“WandaVision” is Marvel at its Finest

Sarah Fidahussain, Student Life Editor

“WandaVision” incorporates the best of comic books and the best of television together in a most ingenious way: a superhero sitcom. “WandaVision” is a Marvel show on Disney+ that delves into the mysterious story of Wanda Maximoff and Vision.

Watching “WandaVision” requires a certain level of knowledge from “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Avengers: Infinity War.”

Wanda Maximoff is a hero with a dark past. She grew up in Sokovia and her parents died from a bomb dropped by the United States. The villain Ultron, with whom Wanda and her brother were working with, kills Wanda’s brother, which leads her to alter her allegiances and become an avenger.

Tony Stark made Vision from his supercomputer, Jarvis, and brought him to life through the mind stone.

The unexpected pairing fell in love and wanted to live without being heroes, but they couldn’t escape the chaos and Vision ended up being killed by Thanos.

Wanda lost her parents, her brother and Vision; “WandaVision” delves into her grief through creative storytelling.

The show starts off in an peculiar way, mimicking a 1950s sitcom starring the couple and none of the usual Marvel thrills and flurries of action. 

I was pleasantly surprised how clever the show was. The sitcom world starts off seeming like a prison someone made to trap Wanda, but it is slowly revealed that she created it to escape her trauma.

The show stands out in the Marvel Cinematic Universe because of the beautifully layered plot. 

Unlike many Marvel movies, it is not just about a villain and a hero. “WandaVision” explores the themes of grief and loss which, despite the amount of death in Marvel, is rarely touched upon. Wanda cannot physically handle the loss of Vision and creates a perfect world in the town of Westview where she and Vision are happy and alive.

The beauty of watching “WandaVision” is you don’t see Wanda as a typical unattainable hero, but a normal person dealing with loss and trauma, something many people can relate to.

In the episode “Previously On,” the villain Agatha Harkness wants to figure out how Wanda creates this elaborate world, and Agatha forcibly takes Wanda through events in Wanda’s past. 

Wanda and the audience see Wanda’s parents die and she and her brother struggle together and depend only on each other. 

When her brother dies, you see Vision comforting her and them depending only on each other.

But when Vision dies, she is truly alone.

“WandaVision” creator Jac Schaeffer captured grief authentically by bringing in a grief counselor to the writer’s room. 

My initial pitch, the structure of the show, was mapped to the stages of grief, ” Schaeffer told the New York Times.

The best way to sum up the show’s unique interpretation of grief is something Vision told Wanda after her brother’s death.

“What is grief, if not love persevering?”