'Secret Wars' Mega-Theory - Part 4: Scarlet (Witch) fever
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| What's going on in Wanda's world? |
Editor’s note: This post was finalized between episodes four and five of WandaVision.
In the last post, I theorized that the first act of Marvel Studios’ epic Secret Wars story would introduce us to The Illuminati, a team of superheroes and thought leaders working in secret, manipulating events to protect the Earth and the universe from invasion and destruction. And just in time, as universes across the universe are inexplicably collapsing.
I also speculated that the catalyst for these incursions is the rogue timeline that came to life when Steve Rogers delivered the final Infinity Stone to its rightful place in time - and then stayed there. This ultimate universe corrupts and destroys other universes - and it is quickly working its way through reality. It acts as a virus or a cancer, running amok, unchecked and untreated. And the first serious symptoms are only now appearing.
Scarlet (Witch) fever
Those symptoms manifest in WandaVision, Marvel’s debut Disney+ television show. Whatever is happening with Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision’s sit-com world only exacerbates the problem.
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| Wanda and Viz with Tommy and Billy |
Most fans speculate that WandaVision is an adaptation of Marvel’s House of M. In that story arc, Wanda, distraught about losing her twin boys in an earlier story (more on that in a moment), creates an alternate reality in which everyone’s dreams come true and she is reunited with Tommy and Billy.
Hints of that storyline are evident in WandaVision. It is clear everyone in Westview is under some form of mind control, a power bestowed upon Wanda via the Mind Stone. And we could speculate that Wanda believes dreams come true and everything works out for the best on situation comedies, thus her reality-warping powers have created a world build on a sit-com foundation.
Sticking with the source material
But this story is less House of M and more an amalgamation of early Scarlet Witch stories. For example, the hidden town of Westview might mirror the hidden town of New Salem in the comics. New Salem was a concealed community of witches, led by Agatha Harkness, until her son, Nicholas Scratch, wrested control from her. Perhaps something similar is happening here. Was Westview always hidden? Or is it a community of witches and sorcerers? Could that be what drew Wanda there?
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| Marvel's Agatha Harkness |
A lot of theories swirl around Agnes, Wanda’s nosey neighbor on WandaVision, as well. Most believe she is Agatha Harkness, and that makes sense. After all: AGath HarkNESs. But many believe she is working with the true big bad, whom- or whatever that is. Much of this is based on Agnes’ perceived resistance to Wanda’s mind control. But the comics give us a very good reason for this: she’s dead.
Scratch and his Salem Seven kill Harkness during another New Salem takeover, burning her at the stake. That doesn’t stop her astral form from hanging out with the living, Wanda in particular. Could our Agnes also be a ghost, doing what she can to save Westview’s innocent coven of witches and warlocks?
Devil of a good time
And let’s talk about Nicholas Scratch. In the comics, Scratch is Agatha’s son. And, yes, Old Scratch is a colloquial nickname for the devil, lending credence to theories that Mephisto is the true big bad. Maybe in the MCU, Nick Scratch isn’t Agnes’s son but her husband - her better half - or her “evil twin.” Maybe Scratch is Ralph.
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| Could Agnes's Ralph be Nicholas Scratch? |
Or rather, maybe Ralph is an amalgamation of two characters: Nick Scratch and Master Pandemonium. Pandemonium, real name Martin Preston, is the actual supervillain from whom Wanda’s children, Billy and Tommy, are magically conceived from shards of Pandemonium’s soul, not Mephisto, as many speculate.
Preston was an actor who, after losing a limb in a car crash, sells his soul to Mephisto in exchange for a new arm. Mephisto agrees, but grafts demons on Preston’s other limbs (though allows Preston to control the demons), because comics. In an effort to collect those fragments of his soul, Pandemonium absorbs Billy and Tommy, leaving Wanda childless and nearly insane.
Instead of Mephisto, we get the demon Ralph, murderer of Agnes and father of Wanda’s children, intent on ruling Westview and its coven of magical creatures, Wanda and their children by his side.
If the real bad guy is the MCU version of Pandemonium, then we get a solid connection to the greater Secret Wars story and expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe …
… Immortus.
Time, space and Kang the Conqueror
While Mephisto bequeathed Pandemonium his demon arms and legs, Immortus is the villain who masterminded much of the events that led to the birth of Wanda’s children, Pandemonium’s reabsorption of Billy and Tommy - even Wanda’s attempts to revive a dead Vision by downloading brain patterns from Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man. (Perhaps the grey Vision is meant to emulate the white, emotionless Vision devoid of his human qualities in the comics.)
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| Is Immortus involved? |
Immortus is Nathaniel Richards, a 31st century descendant of the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards, who becomes Kang the Conqueror. Kang is the big bad in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. When Kang tires of trying to conquer the world via time travel, he is approached by the Time Keepers, an alien race from the end of the universe, and offered the roll of Time Keeper Agent, an immortal being who preserves, rather than destroys, timelines.
He takes on the roll, but his methods are questionable. At one point, Immortus realizes that Wanda is a “nexus being,” and that her children, Billy and Tommy, might become two of the most powerful entities in the universe. Thus his pact and plan with Pandemonium to disrupt Vision and the Scarlet Witch’s relationship and the birth of her twins.
More importantly, Immortus and his alter-ego (another “twin”?), Kang, underscore how important time and interdimensional travel are to this phase of the MCU. Even Loki becomes a time agent in Loki. But more on that in a later post.
The Demon-Armed Man
Nearly half way through WandaVision, it is clear that Wanda is in the midst of a breakdown. What’s not clear is whether this breakdown is self-imposed or the result of outside influence. Most theorists suspect a mix of both, which makes sense if Wanda is working through the very real struggles of grief and loss.
If Wanda’s reality-warping power has breathed some form of life into Vision - but can’t really bring him back from the digital dead - then she must come to grips with the denial she is going through. That may make her hold tighter to her twins - or even question their existence. Are they illusions, too?
And what happens when all is revealed? When Pandemonium comes calling for Billy and Tommy and is whisked away by Immortus somewhere in time in space? What does Wanda do when that demon-armed devil kidnaps her children?
The Fugitive
At first, Wanda drops her control of Westview, releasing its magical community from her control. She collapses, energy spent, emotions drained. But only for a moment. Still there? Still by her side? The astral form of Agnes and her brother, Quicksilver.
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| Could Master Pandemonium want his soul back? |
But not the Pietro that died helping save Sokovia in our timeline. No, this Pietro is from a different universe. Perhaps Evan Peters’ Peter Maximoff from Fox’s X-Men universe. Or a version of Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver from Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Agnes and Quicksilver know how to traverse both time and space, and when Wanda demands that they tear through the multiverse to find her boys, Agnes and Quicksilver agree. Then off they go, fugitives out of time.
But how does she do that?
The simplest answer? If Stephen Strange can cross dimensions, as he did when he confronted Dormammu in Doctor Strange, then it should be no issue for Wanda. And time travel could be Pietro’s new thing.
There is precedent in the comics for this. After House of M, Wanda stripped her brother of his powers. But after exposure to Terrigen Mist in Son of M, Quicksilver gained the ability to displace himself out of mainstream time and space. In the comics, this basically meant he could leap into the future and make duplicates of himself. But in the MCU, this could mean Quicksilver is the key to traversing time.
Now, as a fugitive, Wanda becomes a proxy for Secret Wars’ Molecule Man. Her scorched universe tactics could lead to the death of another universe’s Scarlet Witch. Remember, Immortus determined that Wanda was a “nexus being.” These entities have the power to affect probability and, more importantly, “act as keystones of the multiverse and are crucial to its ultimate coherence and stability.”
Perhaps one nexus being killing its multiversal doppelganger could trigger the collapse of the multiverse or warp the reality of that being’s universe. Could Scarlet Witch be the reason Steve Rogers’ Endgame timeline becomes corrupted? Becomes the cancer killing other universes by way of incursion?
What role my Loki play as an agent of the Time Variance Authority?
The Time Variance Authority
Lending some credibility to this theory is Loki. As a nexus being, Wanda would be under surveillance by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and the Time Keepers. As you recall, the Time Keepers are represented in the comics by Immortus, who could become a character in the MCU through his ties to Wanda’s twins. The TVA, however? That’s central to Disney+’s Loki series.
The TVA monitors realities and timelines throughout the multiverse. From the Loki trailer, we see that Loki becomes a TVA agent. Could the God of Mischief become the U.S. Marshall Sam Gerard to Wanda’s Dr. Richard Kimble?
If so, where would the trail take Loki first? Maybe the Manhattan neighborhood of an older Peter Parker, his wife Mary Jane and their daughter, May?
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