Fandom In Context: Marvel's WandaVision of the Future

For the first time in a decade, there is no new Marvel this year. This isn't by design. The coronavirus and the subsequent shutdowns of movie theaters pushed Marvel's tentpole release Black Widow to 2021 (assuming the U.S. ever gets this thing under control). Black Widow's delay, however, is a blessing in disguise for Marvel. After Avengers: Endgame, there's never been a better time for Marvel to finally vary up its style. Fans are wise to Marvel's tricks, and it's time to give them something new.

Enter WandaVision, Marvel's first TV show for Disney+ and its first under the Marvel Studios banner. The show isn't Netflix's The Defenders or ABC's Agents of Shield, which many criticized for not fitting into the chronology of Marvel's industry-shattering franchise. Described as Marvel's first sitcom, WandaVision sees Vision, the MCU's most confusing character, played by Paul Bettany, settling down with Scarlet Witch, one of the series' most anonymous, played by Elizabeth Olsen. That's not to say neither aren't popular. Every character has its fans--even Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye for some reason. But Vision and Scarlet Witch have never had a chance to shine. They tend to be like wallpaper, fading into the background of the movies. According to several mods and admins from Facebook's legendary MCU meme group Marvel Shieldposting, the fan community's opinions of the characters are lukewarm at best. "They're fairly popular as meme subjects, but generally people seem to find the characters, as they are in the movies, to be underwhelming and unsatisfactory," says Andy Carr, an admin on Shieldposting. "It's pretty common to read comments in the group like, 'Four movies in, and I still don't give a shit about Wanda and Vision's relationship.'" If the characters underwhelm hardcore fans, casual viewers probably don't think of them at all. Wanda and Vision don't inspire Halloween costumes or drive action figure sales. Ironically, this sentiment appears in Wanda's most popular meme "I Don't Even Know Who You Are". But this lack of awareness is an asset, making them perfect for WandaVision's experimental superhero-sitcom format.

Without getting in the weeds because, like all things Marvel, things get confusing, here's a brief breakdown of the characters. In the MCU, Vision is an android created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, after they upload Stark's A.I. butler J.A.R.V.I.S. into a humanoid body in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Meanwhile, Wanda "Scarlet Witch" Maximoff, also introduced in Age of Ultron, worked as a member of the anti-Avengers super baddie team HYDRA, before joining the good guys. Over the next few movies, Maximoff and Vision share a romantic story arc where they shoot wanton stares at each other in a dimly lit apartment. Thrilling stuff. WandaVision takes place after all that. The show draws inspiration from Tom King's comic book ‌The Vision, a 12-part miniseries about Vision creating an android family in the suburbs and attempting to live out everyday life.

Marvel hasn't tried to vary things up in the past decade. There's always the hope that each movie will represent something new, but that's rarely the case. Occasionally, the studio indulges a particular director's whims, as is the case with Shane Black's Iron Man 3, Taika Waiti's Thor Ragnarok and Ryan Coogler's Black Panther, but that almost exclusively relates to the writing. Marvel's visual style and act setpieces all tend to carry the same aesthetic. It's been a source of controversy in the past. In 2018, director Lucrecia Martel said that when she was in talks to direct Black Widow, Marvel told her, "Don't worry about the action scenes, we will take care of that," depriving her of actually directing the film. She continued, "The first thing I asked them was maybe if they could change the special effects because there are so many laser lights … I find them horrible. Also, the soundtrack of Marvel films is quite horrendous. Maybe we disagree on this but it's really hard to watch a Marvel film. It's painful to the ears to watch Marvel films." Directors need to have control over the look, feel and sound of the movie. Because they don't, even the series outliers still feel like they were made by committee.

Fans are not ignorant of these criticisms; they share them as well. "The most common criticism of the MCU that I see in the group is, to put it simply, 'These movies are all the same,'" says Carr. "I've seen plenty of sentiments like, 'I'm kinda done with the MCU after Endgame,' or, 'They're really gonna have to branch out post-Endgame if they want me to keep watching.' I think it's just the going notion that the MCU needs to creatively diversify if it wants to maintain interest. And WandaVision is starting to look conceptually ready to satisfy that need. It's something we haven't seen before." The trailer delivers on that. In it, the characters' journey through various times, spaces, aspect ratios and genres. One hopes that the show has something to say about those things.

WandaVision already promised to be one of the MCU's most exciting titles because its announcement was a surprise. The other shows announced, such as The Falcon and Winter Soldier, Hawkeye and Loki, all feature characters many assumed would get a dedicated feature film sooner or later. WandaVision is a blank slate. It could be anything. Thankfully for fans, that's what it looks like. The first trailer for the series is a trip down TV history's last half-century. There's a mix of Ozzie and Harriet, Stranger Things, Black Mirror, Bewitched (appropriately), The Brady Bunch and, of course, all that superhero stuff. It genuinely looks like one of the first departures from Marvel's house style. All it took was two characters that were low enough on the ladder to star in it.

For years, Wanda and Vision have been something of a joke within Shieldposting. Wanda, who got the nickname "EEN" in the group after a commenter failed to type "queen" correctly, is one of the group's most popular subjects. "Anyone can be called an 'een,' but Wanda is THE een," says Kirstie, a Sacramento-based mod. "Sbeve, thanks/thanos, and shisldposting are other common misspellings, but 'een' has been the most popular." Those memes go a long way in terms of making the character likable for the group. Mods say that Wanda's popularity made her presence in the trailer a standout, particularly shots of her in Scarlet Witch's vintage costume, which became a popular meme over the past week.

Wanda might be the Een, but Vision, to the group, is a regular old simp. "Vision gets heavily meme'd for being a simp in that he's almost gotten less powerful and exciting as he's become more invested in Wanda," says Carr. It's hard to disagree with him. Since first hitting the scene in Age of Ultron, Vision went from the most overpowered Avenger to hanging out on the sidelines before getting iced in Infinity War. "Vision is loved for his introduction in Age of Ultron," says David Vega, a mod from Puerto Rico, "but some are slightly disappointed at how 'nerfed' he is in both Civil War and Infinity War." In the movies, Vision is a McGuffin, a device used to drive the plot. Even his most prominent meme, Thanos Taking the Mindstone from Vision, turns the character into a vehicle for a plot point. The series has the opportunity to deepen Vision by putting him in different scenarios week after week.

If the title is any indicator, WandaVision will be about TV—WandaVision being a pun on television. And the show has two perfect characters to explore that idea. No offense to their fans, but Vision and Scarlet Witch are boring. In the movies, their backstories are ill-defined, they never get the fun lines and Vision looks like he accidentally fell asleep on the surface of the sun. But because they have no personality, the show can mold them into anything. There's a chance to give them something new. "I think people are recognizing that there are seeds for really interesting storytelling and character work with Wanda's unique power set and headspace," says Carr. "In the comics, she can alter reality on a whim, and it looks like WandaVision might be playing with her warping reality or making alternate realities where she and Vision can be together."

"The show looks downright weird, and I think people find that interesting in contrast to their fairly milquetoast, 'star-crossed lovers' relationship, and likewise in contrast to the MCU overall, which has a tendency to err toward the basic and accessible, rather than the bizarre or confusing."

But, at this point, fans will take what they can get. Whether or not fans like the trailer is almost irrelevant. To fans, it almost matters more that there's new Marvel to discuss, analyze and meme. "Overall I think we're all dying for new content since Black Widow got delayed," says Kirstie. "Despite Shieldposting being a Marvel group, plenty of us know that the MCU follows a same-y formula. It's refreshing to have something unique to the universe. I think we're just really happy to see that our universe is moving along despite the pandemic." WandaVision is a chance to give the MCU something (anything) different. It's a good thing that Marvel fans want variety, a desire that could make the most popular franchise on Earth worthy of that distinction.