WandaVision is a truly unique television show, especially considering how different it feels from most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe installments that have preceded it. The show has deftly handled the jump in style from decade to decade while slowly peeling back the layers of its central mystery. It has managed all of this while still managing to craft the origin story of a new hero as well as set up some of the pieces that are sure to be a central part of Marvel’s next phase. It has also managed to re-contextualize what the audience knows about characters in past films and make them more interesting, particularly in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
First, there’s Captain Marvel. While Maria Rambeau had a rather small role and her daughter Monica also appeared within the movie to see Captain Marvel change the colors of her suit on the fly, they didn’t really seem all that essential to the MCU. Now with WandaVision, viewers know that their interaction with Captain Marvel actually served as the foundation of S.W.O.R.D. The most prominent example of WandaVision making past Marvel films more interesting is with the second Avengers film. Age of Ultron is probably the least liked of the Avengers movies among fans despite being the movie that introduced both Wanda and Vision into the MCU. However, in light of events from reveals made up to this point in WandaVision, Age of Ultron now demands a second viewing from fans and a reevaluation of the many pieces that it sets up.
Following the original Avengers, Age of Ultron felt like less of a tale of its own and more of a bridge to officially introducing the infinity stones into the MCU. Many of the promising aspects of the film seemed to feel underwhelming upon the first viewing. For example, take a look at the introduction of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. These characters were introduced in a post-credits sequence originally and poised to really make an impression in the second Avengers film. Instead, their inclusion mostly served as a minor obstacle for the Avengers to face on the path to fighting Ultron. Sure, Scarlet Witch was able to subdue most of the Avengers with nightmarish illusions, but she spends much of the film sporting a less than impressive Eastern European accent and making funny hand motions before helping the Avengers to fight Ultron. Quicksilver is a bit plain, with his superspeed also seeming to serve to help him exit the franchise by dying in the same movie he arrived in.
It feels like a bit of course correction that Scarlet Witch’s accent pretty much vanished in subsequent films. Marvel never explicitly states why that is, or why she doesn’t seem to use any of her mind-altering powers later on, she seems to resign herself to magical telekinesis for the most part. It also seems like the movies that come after Age of Ultron had pretty much forgotten about Pietro. He’s barely ever mentioned, even when Scarlet Witch is around, as she’s busy helping to deal with maximum level threats to the universe like Thanos. Quicksilver seemed to be there mostly just to help introduce Scarlet Witch and slightly add to her backstory before being killed off.
Then there’s Vision. Vision is an extremely interesting character who is a fusion of the Mind Stone and Tony Stark’s previous AI, Jarvis. His introduction into Age of Ultron is a more interesting part of the movie, but it arrives toward the film’s climax and the audience doesn’t really get to spend a whole lot of time with him. By the time he’s able to wax philosophic with Ultron about the nature of human life, Marvel cuts this deeper conversation short and it’s time for the credits to roll.
WandaVision changes all of that and makes the movie better in hindsight because of how effectively it builds upon the pieces that Marvel set up. It did not seem likely that Marvel would revisit these pieces considering that the Infinity Saga had reached its conclusion. However, Marvel has subverted fan expectations and made a new story that makes previously fully unexplored characters into some of the most sympathetic and interesting that the franchise has to offer.
Wanda’s grief is a big part of this. The audience is finally seeing the full effects of losing her brother and her lover within a short span of time. The effects of this grief appear to have the ability to eventually consume the entire planet in a shroud of illusion if left to spread unchecked. This would not be possible without the basis of both of her relationships being set up within Age of Ultron. Pietro may have seemed like a throwaway character, but now Age of Ultron is needed in order to understand why his appearance within WandaVision is such an interesting mystery. This is especially clear with the Evan Peters version of him appearing to have the same wounds that Quicksilver received when he died in Age of Ultron.
Age of Ultron also set the precedent for organizations around the world like S.W.O.R.D. to have a high level of trepidation surrounding supernatural beings. The world saw a bit of this with the Sekovia accords and their impact upon the Avengers in Captain America: Civil War. WandaVision is now taking this a step further. While there’s no telling just yet where Marvel plans to take these characters and how the events of WandaVision will affect the world moving forward, there’s no denying that Marvel has made their universe more interesting by building upon the base parts that Age of Ultron brought to the table.
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