Marvel Comics Archives - The Wide Screen

April 16, 2021

“The Falcon And The Winter Soldier” Episode 5 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER AHEAD!**

Billed by the series’ producers as the single best episode of The Falcon And The Winter Soldier from a thematic standpoint, and highly-anticipated in the fandom due to its rumored inclusion of an epic Marvel Comics cameo, episode five – which bears the simple yet potent subtitle, “Truth” – delivers overwhelmingly on both fronts, diving into a timely discussion about Black identity in America while precisely utilizing the incomparable Julia Louis-Dreyfus to plant seeds for MCU storylines in the near future. After drifting slightly off-course in episode four, the series has regained its footing and the focus is back where it belongs, on Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie)’s journey of reconciliation.

Louis-Dreyfus’ unexpected cameo as Marvel’s famous Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is a big deal for comic-book fans, probably deserving of its own breakdown, but The Falcon And The Winter Soldier very wisely doesn’t belabor the point, slipping the charismatic Contessa into just a single early scene before having her exit just as mysteriously as she arrived, leaving a blank business card and a promise to “keep in touch” in her wake. It hasn’t been confirmed if she’ll show up again in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier‘s upcoming finale, but there’s no question we’ll be seeing more of Louis-Dreyfus in the MCU soon, as her character’s sprawling comics history gives her plenty of potential story directions from which to choose.

But all the Easter eggs in the Marvel Multiverse (and there are thousands) can only go so far when it comes to crafting a truly meaningful story. Thankfully, that’s why The Falcon And The Winter Soldier is blessed to have a head writer like Malcolm Spellman, who uses the series’ penultimate episode to develop a profound commentary on the sacrifices Black people in America are expected to make every day for a country built by and for white supremacy…and how Sam Wilson’s fight to protect what he sees as the legacy of Captain America isn’t anywhere near as simple as it would be for a white man.

That’s something even Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) comes to acknowledge later in the episode, apologizing to Sam for all the times he questioned his decision to give up Captain America’s shield, and specifically for never once considering how Sam’s identity as a Black man factored into that controversial decision. It’s a powerful moment that recognizes Sam’s Blackness as a crucial element of his character in-universe that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored or downplayed, even when that makes white characters and viewers uncomfortable; especially when that necessitates reevaluating Hollywood’s so-called “colorblind” strategy of treating characters as paper dolls, and racial and cultural identities as interchangeable outfits.

But that’s a moment. And in too many cases, The Falcon And The Winter Soldier‘s best scenes have been mere moments – due to occasionally poor pacing and the nearly consistent issue of time constraints. The latter is at least not a problem in today’s hour-long episode, which makes room for one extended dramatic sequence that I suspect will still be hailed as the series’ thematic high-point even after next week’s finale. In a story that revolves around Black identity, it’s no surprise that this incredible sequence is focused exclusively on two Black men – Sam Wilson and Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), who meet up at Isaiah’s house on the outskirts of Baltimore, with Sam initially intending to give the old man a chance to see Captain America’s shield.

And as Sam approaches the house, with the shield wrapped up in brown paper, it’s easy to envision how that hypothetical could have played out with a different screenwriter; all tears of joy and feel-good vibes. But Isaiah stops him in his tracks, recognizing the shield before Sam ever gets a chance to unwrap it. “Leave it covered,” he tells Sam bluntly. “Them stars and stripes don’t mean nothin’ good to me.”

At last, Isaiah finally gets a chance to tell his story. It’s not a comfortable one, particularly for anyone who recognizes the intentional parallels between his account and the history of the real-life Tuskegee Syphilis Study conducted on Black men between 1932 and 1972. Isaiah describes how he and the other men in his facility were told they were being treated for tetanus, though in reality their bodies were being used by the US Government as expendable vessels on which to test out experimental versions of the Super-Soldier Serum – all part of a race to recreate what Isaiah describes as the “great white hope” of Steve Rogers; the same race being run by John Walker (Wyatt Russell), a living still-frame of whiteness in action.

Lumbly’s performance throughout the sequence is so vividly and excruciatingly present, there’s no need for dramatized flashbacks even as Isaiah tells of his escape-attempt, and the thirty years he spent in prison on charges of treason while the experiments continued, and he was slowly drained of his superhuman blood, his resolve to live, and his sense of self. He was mutilated, erased from history, and, upon being released, forced into hiding. The fact that his blood now flows in John Walker’s veins backs up his pessimistic worldview: his entire life was reduced to the parts of him that could be mined to create more juiced-up white guys.

But it’s what Isaiah has to say about Sam that cuts most deeply: like an emotional gut-punch on par with, if not far exceeding, Vision’s profound analysis of grief in WandaVision. “They will never let a Black man be Captain America. And even if they did, no self-respecting Black man would ever wanna be.” It’s probably one of the most powerful lines ever spoken in the MCU, so quietly paradigm-altering that it demands a response from Sam – but since we don’t get to hear one because the scene ends there, we’ll have to see his response instead, through his actions. I don’t trust Disney to make the right call here, but it would be incredibly empowering to see Sam come out of this unaffiliated with the American government in any way.

To be honest, I don’t see another option that makes sense given how far Sam has progressed. He’s already shed his identity as the Falcon, symbolically passing his wings along to Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez); who, if the comics are to be trusted, will get plenty of use out of them. And while he could still use the Captain America moniker, he’s clearly sympathetic to the motives, though not the methods, of the anarchist Flag-Smashers – which probably wouldn’t make him too popular with any government, least of all the United States’.

The Flag-Smashers are an example of a subplot that has been meandering so long it feels pointless, only barely being kept afloat by Erin Kellyman’s performance as Karli Morgenthau. The group is apparently being secretly assisted by Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp), who breaks Georges Batroc (Georges St-Pierre) out of jail and sends him along to New York City to help the Flag-Smashers orchestrate a hostage crisis that will shape next week’s finale – though the nighttime setting gives me concern that we won’t be able to fully appreciate the splendor of Sam Wilson’s new set of wings, which I believe to be the unspecified Wakandan-designed gift left behind at Sam’s house after Bucky stops by to help him fix up his family’s old fishing-trawler.

Separate from Sam, Bucky’s journey also starts strolling off on its own, leading him to the memorial in Sokovia namedropped two weeks ago by Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl), whom Bucky finds there. In a slightly strange turn of events, Bucky aims a gun at Zemo’s head and pulls the trigger, only to then reveal that he removed the bullets…some emotionally manipulative payback for all of Zemo’s own manipulations. The Dora Milaje arrive to escort Zemo to The Raft, the high-security underwater prison seen in Civil War that is totally a great place to be holding one of the most dangerous criminals in the world.

Obviously he won’t be there for long, but I have a feeling his time on The Falcon And The Winter Soldier may have come to an end. With a mid-credits scene revealing that John Walker is hard at work on his own handcrafted replica of Captain America’s shield (is anyone gonna tell him it needs vibranium to actually be effective, or…no? Okay), all our focus in next week’s finale will have to be on the action-packed showdown between Walker, Morgenthau, Barnes, Wilson…and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, which is a bizarre yet wonderful twist of fate that I can’t wait to watch spiral out across the MCU.

Episode Rating: 9/10

April 2, 2021

“The Falcon And The Winter Soldier” Episode 3 Review!

**SPOILERS FOR THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER AHEAD!**

It’s no coincidence that the best and by far the most outrageously entertaining episode of The Falcon And The Winter Soldier yet happens to also be the longest, at fifty-three minutes: still not quite an hour, but close, so close. And those additional few minutes make all the difference, allowing ever major plot beat (and reader, there are several) the space they need to breathe while making the slower character moments feel more organic and earned…resulting in several characters finally realizing their full potential.

This is the first episode of either The Falcon And The Winter Soldier or WandaVision that I’ve watched where I haven’t felt rushed for time, constantly checking the progress bar at the bottom of the screen to try and frantically calculate how much of the remaining runtime is actual story, and how much is credits. But whereas WandaVision sometimes felt like it needed more of the former to counterbalance the length of the latter, The Falcon And The Winter Soldier is perfectly balanced…as all things should be (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist).

If it’s story and substance you seek, you will not be disappointed this week: everything involving the escape of Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl) is gotten out of the way in the first few minutes, freeing up the rest of the episode to take us to the Indonesian pirate kingdom of Madripoor, for some awesome fight scenes, a tense reunion with Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp), and a few major developments in the Super-Soldier Serum storyline, before returning to Eastern Europe for a confrontation with the Flag-Smashers – which gets delayed to next week, but only because another entity intervenes at the last minute that demands our immediate attention, and gives us the kind of surprise cliffhanger ending that should please many fans.

But it’s Zemo who made it into the top three trends on Twitter this morning, and who serves as the best entry point into the breakdown – or should I say, Baron Zemo, since the criminal mastermind is revealed to have been a descendant of Sokovian royalty before the brutal deaths of his entire family and the destruction of his homeland in the aftermath of Age Of Ultron: which I suppose I should have guessed, given how many trips around the world he was able to take while spending money on hotels, large weaponry, and elaborate disguises. What’s a private plane, a collection of vintage cars, and a creepily devoted elderly butler (who’s just been waiting at the airfield for his master’s return for over five years, I guess?) compared to all that?

The only thing that confuses me slightly is why Zemo just happened to have his iconic comic-accurate purple face-mask just lying in the backseat of one of his old and unused cars. A popular theory suggested he might design it to resemble Thanos, to mock the surviving Avengers with the memory of their greatest failure…but that’s clearly not the case, and in the MCU, in the absence of any better origin story for this singularly bizarre piece of brightly-colored headgear, I’m just gonna assume it’s a rich guy thing and roll with it. A weird family heirloom or some high-end fetish-wear, perhaps.

With Daniel Brühl turning in his most deviously charismatic and seductive performance as the villain to date, it doesn’t take long for Zemo to escape his maximum-security prison with help from Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan): but, crucially, on the latter’s terms. Zemo tries his little brainwashing game again, of course, but the code-words meant to activate Bucky’s Winter Soldier persona no longer work as well as they used to, although Zemo guesses that they still trigger some response from deep within Bucky – who grows more and more violent over the course of the episode, as if his HYDRA programming is overwhelming his senses with every moment he spends by the side of his one-time handler.

But, toxic influence on others aside, Zemo does appear to be genuine in his offer of assistance to the heroes, who need his help locating the origin of the new batch of Super-Soldier Serum being used to juice up the Flag-Smashers. True, the only reason he agrees to help them is to fulfil his own mission of wiping out superheroes, and there’s no question he still loathes the Avengers…but at the same time, he saves their lives at crucial moments; he doesn’t lead them astray in Madripoor, although he clearly relishes watching them both endure humiliations while maintaining the disguises he selected for them, such as forcing Bucky to fake an activation, or forcing Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) to eat snake-meat; and five years in prison appear to have humanized him…in a creepy, “uncanny valley” sort of way: he dances at a nightclub in Madripoor in a scene terrifyingly reminiscent of Spider-Man 3, and voices his opinion on Marvin Gaye and the “African-American experience”, earning a questioning look from Sam. He’s doing the bare minimum, and from Zemo that’s…a lot.

But perhaps some of it comes down to the fact that, in Madripoor, even a villain as legendary as Zemo is out of his element. We only get to catch a fleeting glimpse of what life is like in the pirate kingdom’s flourishing criminal underworld, and already I can’t wait to go back, perhaps in Shang-Chi and Hawkeye. The city doesn’t boast many big cameos from Marvel Comics’ rogues gallery, mostly just references (for instance, Sam Wilson’s disguise as the “Smiling Tiger” is a nod to an obscure Marvel villain with Thunderbolts ties), but the big players are still out there. In this episode, we only get to visit the lair of a villain named Selby (Imelda Corcoran), who radiates that wealthy-British-white-woman-who-still-regards-Southeast-Asia-as-her-colony type of unsubtle racism.

One of Madripoor’s less racist but no less morally gray residents is Sharon Carter, whose days of fighting for justice at S.H.I.E.L.D. and the CIA ended long ago. But despite her complaints with Sam and Bucky for leaving her to fend for herself after the events of Civil War, it’s clear that a few years on the run from authorities, operating a criminal enterprise in Madripoor’s fabulously wealthy Hightown district, have done wonders for Sharon’s character arc, finally giving her personality traits beyond “occasionally offers encouraging advice to male love interest (who is also her late great-aunt’s boyfriend)”. She’s now the semi-antagonistic, deeply cynical, three-dimensional character she might have been all along were it not for the Russo Brothers’ obvious disinterest in her potential beyond what she could offer Steve by silently backing him up in every argument.

The only thing about sticking her in a luxury penthouse apartment and giving her a side-hustle selling stolen artwork to the rich and famous is that it makes it ever so slightly difficult to relate to her apparent dissatisfaction with that cushy career path, and her desire to return to the US with a Presidential pardon: but The Falcon And The Winter Soldier already seems to have that figured out, implying that Sharon might not be entirely sympathetic, and that her plea for a pardon may hide an ulterior motive. Some fans think she could even be the mysterious “Power Broker” who commissioned the new Super-Soldier Serum.

But to my mind, the better bet is that John Walker (Wyatt Russell), the MCU’s new Captain America, is the Power Broker. We know from last week’s episode that Walker’s body was considered such an extraordinary natural phenomenon that he was studied by MIT. Episode three (and the behavior of the Flag-Smashers, who have all sampled the Serum at this point) revealed that this new variant of the Serum was designed to be, in its creator’s words, “subtle, optimized, perfect”, needing no “clunky machines” or “jacked-up bodies” to function – so even if Walker had taken it, he might have been able to hide that fact from MIT’s researchers.

The only wrinkle in this theory is that Walker clearly doesn’t have that kind of physical strength anymore: as evidenced in his fight with the Flag-Smashers. So perhaps this new variant of the Serum only works temporarily (which would explain the Flag-Smashers carrying it around with them at all times), or he could have been given an early, less effective, prototype by Dr. Wilfred Nagel (Olli Haaskivi), the new Serum’s inventor. Either way, the fact that Nagel designed his Serum using blood samples from Isaiah Bradley, the forgotten Black Super-Soldier, would makes this revelation particularly interesting from a thematic standpoint. And the only other thing we know about the Power Broker is that they’re hot on the trail of the Flag-Smashers, hunting for the stolen Serum…just like Walker, whose search for the anarchist organization is growing increasingly desperate and destructive, as he’s wielding the full weight of the shadowy organization known as the GRC (Global Repatriation Council) to find them.

Walker’s hunt seems intensely personal, from the way he threatens possible suspects to his use of Flag-Smasher Karli Morgenthau‘s (Erin Kellyman) first name. Why, unless Karli is in possession of the one piece of evidence that could forever tarnish Walker’s pristine reputation, potentially even lose him the Captain America gig?

With the mission to Madripoor cut short by Nagel’s death, Sam, Bucky, and Zemo return to Europe without Sharon to find the Flag-Smashers on their own and get to the bottom of the mystery. But in its closing minutes, Bucky suddenly veers off from the rest of the group, telling Sam to go on ahead without him – and while I was at first confused and concerned that this was just a plot device to separate the gang before a fight scene, it’s quickly revealed that Bucky is aware of someone else pursuing them. And even as I was getting ready for it to be some old acquaintance of his from HYDRA, the episode surprised me yet again, as the familiar Wakanda theme plays over the arrival of Ayo (Florence Kasumba), a Dora Milaje warrior.

Ayo appeared in Black Panther, where her most significant scene (one in which it was hinted that she was LGBTQ+ and attracted to General Okoye) was unfortunately cut – so it’s absolutely thrilling that she’ll get a proper chance to shine while representing Wakanda in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. Her mission is to find and presumably kill Zemo, who caused the death of Wakanda’s King T’Chaka in Civil War, and her distinctive fighting style will add an exciting new element to the upcoming action scenes, particularly if she’s armed with her culture’s traditional weaponry. This was not a surprise I expected, but it’s the one I think we all needed – particularly since Ayo’s inclusion may begin to give us some insight into how the MCU will move forward with Wakandan storylines following the tragic passing of Chadwick Boseman.

Zemo, Sharon, Ayo…with all the characters that The Falcon And The Winter Soldier has taken in just one episode and already completely revitalized, it’s extremely exciting to see how the series will continue to do the same for Sam and Bucky, our leads. And it’s once again abundantly clear that Disney+ really is the best place to do this for all the MCU’s supporting characters, who deserve the time and space that only a six-hour television series can provide.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10

January 4, 2021

From Winter Soldier To WandaVision: Wanda’s MCU Journey.

I don’t usually write recaps. I mean, in some ways, all movie and TV reviews are just overly-detailed recaps embellished with a lot of flowery prose, but this is still pretty new ground for me. But it’s 2021, WandaVision is on its way to Disney+ in less than two weeks (!), and it’s time to try my hand at writing a comprehensive recap of Wanda Maximoff’s journey in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thus far. The timing of this post is in no way meant to deliberately precede the official Marvel recap that is set to be released shortly before the series premiere…okay, well, maybe it is: but only a little (ask yourself honestly, who would you trust to give you the most detailed information on Wanda Maximoff? The studio responsible with actually overseeing her character arc, or me?).

The purpose of any good recap is to muster up more hype (as if we could be any more hyped for WandaVision at this point), and to help give audiences – particularly newcomers to any given franchise – an idea of what’s come before, and what to expect. But I’ve realized that a good recap can also be helpful to me as a reviewer, because its existence means I don’t have to put as much exposition and background information into my actual reviews: I can jump straight into the action, while simply linking back to this recap. And now that we’re all up to speed, let’s get into it, shall we?

Wanda Maximoff’s MCU journey began in 2013, in the post-credits scene to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where she and her twin brother Pietro Maximoff first appeared as haggard, world-weary lab experiments trapped in a frigid Eastern European fortress under the supervision of Baron Von Strucker, a nefarious scientist working with the covert Neo-Nazi organization, HYDRA. Von Strucker and HYDRA are largely unimportant to the story of the Maximoff twins except insofar as they allowed the twins access to the Mind Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones that preserve the integrity of the universe itself, as part of a larger attempt to use the Stone’s power to artificially enhance human beings into superhuman killing machines. What exactly happened during this series of experiments is still unknown: but by the time they left Von Strucker’s fortress, Pietro had super-speed, and Wanda was a dangerously unpredictable sorceress equipped with telekinesis, telepathy, and reality-altering magic. The fact that these aren’t powers one would typically associate with the Mind Stone’s sphere of influence, and the fact that Pietro and Wanda are two of the most notable mutants in the pages of Marvel Comics, has always suggested to fans that there’s something more going on here than Marvel has yet revealed.

This wouldn’t surprise me: even if the MCU wanted to retroactively confirm that Wanda and Pietro are both mutants (and I think they very much want to), they couldn’t have done so until just recently, when Disney bought out 20th Century Fox and thus obtained the rights to the Marvel mutants and Fantastic Four. Mutants are characters born with latent superhuman abilities that typically manifest themselves at the onset of puberty, with catastrophic results. In the comics, Wanda and Pietro are not only prominent mutants, but the children of telekinetic mutant terrorist Erik Lensherr, a.k.a. Magneto, one of the most famous comic-book villains of all time. But what about MCU Wanda and Pietro? The MCU has conveniently left the twins’ backstory vague: their parents supposedly died during a period of civil unrest in their hometown of Sokovia, but we don’t know that for sure, and we still don’t know their parents’ names. Additionally, it appears that Wanda and Pietro were the only test subjects who survived being exposed to the Mind Stone’s raw power: something that immediately suggests they at least had superhuman levels of endurance prior to the experiment. A recent Marvel tie-in book hinted that Wanda’s powers were “unlocked” by the Mind Stone. And footage from the recent WandaVision trailer shows a possible flashback to Wanda’s first encounter with the Stone, so I believe we’ll finally get a conclusive answer to this question that has long divided the fandom.

By 2014, Wanda and Pietro were strong enough to take on the Avengers during the siege of Sokovia. While Pietro wasted his time running rings around Hawkeye of all people, Wanda confronted Tony Stark himself and sent him into a prophetic trance: a neat trick, and one with major consequences – as Tony saw visions of his friends slaughtered by aliens, and became so obsessed with the idea of building “a suit of armor around the world” that he took the Mind Stone and implanted it into a weaponized supercomputer he named Ultron. The Mind Stone caused Ultron to come to life and quickly grow hostile towards his maker, irrationally arriving at the conclusion that to protect the human race, he had to…wipe them out with a meteor. Ultron brought the newly liberated Maximoff twins under his wing, while designing a humanoid synthetic body for himself – which the Avengers stole from him and into which they implanted Tony Stark’s A.I. personal assistant J.A.R.V.I.S., before using the Mind Stone to bring their creation to life. Thus, Vision was born: and his ability to live inextricably tied up with the Mind Stone, and its fate.

Wanda and Pietro betrayed Ultron during the second battle of Sokovia, in which Ultron tried to uproot the city from the planet’s surface and use it as his meteor. Pietro, sadly, was killed while protecting Sokovian citizens, and Wanda – sensing his death from afar – unleashed a tidal wave of chaos magic that tore through Ultron’s robot army: saving the day at a terrible personal cost. She herself killed Ultron, tearing out his heart and crumpling it into a tiny ball of shrapnel, just to give him some idea of how she’d felt. It was Vision, however, who put an end to the robot once and for all, laser-beaming him out of existence. Both Wanda and Vision officially joined the Avengers team soon afterwards, and started developing feelings for each other.

When Captain America: Civil War rolled around in 2016, Wanda had dropped her vaguely Eastern European accent and acclimated to life as an Avenger. But not enough, apparently, to know that telekinetically flinging a suicide-bomber into the side of an office building maybe isn’t a great idea. Her actions proved to be the catalyst of civil war, quickly dividing the Avengers into two camps: those led by Tony Stark, who believed that superheroes needed to be regulated to minimize civilian casualties, and those led by Steve Rogers, who believed such regulation would only introduce more risks. Wanda, still traumatized by what she had done and viewed as emotionally unstable, was forced to stay back at headquarters under Vision’s surveillance. The two bonded over their foodie interests, but it wasn’t long before Wanda realized she was being confined and escaped with the help of Hawkeye, battling Vision on her way out.

The film’s third act pitted Wanda and Vision against each other again, but this time Wanda was ultimately arrested and taken to The Raft, a maximum-security submarine prison. From the time Steve Rogers arrived to break her out at the end of the film, to the time we reunited with her and Vision in Avengers: Infinity War, her life is a blur. On the run from most of the world’s governments and still regarded as one of the most dangerous Avengers, she went undercover, made up with Vision, and eloped with him to Glasgow, Scotland, where the two were still enjoying their honeymoon phase when Thanos’ minions arrived to kill them both. She (or possibly Vision himself: it’s hard to say) also discovered a way to disguise the android as a human being, a technique that will be reused for WandaVision, where the duo must pass for an average suburban couple.

But even as they were enjoying their romantic getaway, Thanos was assembling his Infinity Gauntlet, which required all six Infinity Stones to achieve full power. The Mad Titan dispatched his Black Order to retrieve the two Stones that remained on earth: one of which, the Mind Stone, was still embedded in Vision’s skull. Although the Black Order’s efforts were initially repelled, Wanda and the Avengers were forced to head to Wakanda to find scientists capable of separating the Mind Stone from Vision and destroying it without killing Vision in the process. It was hinted that this would have been possible, and Princess Shuri was already well underway with the process when the Black Order attacked again, but we may never know for sure unless this subject is brought up in WandaVision. Vision fled from Shuri’s lab with the Black Order in pursuit before the operation was complete, by this point realizing that the only way to render the Mind Stone unusable by Thanos was to have Wanda herself destroy it – and in so doing, Vision. The most heartbreaking scene in the film saw Wanda holding back Thanos with one hand while using the other to unmake the Mind Stone, all while staring into Vision’s eyes, never once losing sight of the man she loved. She was successful; Vision’s head exploded in a burst of light; and for a moment, audiences could breath a sigh of relief, assured that Thanos’ defeat was imminent.

But Thanos had already recovered the Time Stone from Doctor Strange, millions of light years away. He used that Stone’s powers to resurrect Vision, giving the android a few more moments to live before brutally ripping the Mind Stone out of his forehead, killing him again. Wanda’s pain at losing her lover twice in a span of seconds, at her sacrifice being all in vain, must have been devastating: it’s easy to understand why, when Thanos completed his Gauntlet and snapped his fingers, killing half of all living creatures including Wanda herself, she embraced death willingly.

But five years later, when Bruce Banner used a reconstructed version of the Gauntlet to snap half of all life back into existence, Wanda was one of those most eager to exact her vengeance on Thanos. Out of Avengers: Endgame‘s many highlights, the vicious duel between Wanda and Thanos stands out to me because of how deeply personal it is for Wanda – and because of how satisfying it is to see her go absolutely wild in that moment, caring nothing for mercy, controlled only by bloodlust. In a universe where many heroes are driven by some moral code, Wanda is refreshing in that she doesn’t have any code. She’s witnessed too much pain and human failure to believe in the unconquerable power of good. So when she singles out Thanos, she doesn’t waste a moment trying to rip him limb from limb: and she nearly succeeds, though Thanos is eventually able to catch her off-guard with a barrage of missiles.

With her part in the battle complete, Wanda quietly disappeared under the radar. Last time we saw her, she was one of many heroes in attendance at Tony Stark’s funeral, and had a brief but touching conversation with Hawkeye on the subject of grief and memory. She seemed to be at peace: but we know from the WandaVision trailers that in the aftermath of Endgame she will be lured into an alternate reality where she and Vision are able to live happily ever after, with a house, friendly neighbors, and twins of their own. Modeled off the classic American sitcoms from which Wanda learned English, this utopian dreamscape is being manipulated by dark supernatural forces, and infiltrated from the real world by S.W.O.R.D. agents trying to rescue Wanda.

Has my recap been helpful? And what are you most excited for in WandaVision? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

November 19, 2020

The First “Ms. Marvel” Set Photos Have Been Revealed!

Despite Marvel having to shuffle its entire release date calendar every few months or so due to the COVID-19 crisis, the studio is continuing to film their various upcoming movies and Disney+ series’, in anticipation of the time when they’ll once again be able to release content on a normal basis and schedule. Ms. Marvel, a series that we still don’t know too much about, just went into production in Atlanta over the past few days, and now scoopers have obtained not one but two groups of behind-the-scenes pictures showing star Iman Vellani suited up (well, maybe) as Marvel’s newest superheroine, Kamala Khan, one of the fresh new faces who will lead the Marvel Cinematic Universe in its next phase. These pictures, distributed by Just Jared and Marvel News on Twitter, don’t reveal anything major, but they do give us a few clues as to how Marvel will be adapting Kamala Khan to the small screen.

Most of the photos are all various angles of Iman Vellani riding her bike around town, wearing casual clothes for Kamala’s day-to-day attire, before she becomes Ms. Marvel: a colorful flannel jacket, bright red biking helmet (with her initials, KK, written on it), and so on. Nothing too interesting, right? Well, take a closer look and you’ll spot some cool details – like the Captain Marvel logo emblazoned on her helmet, the Avengers logo on her blue T-shirt, and an air-force badge on her jacket sleeve that’s identical to the one Carol Danvers wore before she became a Tesseract-powered superheroine in Captain Marvel. All these things indicate that, just like in the comics, the MCU’s version of Kamala Khan will be a huge fan of the universe’s many superheroes, but with a special emphasis on Captain Marvel, her role model. Considering how much merch she has on here, it seems likely that her room will probably be crowded with posters, action figures, memorabilia, autographs, Funko Pops, etc. I can’t wait to see it all: and presumably Disney will make sure you can buy it all too.

The second group of photos, revealed after the first bunch and shortly before I was about to publish this article (necessitating my having to quickly do some rewriting), show someone who I think pretty much has to be a child actor playing young Kamala, wearing a full Captain Marvel costume – complete with adorable glowing mohawk! – and being helped onto the roof of her porch by a friend, possibly her school classmate Bruno from the comics. This is probably just a cute flashback scene to show how Kamala’s obsession with superheroes has been almost lifelong, but it might have a lot of significance.

Even as an older teenager, Kamala Khan seems to like that spot on her porch roof, as a single photo in the first batch shows her perched there again, while a visitor – possibly a villain or antagonist – stands on the front steps. Kamala looks like she’s trying to hide on the roof, or perhaps planning to jump down and start punching (remember: Kamala Khan is an Inhuman, and her powers manifest themselves as the ability to redistribute the atoms in her body at will, a skill she often uses to create giant fists and stretchy arms and legs, or grow to an immense height). Unfortunately, both Iman Vellani (or perhaps her stunt double) and the other actress in this scene are wearing capes to hide their costumes: a common tactic on Marvel film sets. But a little bit of Khan’s outfit is visible – including one bright blue boot and a red pant leg. Up until the second batch of photos was just released, the assumption was that this had to be Kamala’s first, homemade, Ms. Marvel costume. It might still be, but comparing between the two groups of photos I think it’s easy to see that this outfit she’s wearing as an older teen is very clearly also a Captain Marvel cosplay. It’s possible she wears this at first because she doesn’t have time to make a whole new suit, and later upgrades to something entirely original. The other actress’ costume is completely concealed, sadly, making it hard to guess who she could be playing but very likely that she’s a superpowered character of some sort: probably not some random passerby, or family friend of the Khans.

Speaking of the Khans, I feel like I have to comment on how nice and tidy their little suburban house looks, with its tasteful porch furniture and assortment of potted plants. Some hanging decorations are visible through one of the upper windows. The curtains are a vivid shade of blue. It’s all very charming, and exactly the type of cozy, inviting, setting for a whole series. The behind-the-scenes photos don’t show any of the other members of Kamala’s family, but they can’t be far off. It’s also been reported that the series was filming at a mosque in Atlanta, meaning that we’ll see Kamala and her family going to worship, and catching up with friends and the rest of their Muslim community. It’s exactly the type of casual representation that Kamala Khan’s comic run was praised for, and which Ms. Marvel needs to succeed.

So what do you think? How excited are you for Ms. Marvel, and what do you hope we see next from the series? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!