2020 was a challenging year for movie studies - to put it mildly. Virtually every movie and series that was scheduled to release in 2020 was delayed, with the vast majority of films simply pushing out to 2021 in hopes of coming out after the world had begun to return to some semblance of normal. For Marvel Studios, this meant delaying the releases of films like Black Widow and Eternals and Disney Plus series like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision.
But, here we are in 2021 and the release of one of those series is only a few days away. WandaVision is set to release on Disney Plus on Friday, January 15. What can we expect from the first new MCU content in over a year? Let’s take a look at what we know about the series.
Chronology
WandaVision takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame, when the events of ‘the snap’ from Avengers: Infinity War were finally resolved. So, the series may take place around the same time as Spider-Man: Far From Home or some time following.
Characters
As the title suggests, the series focuses on two members of the Avengers, Wanda Maximoff (aka Scarlet Witch for comic book fans) and Vision. And this is the first part that may confuse viewers since the character of Vision was killed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and because he died before ‘the snap’ he was not brought back at the end of Avengers: Endgame. So, what the heck is he doing, looking alive and well in WandaVision? Clearly, that’s part of what we will discover during the series. From the trailers, we also know we’ll also meet a grown-up Monica Rambeau, who we met as a child in Captain Marvel. In the comics, Rambeau gained superpowers and joined the Avengers, going under several superhero names (Photon, Pulsar, Spectrum, and eventually Captain Marvel, as well).
Setting
This is where it gets even stranger. The setting of the show will put our main characters into settings reminiscent of several classic TV sitcoms - The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, and The Brady Bunch. At least, these are the ones we know of for sure, based on trailers and previews for the series. So, we’ll take from that the idea that the series exists in some kind of alternate reality… possibly created by Wanda herself?
The series will be the first official MCU series under the Disney Plus umbrella, so it looks to be a departure from the various Marvel Netflix series (Luke Cage, Daredevil, etc.) or the broadcast TV Marvel series like Agents of Shield or Agent Carter. That has created a lot of expectations for the new series, as it leads a major list of content releases from the MCU in 2021 (10 different titles!).
We’ll post a review of WandaVision after it debuts, so stay tuned!
