because I've never had a loved one to lose. But what is grief? If not love persevering.
00:04:45
Speaker
Sorry, pardon? No, it was funny. Yes, it was very funny, wasn't it?
Guest Introduction: Scott Onig
00:05:10
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cenophiles Podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and welcoming a new guest today, and that is Scott Onig. Scott, how you doing today? I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.
00:05:21
Speaker
Well, thanks for coming on. We actually met through a mutual friend, Anthony Desiato. You've been on his show, digging for kryptonite, and as have I. And I was on there, the last time I was on there, we were talking about Steven Siegel's Superman run and his It's a Bird. I think it was, was it called It's a Bird, the graphic novel?
00:05:41
Speaker
It's a bird. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about that. Yeah. And and you had some pretty interesting things to say about that. And then Anthony put us in touch. We started chatting and I said, well, let's have you come on come on my show then to have a little bit of cross podcast synergy going on.
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. It's always really great to meet other people in that sphere. Doing the podcast with Anthony occasionally has been one of the great joys of my recent life. So I'm happy to do it again and with you. Yeah, same here.
Scott Onig's Journey in Comics
00:06:14
Speaker
So before we go too much further into that, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself? Sure. So I have been,
00:06:22
Speaker
Let's see, reading and collecting comics since I was about 12 years old, so well over 30 years at this point. And I somewhere in college became sort of a comic scholar. I crossed over that line. Not sure exactly when that happened, but at some point I realized I was diving deeper in than just the casual fandom and just brought it into my professional life. I'm a high school English teacher on Long Island and
00:06:50
Speaker
There's not a class I teach that doesn't have at least one graphic novel in it. And unfortunately, my district lets me teach whole classes on graphic novels for high schoolers and middle schoolers. So much so that I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the use of comics and graphic novels in the high school ELA classroom. So needless to say, this is definitely a passion of mine. I don't think it's going away anytime soon.
00:07:17
Speaker
That is so cool. That is stuff that I wish I could do here, but my classes are all Japanese students of varying levels of English ability. So I do teach a literature class and I have been given the green light to introduce some more, some non-Japanese stuff to them, but usually I try to have Japanese translations. And with books and short stories, that's generally pretty easy. It's a little bit more complicated with comics though to find Japanese translations of them. Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
00:07:48
Speaker
So you talked a little bit about being into comic books since way back. So what was it that kind of got you into comics in the first place? It's hard to say. I don't remember exactly the moment. I can tell you that the first comic that really grabbed me and the first one that I ever bought with my own money, and this won't come as much of a surprise, but it was Jim Lee's X-Men number one from 1991. So I saw the cover.
00:08:15
Speaker
I didn't know what it was. I'd never heard of the X-Men before and I bought it, I read it. I didn't understand darn thing. And I just knew that I wanted to understand it really badly. I knew that it was cool, but I didn't know why and I wanted to explore more. So I started collecting forwards and backwards and X-Men became my gateway drug and it expanded into everything. Now, if it's good, I'll buy it and I'll read it.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty much what happened with me as well. For me, it wasn't the comics though. My first exposure to the X-Men was that original line of action figures they had. And they had the Wolverine one with the ring mask and the pop out claws. And I'm just like, who is this guy? This guy looks cool. And then it wasn't until several years later they came out with the animated series. And I'm like, oh, I remember that guy. And then from then on I was hooked. And it was just, you know,
00:09:09
Speaker
X-Men was my gateway drug, it got me into the comics. And then just like you, I was also doing forwards and backwards to try and make sense of all the continuity in the 90s and going to the library and checking out every single interlibrary loan they had with graphic novels in them. Wow. Yeah, I wish I had known that at the time. I didn't access the library at all. I had no clue that that would even be available there.
00:09:34
Speaker
So yeah, very similar starting points. And mostly I know you from the Superman connection. So I didn't realize you were such a big X-Men guy too, but I'm also looking at, so people who are listening to the show, you can't see us, but Scott's got a whole big cabinet of graphic novels and some X-Men memorabilia there behind him, including a very sweet looking Magneto helmet and Mjolnir.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah, the Magneto helmet, I based my entire Halloween costume on this year. I saw that, I couldn't resist. And now it's a demonstration showpiece. Nice, very nice. So another thing we like to talk about on this show is what kind of stuff are you been into lately? Anything that's been grabbing your attention? Anything that's really kind of getting you excited these days?
00:10:24
Speaker
Yeah, so oddly enough, recent months slash years, I've been moving a little bit away from the mainstream superhero comics, Marvel and DC stuff. I mean, if something's really great, I'll still grab it. But, you know, being a reader for this long, you start to see the cyclical nature of the comics.
00:10:45
Speaker
characters are introduced, they die, they come back, they change their costume, bad guys turn good, good guys turn bad. And you know, it's, it's just the illusion of change rather than actual change, because these serialized stories have to continue to appeal to new and younger audiences. And so being, you know, in my mid 40s, I'm probably not the target demographic, nor should I be. So I've been gravitating more towards independent publishers, specifically in the
00:11:13
Speaker
thriller horror genre. So writers like James Tini in the fourth and Scott Snyder and Chip Zdarsky, you know, guys like that were really kind of
00:11:23
Speaker
breaking new ground in comics and just doing wild, weird, mind bending kind of stories that I really, really like. And they're finding incredible artists to pair with as well. So, you know, usually I'll gravitate towards something thriller horror related and that is my fix for escapism recently. Cool. Anything, any of those creators got any books that particularly have been grabbing your attention these days?
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, so James Tinian's Department of Truth from Image Comics is one of my favorites. That was right where my mind went as soon as you mentioned his name. Yeah, I mean, first of all, it's probably the best first issue I've ever read. And it's just so trippy. And, you know, based in some real history in American culture, but
00:12:15
Speaker
It takes it to, you know, x files levels and beyond and I'm just I'm just digging the hell out of it. Yeah, I was a I was a huge, you know, I became a follower of conspiracy culture and all that in the 90s because the x files like like a lot of people did and just doing more and more research into it over the years and, you know,
00:12:33
Speaker
finding out, you know, digging through like, you know, what is true and what is not and, you know, finding out about and just examining like all these parallels and all these different conspiracy theories over the years. And so I listened to a lot of podcasts and stuff that, you know, kind of dissected like Knowledge Fight or Behind the Bastards. And so when that first issue came out or when I got the first trade, I read it and that first chapter, that first issue was it just
00:12:59
Speaker
It is a masterclass in suspense and in drawing you in. It is so good. Guys, if for anyone listening, if you have not read Department of Truth, definitely give that a read. Yeah, it's pushing the boundaries of what comics can accomplish. I mean, you know, his artist on that series, Martin Simmons, is not an artist I necessarily would have enjoyed on a mainstream superhero title. I know that I would have rejected it out of hand. It's just so scratchy. It's got this sort of
00:13:25
Speaker
Bill Sinkiewicz gave McKean quality to it, which I don't love on my bright, colorful superheroes, but there's something about that style, the ambiguity of the images that partner really, really well with the ambiguity in the storytelling. I just think it's firing on every cylinder you can imagine. I just adore that book.
00:13:46
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah.
WandaVision's Impact and Style
00:13:47
Speaker
For my part, the thing that has been grabbing that I am interested in lately, which I just saw over the weekend was the Marvels. And that has both a connection to what we were talking about with the X-Men stuff and also with what we're gonna be talking about today. But I finally got to see, I got to see that over the weekend. My wife gave me permission to go take the night and go watch it. And, you know, I've been seeing all the negative reviews of it and I just, I don't get it. I had a blast. I thought it was so much fun, you know,
00:14:13
Speaker
watching Monica and Carol and Kamala interact with each other was great. It was a welcome change for Nick Fury after what we got out of Secret Invasion, so that was also a very nice, very pleasant surprise too. And I'm not going to spoil anything, but it's got an amazing mid-credits scene as well.
00:14:34
Speaker
Ah, yeah, I haven't gotten a chance to see it yet. It's on my to-do list for this week, maybe this weekend. Yeah, I mean, look, the negative reviews are gonna be out there, particularly when you've got a female-led movie, you know, so just rub some people the wrong way. I like all three characters. I like all three actors. I'm excited to see it. I want it to just be fun. I don't need it to be brilliant. I just want it to be fun. And you're not the first person I've heard
00:15:01
Speaker
say that it just is fun. It just is fun, yeah. And the fact that it's the shortest of all the Marvel movies, I think that's actually a good thing. I mean, not every movie needs to be this sprawling two and a half, three hour epic. It's nice to just have like an hour, you just sit in the theater for an hour and 40 minutes and just, you know,
00:15:19
Speaker
enjoy a drink and watch the movie and just be entertained. And it definitely delivers on that. I mean, the only real thing about it is it's got a weak villain, but that's that's come to be expected from a lot of Marvel movies. So it's nothing that's, you know, a sin against nature or anything like that. Yeah, I hope at this stage that they may have learned from some of the errors in terms of the villains of the past, but maybe it's just not the most important
00:15:44
Speaker
thing at this point, so I can probably let it go. Yeah, yeah. But it's a great character movie. It's got the feel of a good road trip movie type of thing. You got these three characters who are interacting with each other. It's just a lot of fun. Great. Looking forward to it. And based on your assessment, I'm even more excited now.
00:16:06
Speaker
Oh, awesome. Thank you. So then today, that does serve as a nice segue into today's piece, which is we're talking about WandaVision, the first of the MCU Disney Plus series.
00:16:20
Speaker
Now, before we talk too much about the series, I obviously know you from primarily from your Superman associations. Now I know you're also a big X-Men guy, but what about the Avengers and Vision and Scarlet Witch in particular? Do you have any sort of past associations with them in the comics?
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I started reading Avengers in the late 90s when they started doing the hero's return after the big hero's reborn debacle. I think I could safely call it a debacle at this point. But when Kirk Busek and George Perez brought the Avengers back,
00:16:56
Speaker
It felt classic but also new at the same time and Wanda and Vision featured very heavily on the roster from fairly early on. I mean the first storyline focused entirely on Wanda and a lot of it was the interplay between Wanda and Vision who obviously had had a romantic relationship in the past and then her
00:17:19
Speaker
current romance with Wonder Man in that book at the time. And so I was very into the emotional stakes and the interpersonal relationships. So, yeah, that got me into the characters pretty well. And then I was reading all the way through, you know, the House of M stuff with No More Mutants and, you know, the destruction of vision with the
00:17:41
Speaker
Avengers disassembled. And so I've been following the character since then. And like I did with X-Men, I started reading Avengers, you know, forwards and backwards. So, you know, I've learned the whole history. And, you know, of course, Tom King's Vision series is one that I returned to frequently in my classes.
00:17:58
Speaker
because it's just, it's a masterpiece. It's a masterpiece in storytelling. I haven't really had much of an opportunity to work with Wanda in class except for a brief presentation on her for a feminist literature class that I taught last year.
00:18:15
Speaker
Oh that's interesting. Yeah she fits really well with that in terms of what's been done with her in the comics and the show and all that. So yeah I mean my association with them isn't as strong as it is let's say for Superman or the X-Men but I do consider them among my favorite characters. Yeah.
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, I came in through music's Avengers run as well. I think that was the first comic book outside of the X-Men that I started buying monthly. And that was my first introduction to the Avengers. And wow, what an introduction with those characters. And I especially gravitated towards Vision. Like he's probably my favorite Avenger. So I was never expecting him to get introduced in the movies at all. Cause I'm like, well, it's Vision, right? Like he's nobody's favorite Avenger except for me.
00:19:03
Speaker
We're probably not going to see him in any of the movies. And then when they announced him in Age of Ultron, I'm like, oh, sweet. I bet he's just going to be a minor character. We're not going to see much. And when I saw Age of Ultron, there's this brief look when he rescues Wanda between them. I'm like, that's probably the only Easter egg we'll ever get hinting at their relationship.
00:19:20
Speaker
And then we get Civil War. And that, I was so blown away by Bettany and Olsen in that movie and just the very brief scenes they have. We got a lot of Visions characterization in just very brief minutes in that movie. And then from there to Infinity War and then WandaVision. So I was all in for this series. Well, I wasn't all in for this series. I was very intrigued once they said that Vision was gonna be a part of it. Because Wanda, I've never really,
00:19:51
Speaker
aired much too much one way or the other about her. Like she's never been my favorite Avenger. She's never even been like in my top 10 Avengers. So her character like didn't really never leaves me. I was always much more invested in Pietro than wanted to be honest.
00:20:06
Speaker
but the vision was always my guy. And so when they said that Paul Bettany was gonna be a part of it, that got me a lot more interested. But even still, the whole sitcom approach, I still wasn't sure of that first wave of MCU TV shows. It was WandaVision, Falcon and Winter Soldier, Loki, and I'm blinking on the fourth one. Was there a fourth one at that point? No, maybe you're right. Maybe it was just a three. It was just those three at the first.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, so those three then, and of those three, Falcon and Winter Soldier was probably the one I was looking forward to the most, just because I love those characters. I love that spy espionage stuff. I love the whole lethal weapon approach they had.
00:20:51
Speaker
going with Sam and Bucky. So that wasn't what I was looking forward to the most. Then Loki was like the second on the list. And then WandaVision was kind of like the distant third. And then what ended up happening was almost, which my preference was almost a complete inversion of that list where
00:21:07
Speaker
WandaVision just grabbed me right out the gates, right from the start. And I was invested in that show day in, day out, recently on the feed for people who've been listening. We're recording this now in mid-November, but we've been doing the SCP classic, you know, showing, replaying old episodes with Derek. And you can hear on some of them, we're watching WandaVision week to week and we're talking about it in like the preamble. So it's been reminding me of like my impressions of the show while it was airing at the time.
00:21:38
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, I would love to go back to that moment and relive what I was thinking at the time, but I mean, I was looking forward to all of it. I was just so high on the MCU post-Endgame that I just thought Marvel Studios could do no wrong. And, you know, since then, it's been a little bit of a decline, but coming out of
00:21:58
Speaker
Endgame. I just wanted to see everything that they would do. And of course Disney Plus was a very new streamer at that point. WandaVision, as you mentioned before, was the absolute first
00:22:08
Speaker
uh, content that they, that Marvel Studios put on the platform. So I was all in. In addition, I was raised on sitcoms. I would watch sitcoms with my parents and we would watch the ones in the eighties and nineties when I was a kid that were new, but I would also watch on like Nick at night or some of those things. I would watch the Dick Van Dyke show and bewitched and Brady Bunch and some of the shows that Mark, that WandaVision is spoofing.
00:22:35
Speaker
or homageing, I guess. So I was really deeply familiar with all of the tropes from those old shows. So when, you know, WandaVision opens up and it is so very, very clearly the Dick Van Dyke show, I was all in. It felt, it was so authentically that 50s era.
00:22:57
Speaker
down to the studio audience and the practical special effects. We wanted to use this for magic and the storylines, the writing, the pacing of the jokes. It all just felt so authentic from that era. And that was all I needed to be completely on board for this series. And it really never let me go. And in fact, I think that they actually had, if I'm recalling correctly, they actually had Dick Van Dyke as a consultant on the show when they were doing those episodes.
00:23:26
Speaker
I wouldn't be surprised, I wouldn't be surprised. But yeah, I was not, I wasn't sure I liked like the, I thought it was a neat idea, but I wasn't sure how they would fit it all together, how it would all work. And I was especially invested in the episodes when they did the 80s and 90s sitcoms, because those are the ones I grew up watching. So those are the ones that I particularly got a kick out of. But yeah, just the whole thing was very well done. And that first episode, it's,
00:23:53
Speaker
It's funny, it's got heart, but then it's got that underlying layer of creepiness when the boss starts choking at the dinner table and Deborah Jo Ruff just keeps saying, stop it, stop it, stop it. It was so remarkably unsettling, just this dramatic shift in tone. And as soon as that happened, I'm just like, oh, wow, there's something interesting going on here now. Yeah, and to your point, they pace out the,
00:24:20
Speaker
the creep factor and they pace out the reveals so slowly over the course of those first few episodes that that scene that you mentioned with the boss choking, it doesn't take very long. It's maybe 10, 15 seconds. And then we're back to the regular sort of quote unquote show with the live audience laughing along. And so it doesn't really even give you the chance to fully process it before you are moving forward. And it's so effective to be able to do that
00:24:50
Speaker
And the audience is thinking almost like, what did I just see? But you can't dwell on it. The show doesn't let you. And you're right that this was a dangerous undertaking overall because the sitcom idea could have been really gimmicky if done poorly.
00:25:12
Speaker
It could have fallen really flat, but they adhered to that structure so well, the fidelity of it is so high that it doesn't just work, it elevates the show.
MCU's Genre Blending Success
00:25:27
Speaker
It's not just entertaining, it's thematic. Yes, and I definitely want to talk about some of those themes because there's so much stuff and they managed to weave it all together pretty seamlessly in the end. But I think one of the things that I think I really love about this show and when the MCU is at its best, like peak MCU is when they find a way to take the superhero concept and hang it on some other genre.
00:25:51
Speaker
So, you know, like the Captain America movies, right? Winter Soldier is a political thriller first and a superhero movie second. And, you know, Ant-Man, it's a heist movie first and, you know, superhero movie second. Guardians of the Galaxy, space opera. And then you get something like this where it's sitcom and they weave in all, they've got the magic and the superhero tropes underlying all that stuff.
00:26:14
Speaker
And it manages to use the sitcom to an advantage to really tell something interesting with that superhero story. Very similar to, you mentioned Tom King's Vision series, very similar to what he did with that.
00:26:30
Speaker
Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And a testament to what you just said is I showed WandaVision to my parents who had seen none of the other MCU entries, none of them. So they didn't know Wanda's backstory. I kind of gave them a little primer on all the horrible things that have happened to her. But they didn't know any of it. And I wanted them to just see the sitcom stuff.
00:26:55
Speaker
They were hooked. I mean, they were hooked the whole way through. And I think that that's exactly what you're talking about, that because it's so integral to the plot and the themes of the show and not just being used as, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we did this, right? And it would have been for a little while, but it would have worn thin real quick. The fact that each episode as it moves through the decades also continues to advance
00:27:25
Speaker
Wanda's storyline continues to lay in the bits of mystery, continues to pull the viewer in until you basically just can't stand it anymore. And until you really learn to hate the words, please stand by. And then, you know, and then eventually, you know, you get to that fourth episode and we're outside the Westview Hex. And finally, we have some answers.
00:27:49
Speaker
Not all of them, but we have some answers. And I think that did a lot. It was a really smart move to give us that break in the middle so that we could catch our breaths, answer some questions while asking a few more to be answered in the back end.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Some things I really loved about it too was, and this definitely factors into the outside, the hex stuff, but the casting in this is, it's such a great cast. Like, you know, we didn't get to see a whole lot of Elizabeth Olsen in the movie, so I wasn't sure what to expect from her headlining this series. But my God, she blew me away with how well she did in this. Like, she is just such a,
00:28:31
Speaker
a consummate performer, like the way she's seamlessly switching back and forth between these different sitcom mom roles and then the Wanda slowly being corrupted by her own power, even like, you know, things that people have remarked on before, like her accent. And you watch her in this and you realize, oh, her accent is changing because she's doing that deliberately. And that's such a nice little touch they threw in.
00:28:56
Speaker
Absolutely, I mean, you know, she appears on screen that first time as the 50s homemaker, the sort of Mary Tyler Moore character, and she so captures it.
00:29:07
Speaker
beautifully and she's she's mugging for the studio audience at the same time she's mugging for the cameras and at the same time capturing this version of Wanda that's of course nothing like the actual Wanda and she continues to change that ever so slightly as she progresses through the decades so that you know by the time she's in the 70s she's definitely more of a you know mom Brady
00:29:30
Speaker
Kind of kind of figure but then in that fourth episode I think fourth or fifth when she exits the hex to threaten sword Her Sokovian accent comes back. Yeah She is she is the Wanda that we know and she's really menacing She's really she is you know in many ways both the protagonist and antagonist of the show
00:29:53
Speaker
I mean, you know, we have Agatha, of course, but Wanda herself is the one really perpetrating so much of the horror that befalls these people. And I agree with you. I think she's absolutely brilliant in this and it is such a testament.
00:30:08
Speaker
to her chemistry with Paul Bettany, because you're right, in the MCU prior to this, there really isn't a ton of screen time with Wanda and Vision. Their love story unfolds in bits and pieces, but because they're so good together and what we're given is so well done,
00:30:27
Speaker
the audience just buys the evolution of their relationship. I was completely invested so much so that, you know, when Vision dies twice in Infinity War, I mean, it broke me. I mean, Infinity War broke everybody, but, you know, Vision in particular, you know, because it was Wanda who had to do it, you know, she was the one who had to kill him at least that first time, and it's absolutely heartbreaking. And, you know, you know, they're on set,
00:30:55
Speaker
you know, holding their hands out and gesturing and making facial expression. There's nothing there. There's no X, there's no magic. There's no, it's some flashing lights and some, you know, minor special effects. And yet they sell it so beautifully that by the time we get to WandaVision, we're primed to be on board.
00:31:15
Speaker
And I just think that that is something that as artists, that it's just magical that they can do that to me. I feel totally manipulated in the best way. Yeah. Oh, and Paul Bettany too. Like, I mean, I knew he was a great actor, but I didn't expect him to be so funny.
00:31:32
Speaker
Like he, I discovered he's got this whole talent for humor and that I don't think anybody saw coming. Even, I think he even said that he was kind of surprised at how well he did in it. But he took to it like a duck to water. It was just, it was, you know, that first episode, like when he's in the office and they're talking about, you know, you're like a computer. He's like, what? Who told you that? And just like those little, like, he just, he slips into these sitcom dad roles so perfectly. And he's just so,
00:32:00
Speaker
endearingly hilarious in like almost every scene he's in. And then the contrast with like the much more serious portrayals of the real vision. And then it contrasts that again when we get the cold white vision. And he just, if I didn't know it was Paul Bettany in all those roles, you could have easily convinced me he was a different actor in each one of those parts.
00:32:25
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree wholeheartedly. I was particularly impressed the second episode where they have to put on this magic show from town and Vision is the magician and Wanda is his assistant. Of course, she ends up having to manipulate things using her real magic and all that. And it's such a classic, hokey,
00:32:43
Speaker
sitcom storyline. And they breathe this new life into it, you know, gets this, this chewing gum stuck in his gears internally, which they, which they, you know, show us through this cheesy animation. And, you know, it's almost like he's drunk. And he's sort of stumbling around and messing up his lines and not doing the tricks properly. And it's, it's, it's just so funny and charming, because the vision we know is so charming. He's just such a kind
00:33:14
Speaker
He's such a kind character. And that sort of reminded me that the makers of the MCU, and specifically, I guess the credit goes to Joss Whedon for Age of Ultron on this, who does great work even if he has a figure is problematic in his personal life.
00:33:33
Speaker
to be able to tell the audience who Vision is and why he is a worthy hero without any dialogue, just having him pick up Thor's hammer and hand it to him. That one shot tells us everything we need to know about Vision, and he never sways from that. He's always that character. He's always that pure, good character. And it's a really good counterpoint to Wanda, who's really complex, and she has that darker side.
00:34:01
Speaker
which of course came out more when he was gone, but she's got the dark side and he is the light to her dark. And that I think also as characters is why they work so well in addition to the way they work as performers.
00:34:14
Speaker
Well, it's like, I think it's Wanda who says that to him at the end. She was like, you know, he's basically her anchor, right? He's the one who's like, and one of the things that I think I didn't really consider until watching this series was just how much shit Wanda has been put through since her introduction in the MCU. And you go back, it's easy to forget because it's spaced out and over the couple of several years and several movies, and there's so much other stuff going on in each of these movies that,
00:34:44
Speaker
We forget all the all the stuff she's been through right she was you know her parents died when she was a kid, then they get, you know, they volunteer for these experiments where they're basically being tortured by the mind stone through for for Hydros purposes and then.
00:35:00
Speaker
And the fact that their parents die in an explosion from a Stark bond that they're forced to sit there and stare at the whole time. And then she gets roped into the Avengers world and the whole thing with Ultron and, you know, Pietro dies. And then right after that, she forms this bond with Vision.
00:35:18
Speaker
There are the two new people on the teams, that's easy to see why. And then we get civil war and her life gets thrust into chaos again when she's responsible for this tragedy in Lagos. And then she gets thrown on the run and then we get to Infinity War. She's still on the run and then she has to kill Vision. And then she gets wiped away for five years and then she comes back. Everybody is back except for Vision.
00:35:44
Speaker
And once more, she's just thrust into that role of being on her own completely.
00:35:51
Speaker
Because at this point in the post endgame world, we really don't have much of a sense of what the Avengers situation is. I mean, we get bits and pieces here. We know that, you know, obviously Wong is talking with Bruce and Carol, but that's like the only indication we get of what's going on with the Avengers after Tony and Cap have died. So she's really got no one now.
00:36:18
Speaker
And once you watch the series, all that just comes into stark realization, pun intended. Yeah, absolutely. And that's another smart choice that they made is coming off of Endgame, which is the biggest, most sprawling epic you can imagine, and to take a focus on essentially a singular character. And stakes are relatively small. I mean, she took over a town, but not the world.
00:36:48
Speaker
Right. Certainly not the universe. So it's a small exploration.
00:36:54
Speaker
of character, the plot is almost irrelevant. It is, you know, is watching a human being go through those five stages of grief, you know, where she is, she is at first, you know, in complete denial, which is why she's creating this, this, these escapist sitcom fantasy worlds, you know, and going through, you know, we watch her go through, you know, the anger and the depression, and then finally,
00:37:18
Speaker
you know, acceptance for whatever that's for whatever that's worth. And it's such a fascinating way to do it because they never use that terminology. The only time it really directly comes up is is in the I think in the next to last episode, I think, when she and Vision are having the conversation on the bed, which I it's just such a brilliant thesis for the whole show.
Themes of Grief in WandaVision
00:37:41
Speaker
And he says,
00:37:42
Speaker
but what is grief, if not love persevering? That's exactly what I wrote. I wrote down that exact phrase in my notes just because that is, it grabbed me from the first time I saw it and it still grabbed me just as hard when I watched the show. Yeah. I mean, I can't watch that scene and not cry. Yeah. It's so beautifully written. It is so beautifully acted. Bettany delivers that line.
00:38:07
Speaker
The absolutely perfectly. And then you realize it really is a thesis for the entire show. It is a testament to Wanda's parents, to her brother, to her lover, to her children. You know, she has now had to mourn all of them. They should multiple times. Yeah. And and the atrial multiple times, too, after this after this show. Absolutely. Right. Right. I didn't even think about that.
00:38:34
Speaker
You know, to add to have it all happen at the site of what was supposed to be the home that they were going to make for themselves. This empty lot where they were going to build a home and start a family. However, that was going to work with him being an android or being a human, but whatever.
00:38:54
Speaker
And all of those choices are so incredibly effective to draw that emotion out of the viewer. And as far as I'm concerned, it really worked, because I still can't watch that without crying. Well, I mean, that scene, it perfectly illustrates
00:39:12
Speaker
why her and vision uh end up together in the first place right because he really does he they show us right in that scene why he's her anchor and like that i think he's probably the only one who really has a sit down to talk with her about
00:39:28
Speaker
what she's been through because all the rest of the team they're all you know they got their own stuff going on outside of the Avengers stuff and it's just basically her and him in the compound together and so for them to have that conversation the way they do it just it rings so true and it's it and it
00:39:50
Speaker
I'm having trouble thinking of things to say about it, but yeah, it's just a brilliant way to showcase their relationship. And we get a little bit of that in Civil War too, right? That scene when, you know, Vision first comes in, walking through her wall in the sweater vest, and he's just, and he's like, well, just like their very brief conversation, you get the sense, this is not the first time they've had these conversations. So you get the sense that there has been a lot of stuff going on
00:40:16
Speaker
between the movies and the fact that we get a little peek behind that curtain in just that scene, it helps so much with their characters.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And there's a lot of subtle things in there, too. I mean, obviously, the way that they're dressed is suggestive of a certain relationship. But the fact that that's the first time, I think, where she calls him Viz, she just shortens his name. And that suggests a familiarity that wasn't there before in Age of Ultron when, as you said, they're both new members of the Avengers. And certainly her allegiance is not entirely clear right away.
00:40:54
Speaker
But when they are having a conversation as people, not as superheroes, they're not in costume.
00:41:02
Speaker
They're in regular clothes, and she calls them this. It's a testament to the relationship that they're building. And then it's interrupted because they're on opposite sides of the Civil War. And she's the one who has to, she uses her powers to increase his density, so falls through every floor of the compound. And she doesn't want to do that.
00:41:25
Speaker
She kind of has this pain look on her face that's similar to the look on her face when she's destroying the Mind Stone in his head. Yeah, Mind Stone. And just obviously to a larger degree.
00:41:43
Speaker
You just mentioned something and I never really clocked this until you mentioned that and it just kind of clicked into pace. But I realized that, you know, when you're saying that, you know, he never, Vision never gets angry or even really disappointed with Wanda in either when she does that in Civil War or with anything that happens in Infinity War. But then you look at this and he does get angry with her, right? He's asking her like what she's doing and all that.
00:42:07
Speaker
And that can be read two ways. One way is obviously that she's going so much further than she has before. But the other way you can read that is the fact that that's not really vision. That's just her interpretation of vision. So it's her being, it's her conscious coming through.
00:42:24
Speaker
That's the way I read is the latter, that because vision isn't real, he's constructed to mimic the way that she sees vision. And so for the most part, he behaves the way vision would behave. But there are those moments where he's starting to figure out that something strange is going on.
00:42:43
Speaker
that he lashes out. I mean, there's that classic, you know, they're in their sort of family ties 80s house. And, you know, he rises up to threaten her and she rises up to meet him. And he's saying like, what aren't you telling me and she's got her powers out and, you know, it looks like they're about to engage in real superhero fisticuffs and of course they don't but
00:43:04
Speaker
But yeah, if he's a construction of her will and imagination, then it really is like she's admonishing herself for it. Except for the fact that there are some hints that both Vision and the twins have some kind of autonomy as separate beings. In the episode they do with
00:43:28
Speaker
I think it's the Malcolm in the Middle parody. It's the Halloween one. The kids are the ones who actually speak directly to the camera. They're the ones who do that, mostly Billy. He speaks directly to the camera, which shouldn't happen if he's just a construct.
00:43:47
Speaker
Right. And yet he does. So I'm even unclear as to like where the line is between what is just something that she created and what is something that is actually real in the universe.
00:44:02
Speaker
And the fact that it's Billy who does that is also very telling, given that he's got magic powers as well in the comics too. But I also wanna talk about some of the supporting cast. I mean, first off, we get some great returnees, right? Bringing back Kat Dennings as Darcy and having her now after everything, because when we first met her in the first Thor movie, she was a political science major, but then after what she went through, she ends up becoming, going into astrophysics and she gets her doctorate.
00:44:31
Speaker
And at first glance, you might think, wait, she goes from the dark world where she's a student and an intern, and now she's a doctor. But you think about the amount of time that's passed, like, no, actually, that makes sense. That makes total sense. And it's such a great way to showcase a character's evolution and how they've changed with this universe, too. Yeah, with everything she went through as working with Jane Foster, I could see why she'd want to learn more about
00:45:00
Speaker
astrophysics and become the expert. So she doesn't have to be the intern anymore. She can actually take the lead, especially because at that point, at this point, Jane was really sort of out of the MCU for the most part. Yeah. Yeah. Up until 11 thunder. Yeah. I think there was 11 thunder. Right. Yeah. I think there was some question of whether or not she would, she would come back at all. Yeah. I mean, she took the world's most expensive nap and end game and then
00:45:25
Speaker
uh you know and then we saw her again in love and thunder but um yeah and she was she was a welcome addition and like she was in thor the dark world she really is the audience surrogate for wandavision because she's watching the show along with us and and commenting on it and you know when she when she says
00:45:44
Speaker
you know, I'm invested. Like, she's not kidding. She's legit invested in this fictional WandaVision show. Well, also when she, you know, she even says like, I can't remember if it was to WandaVision, she says, hi, I'm a big fan. Yeah. And even when Pietro pops up and she's like, they recast, she recast Pietro. Yeah, yeah. All of that was, yeah, she's, she is definitely the audience surrogate and like, and
00:46:10
Speaker
And also I love that how we come up with the fact that Wanda's powers are called hex, right? The fact that it's just the hexagonal shape. Again, you know, just a little brilliant piece of world building in the MCU. But also Randall Park, you know, coming back is Jimmy Woo. That was, I mean, you know, a lot of people were talking after that first episode they appeared in that want to see a series about Darcy and Jimmy Woo going through and investigating weird MCU stuff.
00:46:41
Speaker
I would watch a Jimmy Woo agents of Atlas show today, if that were on. I love him in this role. I loved him in Ant-Man and the sequels to that. I think he's a great character. I think he's a great actor. And just like Darcy, we see an evolution in him, you know, taking much more of a lead, taking risks. You know, we saw him as a rule follower in Ant-Man because he had, and now, you know, he's disobeying sword
00:47:09
Speaker
you know, going behind their back and trying to figure things out. I mean, I love his, I love the first time you see him when he just approaches, I guess, is it Darcy or is it the police officers? And he pulls the card out because he learned from Scott Lang how to do close-up card magic. Like- If I recall correctly, I think Randall Park, that was actually Randall Park's idea to kind of show that he's been practicing it ever since I met him. It's just brilliant, you know, it was this throwaway gag.
00:47:39
Speaker
from an earlier movie and he brought it back and it's such a neat character piece. Like you, I just love him. I mean, I just, I love Randall Park in anything. He's just one of those actors that every time I see him pop up in something, I get excited. Cause he's just, he's so funny. He's so endearing, even in monstrous roles, like in the interview, he was great in that and I still, I was still charmed by him. Yeah, he has that appeal. He has that appeal.
00:48:08
Speaker
And then also we get Teona Paris, you know, picking up as adult Monica here, again, you know, right from the start, she grabbed me like her, her portrayal of Monica was just was just so perfect. And it's what made me so much more excited to about the Marvels was the fact that she was going to be in it.
00:48:28
Speaker
And, and yeah, again, she does great in that too. But seeing her here and I wasn't sure what to expect. I was not expecting us to see her get her powers this early on. So I was really glad that they weren't, you know, taking too much time with that aspect of it, too. Yeah, she's she's a talent that I'm so glad that they discovered for this because hopefully it'll catapult her into
00:48:52
Speaker
you know, some level of stardom. She deserves it. She's really, really great. I loved her as Geraldine before she was even really Monica. You know, she's, she is the, you know, the sort of classic, you know, friend neighbor. She's got a little sass to her. And then we watch her sort of slowly come out of the hex as Wanda starts to lose control and recall things about the real world. And that's really what ignites the movement into the faith,
00:49:21
Speaker
grief phase of anger for Wanda because Monica mentions Pietro and she mentions Ultron and that's not part of the deal. This is a fictional world where grief plays no role. Sitcoms, sitcom problems are solved in 22 minutes with a laugh.
00:49:39
Speaker
And this broke that for Wanda. And so for her to shoot her out of the X that way was just, I was just four. I mean, absolutely four. Speaking of that 30-minute format, I remember, I think it was either the
00:49:55
Speaker
the 80s episode, I think it was the 80s episode when the credits start rolling and the closing music and then Vision's still talking to her over it because he knows she's trying to end the episode and move on to another change. And that was also like just such a brilliant use of the format.
00:50:13
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. I had forgotten about that. And now that you mention it, yeah, you watch the credits and they're still, you know, the theme music is playing and they are having their fight. Like, no, you can't wish this away. You can't magic this away. Something's going on. We're going to figure it out. And I'm so glad that Monica got to play such a huge role in that.
00:50:34
Speaker
even if, even if they used her to sort of wrongfully tease, you know, a Fantastic Four appearance, you know, talking. But, you know, I can live with that. I was ultimately okay with that little tease that didn't pay off.
00:50:49
Speaker
talk about those there, because there are a bunch of red herrings in this, and I definitely want to talk about those. Like, well, even like Dottie, right, the you get bringing some like Emma Caulfield, and everyone's expecting her to have some big role, like there's a lot of there's a lot of speculation that oh, she's probably Emma Frost or something like this.
00:51:06
Speaker
And when you think about it, like, yeah, Emma Caulfield is Emma Frost. That makes a lot of sense. And just in that line, too, she says in that second episode, the devil's in the details again, you know, the constant Mephisto theories. Like, I don't think there was there was one supporting cast member in this show who was not at some point fingered as Mephisto.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for those who don't remember because it was a few years ago now, or for those who never experienced it or just weren't dialed in at the time, that was the big conspiracy theory among all the fans. Every citizen in Westview, every supporting character, even characters who hadn't appeared at all were rumored to be Mephisto. I mean, there are moments towards the end of the series in Agatha's house
00:51:57
Speaker
where there are you know cicadas on the curtains and things like and people thought that was Mathisto and you know I mean just ridiculous theories and none of them none of them paid off and you know what I'm okay I'm fine with that I think that I think the show is tight enough that you didn't need to go that big
00:52:17
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think it was, I mean, my big theory was that it was actually going to be Kathan, just because of all the things that he's been involved with in Wanda, especially when they brought in the Darkhold as well. So that was my big theory throughout the series. And then we got to the end, I'm like, OK, it's not what I expected, but it was still a lot of thought. It was still really good.
00:52:35
Speaker
But yeah, the, all the little teases, I remember, you know, another frequent guest on this show, Adam Lance Garcia, I think after the show was over, he said, he's like, what if Mephisto was just the friends we made along the way or something along that.
00:52:50
Speaker
That's funny. Yeah. And then the big tease, the big, you know, conspiracy theory was, you know, Pietro coming back. So everybody assumed that meant, oh, the Fox X men are going to be coming into the Marvel universe now. It's going to be done through multiverse stuff. And in the end, it just turns out to be a boner joke.
00:53:11
Speaker
You know what? Because my whole big thing is I think the idea of bringing in the X-Men through multiversal stuff is kind of lazy. I think there's much more creative ways to do it with the Infinity Stones and all that. But the whole idea of, and also I did not really like Evan Peters as Quicksilver. He was entertaining, but he's not Quicksilver to me, right? Quicksilver to me was much more
00:53:39
Speaker
much more arrogant, much more hot-headed. Evan Peters always felt more like impulse, whereas I thought Aaron Taylor Johnson was a lot closer to what I picture Quicksilver as being as. Yeah, you know, I guess I agree with you to some extent. The reason why I tend to gravitate more towards Evan Peters portrayal is because I think the powers were done so much better in the X-Men franchise. I think by the time they got to Age of Ultron
00:54:09
Speaker
with Aaron Taylor Johnson.
00:54:13
Speaker
I think they really couldn't do much more than they did because they didn't want to repeat what had been done with him in X-Men, you know, with the slow-mo sort of time in a bottle type sequence, which is just so fun and brilliant and a great use of Quicksilver's powers. And you're right, he is more of an impulsive and jokester and he's a jokester and he's not that serious. I mean, the Quicksilver in the comics, I mean, he's gay.
00:54:40
Speaker
And it's explained beautifully in Peter David's X Factor series from the mid-90s where he's getting therapy from Doc Sampson. And he's like, imagine living your whole life where everybody's moving in slow motion. You go to the bank just to cash a check and everybody in front of you is, it's like everyone's paying in nickels.
00:55:03
Speaker
You know, imagine being like you'd be on edge all the time, too. And that totally sold me on the character and I've loved him ever since. Yes, because there was a reason why he was jerk to people. I liked the lighter take of Evan Peters Quicksilver more so than than the MCU version. Plus, they dispatched with the MCU version so quickly. I felt like I didn't really get to know him. And I really wanted to.
00:55:28
Speaker
But I did love, and it is stunt casting, but I loved it anyway, of bringing Evan Peters back as a tease at the end of an episode, a little cliffhanger. Because you're right, it did allow people to theorize about presence of the X-Men, multiverse, how does this all work.
00:55:49
Speaker
to reduce it all to a boner joke at the end would have been
Multiverse Theories in WandaVision
00:55:55
Speaker
frustrating for me, but for the fact that he is part of Agatha's sort of like she, he was manipulated by her and she playing the nosy neighbor. There was a neighbor slash best friend character in the 80s sitcom Growing Pains named Boner.
00:56:16
Speaker
Mike Zever's best friend is named Boner. And so I thought it was a nice nod to that because he's fulfilling a, not exactly, but a similar role. So for a lot of people, it came out of nowhere because they didn't maybe get the reference. But to me, it was like Boner, of course it's Boner. I mean, now that you...
00:56:36
Speaker
I did not get that reference either until you just said that. And then as soon as you said mentioned growing pains, it clicked in for me and I remembered boner. Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a that's a great point. I completely missed that reference, which I imagine a lot of people did because, you know, how many people remember growing pains? Like I said, I grew up on these sitcoms. I have a I have a memory for these things where where other more important information should be.
00:57:01
Speaker
He can have space in there. Yeah. Also, there is the Harwood, which I thought Harwood, the director of Sword, was kind of interesting because I feel like twice now in these movies, we've gotten Henry Peter Gyrick-esque characters who are not Gyrick.
00:57:17
Speaker
Like first was Everett Ross in Civil War. He's very much in the Gyrick role in that movie. And then here we get Harwood who is like almost 100% Gyrick and it kind of makes me laugh. I'm like, how many times are we gonna get Gyrick before we actually see the character?
00:57:34
Speaker
I know, maybe it'll take the X-Men in order to get Gyrick, but yeah, this character seems created whole cloth for the show. I don't have any reference for Heywood in any of the comics. Not that I can remember, no. Yeah. Sometimes they'll take just random names of characters in the comics. They did that for Ethan Hawke's character in Moon Knight. They just took a character from, it was a throwaway villain name and they just crafted this other villain story, because they liked the name, basically.
00:58:03
Speaker
Yeah, neither one of them meant anything to me. He does start off much more sympathetic, I think, than Kyra ever was in the comics. Heywood, that is.
00:58:16
Speaker
You kind of like him, you understand, and he seems definitely on Monica's side, wants to see her succeed, even if he has to enforce this new rule that she has to stay on Earth and all that. I felt like his heel turn was a little too abrupt for me. He's clearly out for blood. I mean, he's willing to shoot children.
00:58:38
Speaker
Yeah. You know, Monica had stepped in the way and absorbed those bullets. You know, he was about to shoot children. You also have to consider, are they really children? Like, there's that part of it too. I mean, morally, ethically, does that make it better? You know, I don't know how I feel about it. It's very gray. It's very gray. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I think, I feel like,
00:59:05
Speaker
because I think they'd made some changes due to like COVID restrictions and all that. And so I feel like there was, it definitely feels like there was some rewriting in those later episodes. And I think, and I think Heywood is definitely one of those things that came through and felt like, I agree with you. I think his heel turn is a bit abrupt and I think that might explain why. Also Agatha too, as much as I loved what Catherine Hahn did, again,
00:59:31
Speaker
I did not know she was this great an actress. She's phenomenal. She is amazing. She's doing all these different sitcoms role and then she transitioned seamlessly into this twisted magician character.
00:59:44
Speaker
And my impression of it was that she was in a way, in kind of this roundabout way, serving as a mentor to Wanda, like Agatha is in the comics. And then when it turns out that she ends with them having this big magic fight in the air, it felt a little incongruous. It didn't feel like it completely fit with what had happened before. So I think there was some rewriting going on there as well.
01:00:12
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know to what extent those rewrites took place, but you're probably right in that COVID really kind of botched things. And I know WandaVision wasn't even originally intended to be the first show that they released. I think Falcon and Winter Soldier was supposed to be first. I believe so. For whatever reason, scheduling-wise, COVID-wise, they had to put this one out. Well, yeah, because the original plot of Falcon and Winter Soldier involved the biological weapons. They had to go and read and change all that.
01:00:42
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Yeah, I didn't realize that. It ended up working out fine. I think the order in which they were released actually actually worked really, really well. But, you know, Agatha is, other than want to envision themselves, Agatha is absolutely my favorite part of the show. I think she's just brilliant. Catherine Hahn is, I've always known her as a comedic actress, and she certainly was here, but
01:01:13
Speaker
What she was able to do dramatically is absolutely stunning. And then the fact that we get that sort of bonus theme song, Agatha All Along theme song. I'm actually wearing an Agatha All Along shirt right now. It's a little off camera, but you can hear it. Oh, that's awesome. That is so cool.
01:01:33
Speaker
I felt like that was appropriate for the day, but that Munster's sounding theme song was just so brilliant, so brilliant. And to recap sort of all the moments in the series so far where Agatha was sort of pulling all the strings throughout, and then to have the follow-up be that
01:01:59
Speaker
where she sort of walks Wanda through all the different traumas of her life is so incredibly emotional that, like you, I don't know that I wanted to see their final confrontation be basically the same thing we get at the end of most of these types of movies. It's two characters with similar powers shooting beams at each other. There's a sky beam.
01:02:27
Speaker
debris floating around and it feels and looks like the end of a Marvel movie, which doesn't sound like a criticism necessarily, but I intended as one. It's a minor one, but it's a criticism nonetheless. No, yeah, I mean, the MCU movies, they do have that third act problem where a lot of them fall into that trap of just like, you know, throwing lights at each other back and forth.
01:02:51
Speaker
and even like in and you know i that's what i love about civil war so much because it's a very that with as the big the big superhero showdown is the midpoint of the movie and then the right and then the third act climax is this much more personal showdown and you know i was hoping for something like that with like
01:03:08
Speaker
Shang-Chi is my go-to example for this where that third act was very disappointing because you have this this incredible dynamic father-son conflict going on and you've got these two great actors and they've been doing this you know so well up until this point and then it gets it gets kind of overshadowed by this big army fight with these magic dragons
01:03:30
Speaker
Yes, and what should have been a really grounded and emotional fight, as you say, between a father and a son, you know, suddenly, right, dragons are popping out of the water and the dragon's fighting the dragon and they're shooting rings at each other. And the next thing you know, you're losing what invested you in the first place, which is character. Yeah. And, you know, I felt that to some degree here. It didn't take me completely out because
01:03:59
Speaker
Wanda and Agatha are still, you know, there is still dialogue on the fight. And, you know, Wanda is becoming the thing that, you know, we suspected she was going to become. I mean, you know, it's amazing. It's amazing how excited we can get just hearing the words that we already knew, like when she says, you know, you are the scarlet witch, right? Yeah, they haven't actually used that phrase in the entirety of the MCU.
01:04:26
Speaker
Right. When they asked, like, does does does Wanda have a code name or anything? He's like, nope, no code name. I'm just like, right. I thought about it. I'm like, oh, my God, he's right. They never the closest we ever get is when iron and when Iron Man calls her a witch in Age of Ultron. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But not Scarlet Witch because right. Exactly. Yeah. That. Yeah. And, you know, here, you know, to watch her then, you know, sort of rearrange her her outfit so that she's wearing, you know, a version of
01:04:56
Speaker
you know, the Scarlet Witch outfit in the sort of darker hues that we normally see. Yeah, it's thrilling. It's really thrilling to watch her become the thing we know she's gonna become. Well, so the way they work in the classic costumes too for the Halloween, like she's a Sokovian fortune teller and he's a Mexican wrestler.
01:05:14
Speaker
It's so it's so wonderful because it's in such a long tradition at the MCU of giving the fans a look at a much more comics accurate picture, you know, in Captain America, First Avenger, when he before he becomes fully Captain America, he's doing U.S.O. shows and they put him in this goofy looking old style Captain America costume, you know. Technically not MCU anymore, but, you know, he's wearing the white, the yellow shirt and he's got the T.R.
01:05:44
Speaker
And the chain belts. Yes. Right. So we keep getting these really cool glimpses of the costumes that we've come to know that we know would be way too silly to actually do on screen. So in addition, we get these really great screen-looking
01:06:05
Speaker
costume. So when she becomes the Scarlet Witch, it's just, it's just a no, I mean, pun intended, it's just a magical moment. Yeah. Yeah. For her. I just I absolutely love it. And we even get that, you know, that glimpse into where Agatha comes from, where her magic comes from. And I was I was just as compelled by that, even though she's a brand new character. We don't even we don't even know. Yes. Yeah. Well, so I think the the final fight, I think one of the things that helps
01:06:32
Speaker
offset kind of that, you know, oh, another flying magic battle type of thing is the fact that we get, it's contrasted with that very excellent way that Vision takes down White Vision, right? The whole ship of Theseus. I mean, of course, Vision is gonna win a battle with himself by debating philosophy. It totally fits for that character.
01:06:52
Speaker
Uh, it does. It does. I mean, we do get some flying around and phasing through each other and that kind of fun stuff, but you're right. I mean, the climax is entirely people. I wouldn't even say emotional because they're completely devoid of emotion. No, it's completely based on logic. It's perfect for that character.
01:07:10
Speaker
Absolutely. And listen, it gives us all hope that vision, while the Westview vision had to go, there is still that white vision out there with his memories. Exactly, yeah. So that whenever they want to use him, he is there.
01:07:26
Speaker
Well, yeah, and people from who remember music's Avengers Run will remember that's what happened to Vision in the comics. He ended up getting he got his memories back, but he didn't have the same emotional attachment to them necessarily. He had to reestablish that emotion over time, which is something we could see happening in the future, because in fact, they were I'm
01:07:46
Speaker
There was rumors that they were gonna be doing a Vision series, like it was gonna be called Vision Quest, I think. And then I think rumors are that it's been scrapped. I mean, I hope not, because I think that would be amazing, but hopefully we can still get that.
01:08:02
Speaker
Yeah, I know that there's been quite a bit of chuckling around in the MCU for a number of different reasons. You know, fears of superhero oversaturation or superhero fatigue, concerns over the workload of the visual effects artists.
01:08:19
Speaker
Certainly in this newer phase five, there have been more disappointments, I think, than Marvel Studios is used to. Right. So I think they're just sort of really thinking how much content they really want to put out there, which makes which.
01:08:34
Speaker
keeps pulling me back to that time when WandaVision was new and it was coming out weekly when it was still so exciting. And that weekly release schedule, I can't say enough about how smart that was too. Not only does that mimic, obviously, the way that sitcoms actually aired back in the day,
01:08:58
Speaker
So it's perfectly fitting with this show, but it also allowed us finally to have a week to discuss and debate and theorize, all that Mephisto and Pietro and multiverse stuff would never have really been a thing if they had dropped the whole season.
01:09:17
Speaker
all at once, people binged it for a weekend and then moved on to the next thing on Monday. And I feel like of all the series we've gotten so far, I think only WandaVision and, I mean, I've all enjoyed them except for Secret Invasion to varying degrees, but I think the only ones that truly fit into the, that realized they were doing a weekly television show were WandaVision and She-Hulk. All the rest, it was just basically a long movie that was chopped up.
01:09:45
Speaker
Right. And it makes sense because those are the two that use the medium of television as a thematic touchstone. Yes. And it really works for those two in ways that it would work for, let's say, Moon Knight or Ms. Marvel or any of the others. So that makes total sense. Yeah.
01:10:07
Speaker
What else do I wanna mention about this? Oh, I wanna talk a little bit about, you know, how, I think they kind of answered the question of how do they introduce mutants in this series? Cause my, what I, cause there's that scene in Endgame when Rocket says that, you know, when Thanos, you know, snapped on earth, it had this massive release of cosmic energy. Nothing's ever been seen before. And then it happened two more times when, you know, Bruce did it and then Tony did it.
01:10:34
Speaker
And we see in this when Wanda gets her powers, right? There's that scene when first off, again, the way of introducing her love of sitcoms through their these bootleg DVDs that her father would buy and they'd watch them. And that's how they learn English. That was so
01:10:50
Speaker
unexpectedly touching that scene there. And then when Wanda saves her and Pietro and Agatha remarks, she's like, this was supposed to die on the vine, right? It feels like what she was saying was this was a latent mutation. You weren't supposed to have mutant powers. Your kids maybe were supposed to have them. And then when she touches the Mind Stone, it unlocks her, it jump-starts her evolution.
01:11:19
Speaker
That's kind of what I think happened because we see now mutants exist in the MCU. We've gotten Amor who calls himself, he literally is Marvel's first mutant, both in the MCU and in the comics. First one who actually calls himself a mutant and he's centuries old. So we know mutants have been around in some small number. And then we get Kamala at the end of her show and we get the little X-Men stinger and then says it's a mutation. So mutants exist in this universe. So my theory is that they,
01:11:48
Speaker
They've been latent and like, you know, maybe Xavier and Magneto have been gathering the ones that exist in secret into Krakoa and Krakoa can move around. So that's why they haven't been able to get detected. But now with the Infinity Stones,
01:12:02
Speaker
Everybody, you know, it's jump-started evolution now. And so now there's tons of mutants around and causing trouble and that could lead to Magneto and Xavier splitting and all that kind of stuff. And it feels like a much more organic way to introduce mutants into this world. And also reason to have the reason why people would be afraid of mutants because, well, the thing that caused the greatest genocide in intergalactic history has now brought us all these people with superpowers.
01:12:31
Speaker
Yeah, no, you make you make good observations and good points about that. I mean, you know, the assumption was Wanda got her powers from Hydra experimenting on her with the energy stone.
01:12:43
Speaker
And when we watch that scene of her apartment bombing in Sokovia when she's a child, and it does appear as if she, you know, we were led to believe that the Stark bomb that lodged in their apartment was just a dud. She and Pietro were hiding under the bed for three days, watching it, waiting for the moment it would detonate and destroy them.
01:13:05
Speaker
there is that moment where she sort of reaches out suggestively and it's not entirely clear whether she really did manipulate it or what but I think it's suggestive enough and then you have Agatha's comment about it and then you know there's the Monica of it all who you know gets her powers by going in, out,
01:13:28
Speaker
in and out of the hex, right? She's passing through this barrier that is a manifestation of an infinity stone, essentially, because that's where Wanda's powers come from. So, you know, if she is essentially mutated by it, then certainly this idea that all of the snaps, you know, that destroyed half the population, brought half the population back and destroyed bad guys, that could very well be the way that we get
01:13:56
Speaker
And it feels like a much better way of using the MCU to its advantage as opposed to just, well, there's a multiverse and now they're here. Right. Right.
01:14:08
Speaker
Right. Although now that they have the multiverse and well established the multiverse, I don't know how much restraint I trust them to use explaining it away with the multiverse because, because like you said, it's it, you know, there is a laziness to it. But because it's easy, that might also make it a more attractive choice. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping that because the multiverse saga has gotten so much criticism, they're not going to go that route. So if they were thinking that maybe they're rethinking it now.
01:14:35
Speaker
I hope so. I hope so. Yeah. But the other thing I wanted to mention is the ending here and how it factors into multiverse of madness, because one of the biggest criticisms of multiverse of madness, which Elizabeth Olsen kind of echoed herself, is the fact that, well, didn't we already do the story of, and it feels like, you know, Wanda
01:14:54
Speaker
Wanda's character, a lot of people criticize Multiverse saying that she had regressed after what had happened in WandaVision. I've got kind of a different take on that, but before I do, I was curious how you saw that. Yeah, I'm of two minds. My initial reaction to that movie was that it was a Wanda character assassination, that she had
01:15:18
Speaker
come to accept that Vision and her kids were gone at the end of WandaVision. But we do know she's in possession of the Darkhold, and we do know that the last thing we sort of see is we hear her children calling to her from somewhere, and she has secluded herself so that she can learn this dark magic
01:15:37
Speaker
and hopefully bring her children back. So it's not like it comes completely out of nowhere, but for her to become such an unrepentant villain, to have lost herself so much after repenting for what she had done to the citizens of Westview, it was too much too soon for me. I think if they had slow played it a little bit,
01:16:04
Speaker
And we got glimpses perhaps of Wanda as maybe end credit scenes and some other projects where we see her taking that dark turn and then making her appearance known in Multiverse of Madness. On the other hand,
01:16:22
Speaker
I thought she was kind of an exciting choice. The idea of the multiverse where, you know, she can't have the kids that she created, can she find a universe where they exist? But I don't know, I'm very conflicted on it. I think I'm still conflicted. No, I totally get that. Like my interpretation of it is,
01:16:40
Speaker
she realizes she can't do this on her own. So she starts studying the Darkhold to learn more about her powers and then she ends up getting corrupted by the Darkhold is how I kind of read that. Now I will say this though, I do agree that it was way too rushed and multiverse of madness and that aspect of it was not explored anywhere near the depth it needed to be. I think we needed another movie between
01:17:03
Speaker
WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness to better kind of show how she's being corrupted by the Darkhold. So that's the way I read it, but it is definitely something that is not executed well. Yeah, I really wanted to love Multiverse of Madness, and I wanted to love Wanda as an antagonist. I enjoy it. There are definitely things about the move that I enjoy, but I can't get all the way there with it.
01:17:32
Speaker
No, yeah, I totally get that. And although I will say, man, she was, the way Sam Raimi directed her in some of those scenes, man, she was damn creepy.
01:17:42
Speaker
Yeah, she was terrified. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so I feel like it's multiverse of madness definitely could have executed that much better than they did. And that kind of leads to the final question I had here that I want to talk about is where do you think Wanda and Vision go from here? Or do you think Wanda goes anywhere from here after multiverse of madness?
01:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I can't reconcile this is because where does Wanda go? I mean, I don't think she could be a hero again after all. And I don't know how you bring her back. I mean, Vision is certainly a calming presence for her. So if somehow they could reunite wherever White Vision is now with Wanda, perhaps together they could
01:18:34
Speaker
be happy and have what they want. But I don't know. After WandaVision, I thought there were so many great possibilities for where both of them could go. And I just don't know at this point. Do you have any ideas of where you think it might go?
01:18:49
Speaker
This is something I thought about recently, and I think what would be kind of cool because Hawkeye kind of served as a mentor role to Wanda in both Age of Ultron and, and Civil War. And I would kind of like to see like a West Coast Avengers movie we're like Hawkeye like let's say Wanda pops up back on the east coast on the west coast.
01:19:09
Speaker
Hawkeye goes to figure out what's going on. You know, War Machine's already on the coast, so they team up there. They bring in White Vision. Maybe they hook up with, you know, they bring in Photon and hook up with Wonder Man as well, introduce him. And I think that would be a cool way to, that would give a good story point to have a reason for all these characters to get together where they're trying to find Wanda and also serve as a way to have an Avengers movie that doesn't necessarily have to deal with the end of the world, but it can be like a low key kind of fun Avengers movie.
01:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that, I would be on board for that. And the added bonus is you could do some of that great interpersonal relationship work with Wanda and Wonder Man. Yes. Like Busey and Camperez did, where if they start a relationship, Wanda, of course, thinking vision is never coming back, and then vision comes back. And Wanda is now with somebody else.
01:20:05
Speaker
that potentially could be the kind of interpersonal conflict that could be really interesting to explore. Well, especially because in the music run, Wonder Man was resurrected because of Wanda. So there's that aspect of it, too. You could have his powers be created by her accidentally. Right. And the added bonus of the comics universe is it wasn't vision created using the mental engrams of Wonder Man.
01:20:33
Speaker
So essentially his personality, one of the reasons why they explained why Vision and Wanda were attracted to each other is because Vision really has Wonder Man's parts of his personality. Which the MCU, I don't think would do. I don't think they would, because Vision's already here.
01:20:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, but you could just have it be like, you know, she reminds him of, he reminds her of vision type of thing would work fine. Sure. I think. Sure. Absolutely. But yeah, so we're almost out of time, but is there anything, any final thoughts you wanted to mention about WandaVision?
01:21:08
Speaker
the only two other things that I wanted to bring up that I think were especially effective, the theme songs at the start of each episode that were done in the styles of those various sitcoms through the ages, which I thought were so brilliant. I mean, they got the writers from the Frozen franchise to write and perform those
01:21:29
Speaker
And they all have, they're all different stylistically, but they all have the same note progression. They all do that in some way, shape or form. So there is a unity to all those theme songs. And then the commercial breaks that they also give us, which all, you know, at first just seemed like, again, a gimmick.
Symbolism and Easter Eggs in WandaVision
01:21:54
Speaker
But each of the products that are being sold have something to do with Wanda's old traumas. So, you know, her mistake in the beginning of civil war.
01:22:08
Speaker
know, where she blows the logos. Yeah, the logos. Right. So logos that there was like the stark toaster that is making that that same sort of detonation noise like that. It's got the arc reactor sound to it, you know, you know, the idea of the depression and like, these are very clever ways of just
01:22:27
Speaker
nodding to the elements of her past before we get to the episode entitled Previously On. Of course, all the episode titles are classic sitcom phrases like Previously On and a very special episode and things like that that are just staples of the sitcom tropes. I just thought all that layering of things
01:22:54
Speaker
It could have been too much, but it was the right amount. It was exactly the right pressure to just make it all feel cohesive and unified. And I just, I love it and I appreciate it.
01:23:06
Speaker
Also, the Nexus commercial was the one I thought was interesting, too, because that kind of... It both serves as a red herring, because it teases the whole multiverse type stuff, but it also keeps up what's going to be coming later in Wanda's future, too. You know, you got the whole Nexus of Realities thing, from the Man thing. So, I thought that was also a nice little touch. At first, I'm thinking like, wait, that doesn't seem to fit with the others, because you get Starkey, you get Strucker, Hydra, Lagos, all connector trauma.
01:23:31
Speaker
then you get the magic thing with the shark. And then you get the Nexus, which feels incongruous from the rest. But when you think about it, it both serves as that red herring. But also, now that we know, looking back, it's a tease of what else was coming later. Absolutely.
01:23:48
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, overall, I just I keep going back to the series. I think about it a lot. And it's something that I know I'm going to watch again and again every time I meet somebody who says that they've never seen it. You know, I've watched it. I watched it with my parents. I watched it with my kids separately, like some of my kids at first and then others of my kids. I've watched it with friends. I've introduced friends to it. I've seen it at this point probably eight or nine times. Oh, wow.
01:24:16
Speaker
And it just gets richer and better every time I see it. And to me, none of the other shows have really touched it in terms of the quality.
Reflections and Rankings
01:24:26
Speaker
I've enjoyed a lot of the other shows, but just in terms of the thought, the level of detail, nothing to me has ever touched it. Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this, like the ranking of the different shows. Hawkeye, I loved Hawkeye. I thought that was very well done. I do too.
01:24:40
Speaker
She-Hulk. I love She-Hulk, too. But Wandavision, in retrospect, I thought it had kind of it had kind of fallen down my list of rankings because I think a big reason just because it's been so long since I've seen it, you know, tainted a little bit by the disappointments of multiverse of madness. Sure. But when I went back and rewatched it for this episode, I fell in love with it all over again. And it was kind of like, oh, yeah, I remember why I liked this show so much the first time I saw it. Yeah.
01:25:06
Speaker
Yeah, no, I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. I just, I really, really, truly love it. Yeah. Well, Scott, thank you so much for coming on. This was a fun discussion. Do you have anything you'd like to promote? Anything you'd like to, anywhere you'd like to send people before we close up?
01:25:22
Speaker
No, I'm guessed on other people's things. I don't do things on my own. My own classrooms, my own students, but I'm happy to be a guest and participate in these discussions. They're really fun, and I want to thank you for inviting me on. I really appreciate it. This was a blast. Yeah, well, thanks for coming on. You're more than welcome to come back anytime you want to have another one of these discussions. I'd love to. I'd love to.
Podcast Promotion and Closing Messages
01:25:48
Speaker
All right. Well, that does it for us. Superherocinephiles.com is the website. We are SuperCinemapod on Instagram and BlueSky mostly, you know, try and stay away from Twitter these days. But also you can support the show, patreon.com slash SuperCinemapod.
01:26:05
Speaker
And I've got my comic book project, Paragons of Earth, where we've taken a bunch of public domain superheroes, reinvent them for the modern day. We are still funding that, or even if the funding period is over, you can still go and purchase it from the website that is crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic. That's crowdfundernoe.com slash paragonscomic. Please make sure to go check that out. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
01:26:33
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Superhero Cinephiles is produced by me, Percival Constantine, with the support of Zencaster. The show is created by myself and the late, great Derek Ferguson, our host, Emeritus. Visit us on the web at superheroescinephiles.com to listen to past episodes or find out how you can be a guest yourself. Support the show by visiting our advertiser links or click the Buy Me a Coffee link on the website to make a one-time donation.
01:26:56
Speaker
You can also support us by visiting crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic, that's crowdfunder with no e dot com slash paragonscomic, and help support my superhero comic book, Paragons of Earth. We are SuperCinemapod on both Instagram and BlueSky, so please be sure to follow us. We'd also appreciate if you could rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, and share us with your friends.
01:27:37
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.