WandaVision 2: Sitcoms and Superheroes and Spoilers too

[Poobah]

57 minutes ago, Caligula_K3 said:

 how predictable and cliche Hayworth or whatever his name is as a villain. That was already a problem last episode and the way it played out here wasn't any more interesting,

Agreed, I'm definitely feeling very done with the whole trope of "insecure vanilla dude with power thanks to their rank in some government/ACRONYM agency hates superheroes (and probably wants to use them or their stuff to make his own "controllable" super weapons)" it's extremely well trodden ground. And I get that there are logical reasons and maybe we're gonna explore the impact the snappening had on the world and just the fact that human beings suck is reason enough that these kinda people keep coming along but it's pretty old and you'd think that at some point someone would get the message that maybe the people who should deal with superheroes shouldn't be hostile to them and inclined to escalate situations.

[Rhom]

11 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think this is an area where the MCU can improve on the comics. In the comics it was always weird that people have such a hate-boner for mutants but also seem to be really happy with Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor and the Hulk saving them from annihilation. The distinction - Iron Man built his powers, Spider-Man got his by an accident, Thor is an alien and the Hulk the product of genetic engineering versus natural evolutionary mutation - always seemed a rather thin one for millions or billions of people to accept.

The way things are being set up now, people are happy with the Avengers and the other people with powers or abilities because there's maybe a few dozen of them scattered all over the world, and they've literally just saved the entire universe, so the collateral damage thing (resulting in the Sokovia Accords) gets some more leeway. But there's still a big difference between that and suddenly the potential there being for many thousands, maybe millions, of people developing superpowered abilities, including your kid or your spouse or whatever, and there's a lot more potential for some of them to be villains.

The only problem with having mutants suddenly emerge right now is that it removes the timeframe needed for the many decades of backstories about Professor X, Magneto, Wolverine etc. Still, it means it could at least be a different approach to Fox.

Or perhaps the mutant thing was starting to happen anyway, but an event (maybe this one) causes it to suddenly explode out of control.

I think that IF the mutant gene starts to manifest primarily in the Blipped population, that could be a big area of distrust as well.  My wife has been gone five years... now she's back... is it really her?  Are you really here?   And now my wife can read my mind too???????

[JGP]

12 minutes ago, Karlbear said:

I think it's more likely that this is setup for some other horrible controlling thing; the next Thanos level threat. She's doing horrible things the same way that she made Hulk do horrible things and the same way she vaguely influence Stark to create Ultron or the way that Winter Soldier was controlled. This is the common MCU way - heroes don't do horrible things on their own; if they do bad things, they do bad things under the influence of bad people. 

And they've clearly been portraying what Wanda is doing is bad. Like, really bad.

 

Grief is nebulous. It can be at once crippling, then weird, then ninja. You're probably right, but I can see how this literal sitch they're all in is metaphorical as well. Shell of denial, ie: casting out Monica when things were feeling a little too real, the beekeeper, the radio, there's an enforcing awareness on Wanda's part there, protecting the illusion. 

Is she being manipulated by something else to change some conditions allowing entry from elsewhere, or some kind of access to the terrestrial realm or some such, sure, maybe, but we kind of have to establish how Wanda's powerset went from psyche hijinks and bolts of red eldritch to full on reality warping first, right-- which does feel like something the showrunners et Marvel are trying to do.     

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Grief is nebulous. It can be at once crippling, then weird, then ninja. You're probably right, but I can see how this literal sitch they're all in is metaphorical as well. Shell of denial, ie: casting out Monica when things were feeling a little too real, the beekeeper, the radio, there's an enforcing awareness on Wanda's part there, protecting the illusion. 

I think that would be possible if it wasn't a Disney/MCU property. But it is, so that situation has rules.

 

[JGP]

1 minute ago, Karlbear said:

I think that would be possible if it wasn't a Disney/MCU property. But it is, so that situation has rules.

Yes and no. Deadpool is an absolute shit person, and sounds like he's going to remain that way. Feige is smart. 

I get what you're saying though.

[Argonath Diver]

Herb also mentioned "Do you want me to change something?" So he seems to understand the world is of Wanda's making as well, right?

The show is definitely doing a pretty swell job of leaving us all completely in the dark. I have absolutely no idea. Are her sons actual humans from the town? Complete figments? They seem to operate apart from a pure projection from Wanda. 

My limited complaints: Darcy "hacking" into the government system in 2 seconds - it was a kind of funny one liner, but still felt like a 90s movie whooshing "hacking" over audience's heads. Hayward's character, at least as presented so far, is cliché as it gets. I doubt I'll ever feel the need to re-watch the show, but it's definitely been more of a mind-bender than I expected.

[Werthead]

Also, Kick-Ass shout-out in the episode as well (both Quicksilvers - Peters and Aaron Taylor-Johnson - were in Kick-Ass).

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, Argonath Diver said:

Herb also mentioned "Do you want me to change something?" So he seems to understand the world is of Wanda's making as well, right?

 

The townspeople seem to have some limited awareness of what’s going on, see also Agnes last week asking if Wanda wanted to redo a scene. Unclear how much of that is conscious or subconscious 

[john]

1 hour ago, Argonath Diver said:

Herb also mentioned "Do you want me to change something?" So he seems to understand the world is of Wanda's making as well, right?

Yeah, that seemed telling. Even seemingly ordinary neighbours know Wanda is directing things. It’s only him and Agnes that have said anything indicating that though. And Wanda is seemingly admitting to more and more volition every ep. That doesn’t mean she’s the mastermind though.

I think Monica’s altering of cellular structure is just a way of giving her powers rather than introducing mutants. From what QS said he is her brother, or is pretending to be, so there’s no indication otherwise they’re attempting to introduce mutants yet in this scenario.

[Argonath Diver]

So what the heck are the two boys? They don't seem to be voluntarily created by Wanda. They manifested their powers to her surprise. Are there two physical human boys inside the Hex zooming around stealing candy? Are they two 'real' boys from the town? Of course that's just as much a mystery as what Vision "is" right now. He appeared physically outside of the hex, and is certainly operating independently of Wanda's will.

They sure have a lot of work to do to 'splain off what's going on, that's for certain. I'm very impressed how little people have been able to sort out so far. They don't seem to be directly following the comic book plotlines - granted, I don't know anything about that myself. 

[DaveSumm]

4 hours ago, Poobah said:

Maybe this is a dumb/ignorant question, I'm not really that up on the comic lore but why would they need to create/add mutants to the MCUniverse? There's already 123456789 canon ways that people can get or manifest powers, including Inhumans which seem quite a lot like Mutants-but-not (for copyright reasons or whatever?) and we've already had characters who were X-Men get powers in MCU through different means.

Well they’d need to have something that defined them as X-Men and not just a bunch of superheroes who decided to club together. It’s a conundrum though, as @Werthead points out, they’d barely be recognisable without a few decades for Xavier to establish the school. I don’t see a logical way to bring them in to the MCU and have people fear mutants, or particularly give a shit what the difference is between super-serum or gamma radiation or mind stone experimentation or mutations (and that’s before adding in a worldwide fish induced outbreak of Inhumanism, if we’re calling that canon).

I guess they’ll stick them in their own part of the multiverse, but it feels like a cop out to me. Most multiverse stories just break the immersion for me, because they’re almost always a way to tidy things up out-of-universe. 

[Werthead]

17 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Well they’d need to have something that defined them as X-Men and not just a bunch of superheroes who decided to club together. It’s a conundrum though, as @Werthead points out, they’d barely be recognisable without a few decades for Xavier to establish the school. I don’t see a logical way to bring them in to the MCU and have people fear mutants, or particularly give a shit what the difference is between super-serum or gamma radiation or mind stone experimentation or mutations (and that’s before adding in a worldwide fish induced outbreak of Inhumanism, if we’re calling that canon).

I guess they’ll stick them in their own part of the multiverse, but it feels like a cop out to me. Most multiverse stories just break the immersion for me, because they’re almost always a way to tidy things up out-of-universe. 

I do wonder if they're going to lock in a version of the Fox X-verse and merge it into the MCU but not get too worried about prior continuity (so keep McAvoy and Fassbender and maybe Turner, but recast pretty much anyone else if they want), and that's how Deadpool also makes the transfer. Like parts of two formerly separate realities merge because of reasons.

[Poobah]

4 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Well they’d need to have something that defined them as X-Men and not just a bunch of superheroes who decided to club together. It’s a conundrum though, as @Werthead points out, they’d barely be recognisable without a few decades for Xavier to establish the school. I don’t see a logical way to bring them in to the MCU and have people fear mutants, or particularly give a shit what the difference is between super-serum or gamma radiation or mind stone experimentation or mutations (and that’s before adding in a worldwide fish induced outbreak of Inhumanism, if we’re calling that canon).

I guess they’ll stick them in their own part of the multiverse, but it feels like a cop out to me. Most multiverse stories just break the immersion for me, because they’re almost always a way to tidy things up out-of-universe. 

Yeah indeed, I'm still not fully sure exactly how much of Agents of Shield is considered mainline canon and when they decided to shunt it into an alternate universe so I dunno if the fish oil terrigenesis outbreak is considered a part of the movie-verse.

Personally I don't mind splitting things up if it makes more sense that way. As I mentioned earlier I feel like the more heroes you add to a single setting the more plot holes you add, especially when some of them are as absurdly powerful as some of the top tier characters are, and honestly I don't really feel like the ensemble movies work that well - a small/medium sized team in the original Avengers sure, but when you have more major characters in Infinity War and Endgame than I can think of of the top of my head the movie is just spread too thin with no time to give most of them the focus and development they deserve.

[DaveSumm]

6 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I do wonder if they're going to lock in a version of the Fox X-verse and merge it into the MCU but not get too worried about prior continuity (so keep McAvoy and Fassbender and maybe Turner, but recast pretty much anyone else if they want), and that's how Deadpool also makes the transfer. Like parts of two formerly separate realities merge because of reasons.

I personally dislike the idea of mixing and matching, having a Xavier who’s acted alongside one character then suddenly present with a different version. It seems very clunky for the MCU. It could work if the Fox verse wasn’t already so clunky, with its sort of reboot which then had crossovers with the old one, and then a Logan film of indeterminate universe.

I’d be so, so impressed if this really was how they were introducing mutants ... and then they just fucking dropped it for literally 10 years. Then Xavier emerges with a school he set up in the aftermath of WandaVision. Kevin Feige must be genuinely thinking on those time scales now, the MCU will be still be around in some form so he must have thoughts on where to go with it.

[JGP]

21 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I do wonder if they're going to lock in a version of the Fox X-verse and merge it into the MCU but not get too worried about prior continuity (so keep McAvoy and Fassbender and maybe Turner, but recast pretty much anyone else if they want), and that's how Deadpool also makes the transfer. Like parts of two formerly separate realities merge because of reasons.

They could [I wouldn't like it] but then it'd be throwing it out with the bathwater recasting anyone.

Personally, I think Marvel needs to recast the X-Men in their entirety. And, perhaps, Marvel will just have to downplay the wider spread mutant hatred and focus more on personal stories around mutant gene activation, child exploitation, shit like that. 

 

[Vaughn]

4 hours ago, Karlbear said:

I don't think Wanda is going to be the Big Bad. For starters, she's an avenger and a hero. That's not how they play that.

I mean, Jean Grey was an X-man (person) and hero... Stuff happens.

[DMC]

I'm still convinced Agnes is the "big bad" or manipulating things or whatever.  If anything her scene emphasized how perfect Kathryn Hahn is as an evil witch.

[mormont]

The dialogue between Pietro and Wanda emphasised how much she was in control: ameliorating the effects, but also being morally responsible for what was going on. Yet the same conversation, and other lines in the show, made a point of how this is a huge step up in her power level, and nobody, least of all Wanda, seems to know how that happened. So that leaves space for someone behind the scenes.

Monica is getting her powers, for sure. 'How' is secondary. But going through the barrier twice is something that presumably other people can do or have done, so... not sure about that.

Vision pushing through the barrier is interesting in a number of ways. One, it was clearly a struggle. Two, Wanda can't detect the breach. But Billy can. Three, Wanda presumably expands the bubble because she can't bring Vision back when she's inside it. So the bubble perhaps acts as a barrier to her powers? At least to her souped-up reality warping?

ETA - oh, I have to mention perhaps the biggest thing not mentioned so far:

Vision does not remember who the Avengers are.

 

[Kalbear]

22 minutes ago, Vaughn said:

I mean, Jean Grey was an X-man (person) and hero... Stuff happens.

Different world, AND she was being controlled by the Phoenix Force, and in both movies she was redeemed by being killed or sacrificing herself - and that was kind of the Phoenix storyline.

I don't see that happening. Especially since this is the MCU, not the Fox universe.

[DMC]

Oh, also, I agree Hayward is boring/annoying as the way-too cliched drunk on power feeb villain.  But, it's also very reminiscent of, like, most X-men villains, which makes me think they're going full bore with the mutant thing.