Despite Marvel Studios’ conscious effort to scale back on streaming series following the glutinous run of interconnected media they released to increasingly less-than-stellar reception in the early 2020s, there have still been a handful of TV projects that have made it through to release in the past few years.
The latest of these is VisionQuest, a spinoff series centering on Paul Bettany’s long-established character of Vision, who audiences last saw in the first-ever Disney+ original Marvel series, WandaVision. That formative series was a massive success for the streamer and the studio and actually already got a well-received follow-up in the form of Agatha All Along. Now, Marvel has pitched VisionQuest as the conclusion of the WandaVision trilogy, and it turns out that the marketing team meant that in more ways than one.
As a whole, VisionQuest acts as an exploratory take on the character of Vision in the aftermath of his creation, destruction, and various offshoots in prior installments such as Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War, and WandaVision. As such, though Wanda herself isn’t necessarily present in the show, her presence is certainly felt.
She was someone who Vision was in love with and who ultimately created their two children (not in a biological way, but through magic). Despite how deeply integrated Wanda is in Vision’s whole arc, Wanda was actually killed at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, a film that saw her taking a villainous turn in the aftermath of WandaVision. Or should I say… seemingly killed?
Fans of Elizabeth Olsen and her take on Wanda Maximoff (aka Scarlet Witch) in the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe rejoice, as an unexpected post-credit scene of a just-released Disney+ series has confirmed that not only is the character still alive and kicking, but that she will play a major role in the impending blockbuster Avengers: Doomsday.
At the end of Multiverse of Madness, Wanda was defeated, and an entire castle spire from another dimension (how else would you explain it?) collapsed on top of her, apparently crushing her. Audiences had not seen the hide-nor-hair of Wanda in the four years since then, leading many to assume she was well-and-truly dead. In a post-credit scene for the final episode of VisionQuest, however, Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom rocks up, pulls the rubble off of her, and uses his own magic abilities to awaken her, telling her, "Your powers will be mine.”
This, obviously, means that Olsen’s Wanda will be returning to the big screen next month in Avengers: Doomsday, playing some kind of critical role in Doctor Doom’s diabolical plan.
What’s most interesting about all of this is for years now, Disney and Marvel have really tried to downplay the extent to which streaming shows connected to the films after audiences grew so fatigued of such efforts. But this is a critical bit of narrative development for a beloved character that is being stapled unceremoniously on to the end of a Disney+ series that a good portion of general audiences are all but certain not to see.
Add us as a preferred source on Google