They should do a crossover with Supergirl and call it "X-Rated Vision"

This isn't something that normally happens to me, but I've become interested in a tv series.  Not enough to watch it, I don't have a television and certainly won't pay for whatever internet sites there are that play shows, but I have watched the trailer a few times.  In fact, today I even discovered there was a second trailer which is probably why I'm writing this.

Even more unusual, this is an extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  If you have a television, you probably know what I'm referring to, but that's not even the strangest part.  I have never had the slightest interest in the Vision and Scarlet Witch, none, zero, zip, zilch.  Yet I must admit that this show looks fantastic.

Part of it is just the special effects.  I've never seen a tv show with that much visual effect and it looks very good, particularly since they mostly aren't doing things that are seen in the superhero movies.  There is some of that and I assume it's part of the plotline for the next phase of Marvel media, but most of it is done like a sitcom, either parody or straight-forward.  I can recognize a few of the sitcoms they're taking stuff from and I'd probably remember more if I had a memory.  I used to pay attention to that stuff.

It's the sitcom part that interests me the most.  There's no clue what the actual series is about but it sure looks like it would be worth watching in its own sake.  Even the name, WandaVision, is very clever, seemingly made for the 21st Century.  If I find out that it's 90% about reusing stuff from classic sitcoms and adding superpowers, I'll probably wind up buying the first season collection when it comes out.

That doesn't mean much, I had a similar reaction to the trailer for the first Wonder Woman movie.  I've never been remotely interested in her either, but I thought it was very interesting and watched it multiple times.  Then the movie came out and I paid no attention to it, the sequel has come and mostly gone at this point.  But at least the trailer was neat.

So that might be the same thing here.  There's no clue what they're doing or why they got here.  I slightly liked Wanda in the Avengers movies.  She didn't do much but she is one of the most classic Avengers outside of the founding members.  Then again, so is the Vision and he contributed nothing.

They changed his origin to being a computer program based on Tony Stark's childhood butler - obviously Jarvis - then made by Ultron and given one of the six stones.  Roy Thomas had created him as a way to mix together other characters, the Golden Age Vision, the Golden Age Human Torch and Wonder Man.  Apparently Ultron built him too, an example of Marvel keeping the original source material as much as possible.  They don't do it often but just seeing any of it is surprising given the years of superhero movies before this.

Wanda isn't that lucky.  To my knowledge, she's never used the term "Scarlet Witch" in the MCU.  Nothing about her makes any sense.  She's a mutant, the closest there is to a sensible origin, she was born with superpowers.  But that's all.  She has "hex power" which makes no sense and literally means she can do anything the plot requires.  How convenient.  She's also a sorcerous.  I never really understood how she got that in the comics but she did, so she's got even more power that allows her to do anything the plot requires.  And she's married to a robot.  They have kids, depending on what the current continuity is.

The powers that can do anything and marrying a robot are the only things I can see that are being used in this version.  I have to wonder if her father will ever show up, that would probably be worth watching.  Apparently Marvel spent a long time trying to make her a supervillain's daughter and they decided to go with Magneto, probably because she and her brother Pietro first appeared as members of his gang in an early Lee&Kirby X-Men.

I haven' t looked it up to be sure, but I've always suspected that they were the first real change Marvel had made to the superhero genre, they were both bad guys but they weren't really into that.  They owed Magneto a debt, that's why they stuck around.  He was taken away by an alien in on of Kirby's last issues and they were glad to be free, joining the Avengers very shortly after that.  Wanda and Pietro make a much more interesting team than she does with the Vision.

The two of them even broke boundaries of movie rights, being sold to 20th Century Fox as muties while simultaneously being sold to Disney as classic Avengers.  I've wondered if the two studios decided to split the pair, Pietro's first appearance in whichever X-Men movie it was was very memorable [I've actually seen it which is not common] and he's been used in more since then while obviously Wanda is part of the Disney mob.  As far as I know, the closest there's been to Wanda being in the X-Men movies was as a little sister sitting on Pietro's lap while he watched tv in that first appearance.  Pietro was a much bigger part of Avengers 2 but he died at the end and hasn't come back.  Maybe they'll use him in the tv show.  The Vision was still dead at the end of Avengers 4 but obviously that isn't relevant.

I have to admit, I've found it very odd how Wanda and the Vision have gotten here with so little development from the previous movies.  Looking it up, the 'Jarvis' personality was created back in the first Iron Man movie so they've obviously been planning ahead for this.  Through the Iron Man movies through Avengers 2, he was just a voice.  Then plot reasons came together to create the Vision.  This movie was Wanda's first appearance, she and Pietro had been given powers by Hydra and totally weren't muties.  Except for a brief shot of Wanda looking at the Vision, presumably with attraction but isn't specified, they had nothing to do with each other through the whole movie although they were both on the team at the end.

One plotline of Captain America 3 [I've seen it!] involved trying to figure out what to do with Wanda because the US government wanted to take over but she wasn't American, so the immediate decision was to keep her locked away and it was up to the Vision to distract her so she never notices.  She finally does, bashes the Vision and escapes which leads up to the big superhero fight-scene which was totally worth the price of admission, but Vision wasn't involved in that.  Then in Avengers 3, they're obviously having a hidden relationship in a short scene, then he gets killed by Thanos who takes the final stone.  Wanda briefly appears in Avengers 4 and that's the build-up.

Obviously with that many characters, there was no way to actually develop any of them but come on!  Then again, Jim Shooter always said all the characters were great, it was just up to the writers and artists [and directors, screenwriters, actors, etc.] to work with them.  Here's where they get to prove it, I'd bet Wanda and the Vision had less than an hour of screen time through the entire MCU, now they have to do a half-hour every week.  Then again, even I'm tempted to watch so there may be something to that.