'WandaVision': The bizarre love story of Wanda and Vision in Marvel comics that involved reincarnated kids and murder
An intelligent robot. A witch, who can manipulate energy forces, and who got her powers from an Infinity Stone, the same stone that gave the robot sentient life — all this leads to the unlikeliest love story in Marvel. Well, one of them, considering it is Marvel.
In the Marvel films, we saw a romance blooming between Vision and Wanda Maximoff, which was struck down during the attack by Thanos, who claimed the soul stone from Vision's head.
Wanda saw her loved one die, and she also withered into dust after Thanos' snap. Yet, while she could be brought back after the effects of the snap were reversed, Vision, obviously couldn't be resurrected.
But that's just the films. However, the relationship between Vision and Wanda in the comics is much more peculiar, and for the lack of a better word, twisted. So before the Disney+ show 'WandaVision', here's a look at their turbulent love story in the comics.
Meeting and eventual marriage
Scarlet Witch aka Wanda Maximoff and her twin brother Quicksilver were introduced in X-Men #4 in March 1964. They were not aware that their father was the leader of the Mutant Brotherhood, Magneto.
They left the Brotherhood and joined the Avengers. Wanda falls in love with the android member of the team, Vision and the two get into a romantic relationship.
Their love story faces hurdles from the start as Quicksilver refuses to accept that his sister is in love with a robot. Meanwhile, Hawkeye is in love with Wanda. Yet, overcoming these obstacles, Wanda and Vision get married with blessings from the team.
Their children, real and unreal
Wanda conceives children named Thomas and William. As Vision is an android, she conceives by magic. As comic book storylines are known to stretch for decades, writers use the method of retconning to keep things fresh and new.
This means that they change the history of a character and say that whatever was depicted in the past never happened, and the occurrences that are happening now are actually new.
So years after Scarlet Witch was accepted as a mutant, her origin story was retconned to make her a non-mutant superhuman, who gained powers through experimentation by the supervillain — the High Evolutionary.
So in the retcon that concerns Vision and Wanda's children, that occurs in 1989's 'Avengers' West Coast', it was the demon Mephisto, who used a possessed man called Master Pandemonium to absorb the twins into his own body.
So….Thomas and William are not actual people. They were shards of Mephisto's souls that had manifested into child-like apparitions in the form of magic that Wanda had used to get herself pregnant.
So for a long time, it was assumed that Wanda and Vision's kids were not real. This caused much friction between Wanda and Vision, as Wanda was broken to the point of being unstable.
Another retcon was pulled, and in the 'Young Avengers', two members are introduced, Wiccan and Speed. They are mutants, and Wiccan's powers are similar to Wanda, and Speed has powers similar to Quicksilver.
In true soap opera style, they discover that they're long-lost twin brothers and they are reincarnated souls of the non-existent kids. Well, it's a world where robots make babies so, this is quite probable.
Dating someone like Vision, but not Vision
When Ultron first created Vision, he had based Vision's mind on the brain patterns of Wonder Man, which is Simon Williams. There is much drama and confusion about how Vision's thoughts are his own, and what exactly belongs to Simon.
Vision is killed and rebuilt and Simon doesn't want his brain patterns to be used again in Vision. And so Vision becomes an unfeeling and emotionless robot. Wanda decides to date Simon instead. However, Wanda is still in love with her ex-hubby, so their fling is rather brief.
Murder?
So Wanda is known to have done pretty terrible things in her moments of madness and anger, which has ended her relationship with Vision innumerable times.
She loses control of her powers and is under the control of Doctor Doom in the 2004 comic book storyline 'Avengers Disassembled' and attacks the Avengers.
She seeks out Doctor Doom as she wants to restore her children to life (this is before the retcon). In order to do so, a cosmic entity is fused with her and she attacks the Avengers.
She controls Vision's body and has him crash into the Avengers Mansion. Vision survives the crash, but Wanda controls She-Hulk to rip Vision's body into half.
Vision is rebuilt, but this act puts an end to his relationship with Wanda. In the 2012 'Avengers Vs X Men' storyline, Vision tells Wanda about what she did and that her crimes were unforgivable. The other Avengers try to defend Wanda, but Vision stands by his point.
And so in the 2016 comic book series, Vision created a synthesized wife named Virginia. He uses Wanda's brainwaves to do so and uses their combined brainwaves to create two children, Vin and Viv.
No, it's not a happy ending, as the Grim Reaper enters their home and attacks Viv. Virginia kills him and buries him in the backyard. Vin is killed by the Ultron-created android Victor Mancha, whom Vision was very close to. Finally, Virginia kills herself.
And you thought that their story in the Marvel films was complicated. 'WandaVision' will air on Disney+ and will release in 2021.