When it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, despite being a massive franchise with an ever-growing catalog of movies and television shows and character stories there is one thing that it doesn’t do especially well and that’s tie up loose ends. That isn’t to say that the MCU doesn’t complete stories; we’ve had multiple “phases” that have arguably done just that but in terms of major emotional threads, not everything gets pulled together. Some things are left dangling, leaving fans with plenty of questions. What happened to the Eternals comes to mind, as well as that Dane Whitman tease comes to mind, as does the whole Kang of it all and even Sharon Carter’s seeming villain turn. But there is one loose end that has plagued fans in a completely different way and if Marvel does it right, we might finally get some closure.
At San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel confirmed that VisionQuest will debut on Disney+ on October 14th, but another important detail was confirmed: the series doesn’t just mark the end of the trilogy that started with WandaVision, but it specifically will mark the end of Wanda’s story. That detail is particularly interesting given that Wanda is seemingly dead in the MCU after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Many fans are hopeful that the idea of VisionQuest ending Wanda’s trilogy means we’ll see Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff one more time, but even if we don’t the series has just given Marvel a chance to tie up its most troubling emotional loose end—and it’s something that absolutely needs to happen before the MCU can move forward.
Wanda’s apparent death at the end of Multiverse of Madness remains one of the most frustrating things in the MCU. While Wanda is shown the light in terms of her actions in using the Darkhold to reunite with her sons by bringing down Mount Wundagore, destroying the Darkhold in the process, her death is never actually confirmed. It’s believed that she died in the process, an act of self-sacrifice. Agatha All Along seemed to “confirm” her death, but it doesn’t actually do that. It’s revealed that it isn’t Wanda’s death that broke the spell on Agatha, per se, but is actually Billy Maximoff who does it so that he can get Agatha to walk the Witches Road with him as part of his quest to find his missing brother. There’s a lot to unpack with that, especially that the Road was never real anyway, but the big takeaway is that Wanda is never actually confirmed to be dead.
Because we’ve never really seen a body, never had it directly and unequivocally confirmed that Wanda is actually dead, VisionQuest needs to take that dangling thread on. While we don’t know a ton about VisionQuest, we do know that the series will follow “White Vision” (Paul Bettany) in his efforts to get back both his memory and his humanity after WandaVision. Given that Wanda herself is a massive part of Vision’s humanity, memories, and story, the series simply won’t work of Wanda and her fate is not addressed. Thus far, the MCU has tap-danced around things. Wanda is presented as being dead, but they’ve left just enough of a door open that she might not be. VisionQuest has the opportunity to resolve that. It’s something that will truly conclude the story WandaVision started and is really the only direct path I can see in terms of properly handling Vision’s story. After all, it’s Wanda who prompted Vision to become “human” and it’s Wanda who, in a sense, brought him back to life. There is no White Vision to go on a “quest” without Wanda.
And finally, definitively addressing Wanda’s fate will help set the MCU up for its next chapter beyond resolving Vision’s story. We know that Avengers: Doomsday is going to have some major impact on the overall MCU, but perhaps more significant is Avengers: Secret Wars. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has previously said that that film will serve as a narrative reset for the MCU, cleaning up the timeline and giving the universe something of a fresh start. Addressing the Wanda component of the MCU before we get there just feels like something that Marvel can take off its list now while also allowing fans to finally grieve, for lack of a better term. We may never get resolution of the Kang storyline that the MCU was leading up to or find out what happened to the Eternals, but Wanda’s fate is something Marvel can easily resolve—and it’s something they need to do.
VisionQuest will arrive on Disney+ October 14th. What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
