In its penultimate episode, “WandaVision” dropped a whole bunch of brand new information. But let’s start with something that we can’t get out of our heads after seeing “Previously On”: That image of the Scarlet Witch that Wanda saw when she had her connection with the Mind Stone?
Warning: Spoilers ahead for “WandaVision” episode 8, “Previously On.”
When Agatha is forcing Wanda to relive significant moments in her life in order to figure out how she became so powerful, one of the memories is Wanda’s time with Hydra. We see her during experimentation where she’s locked in a room with the scepter, which houses the Mind Stone. She’s told to touch it, even though we hear a scientist say that not one subject has survived direct contact. But Wanda does, and the blue casing around the stone explodes, revealing the Mind Stone’s actual orange color as on Vision’s forehead.
At this point, all of the stone’s power seemingly hits her and she sees a vision of a woman in a Scarlet Witch costume before collapsing.
We’d be inclined to say (and believe) that the person in the costume was Wanda herself, as the show has clearly been building toward the unveiling of her comic book superhero identity which, until now, has never even been mentioned in the MCU. (Remember back in Episode 4 when Hayward kept asking if Wanda had a code name?)
What We Thought We Knew About Scarlet Witch
Audiences first had the chance to meet the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Wanda Maximoff all the way back in Avengers: Age Of Ultron, and it was in that film that we first fully learned about the character’s past – particularly in regards to her hatred for Tony Stark and the Hydra experiment that was done to transform her into a weapon.
As depicted in the new episode of WandaVision, Wanda first experienced trauma at a young age when she and her twin brother Pietro witnessed the death of their parents as a result of a mortar attack on their house. The weaponry that was used in the violence was produced by Stark Industries – which was a fact that she only learned because of a branded missile that landed in the living room and thankfully turned out to be a dud. The incident at first left the young girl and boy just waiting for their deaths, but when the explosion never happened they instead simply became radicalized.
Fueled by an extreme hatred for Tony Stark and wanting an opportunity for revenge, Wanda and Pietro agreed to volunteer for experiments conducted by Hydra using Loki’s staff (which we later learned was powered by the Mind Stone). At first it appeared that her power set was in the realm of both matter and mental manipulation, but her abilities have exponentially increased in the time since then… and based on revelations in the latest episode of WandaVision it seems that we now know why.
Scarlet Witch Had Powers Before The Hydra Experiments
Despite what we were led to believe for years, it turns out that Scarlet Witch didn’t actually get her powers from the Mind Stone. This isn’t to say that the Infinity Stone didn’t have an important effect on her, as it absolutely did, but the big bombshell reveal in this week’s WandaVision is the fact that Wanda Maximoff was born with the ability to manipulate probability – just like her counterpart in Marvel Comics.
What We Thought We Knew About Vision
Fans will remember that we also first got to meet Vision in Avengers: Age Of Ultron – the result of combining the artificial intelligence known as JARVIS with a vibranium body – but for the purposes of this feature we’re going to specifically focus on the character’s most recent history a.k.a. the time since his death in Avengers: Infinity War.
Despite the best efforts of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Vision was killed by Thanos when the Mind Stone was plucked out of his head, and in the aftermath of that event, he was left as a lifeless pile of valuable tech. In the wake of the incident, as previously seen in WandaVison, the body was collected by S.W.O.R.D. – but we were led to believe that Vision didn’t stay with them for very long. Instead, security footage that was shown on the series depicted Wanda breaking into the organization’s headquarters and stealing him, presumably right before heading to New Jersey and building out her rich fantasy life.
