What If... the Avengers Assembled in 1602?

 "We never get our happy ending..."

I read Neil Gaiman's limited series of 1602 a couple of decades ago, but I fear I remember little. I recall the throwback from the future being the same as here, but the 1602 of the limited series was much more rooted in real history, Old Queen Bess with her old rotting teeth and all that. This is a very different beast, but fun just the same.

We have rifts in time causing this universe to end. We have a very ungrateful King Thor- he's had Wanda Maximoff kidnap Peggy from her own reality (and her own Steve Rgers) to help save their universe... only to exile her when she initially fails, still exiled to a doomed world. Yet Peggy is truly a hero, refusing the Watcher's offer to take her "home."

Indeed, I love the metatextuality with Peggy being very much aware of the Watcher's presence and the two ofvthem interacting. But then, of course, this is an episode which opens with Tom Hiddleston playing Hamlet (a recent play by some lad from Warwickshire) and which is delightfully crammed with deliberately absurd olde worlde insults.

The character stuff is cool too, though. Once again, Happy Hogan becomes the Freak. Yet, at the core of things, behind all the fun, is the deep, tragic heartbreak of Peggy and Steve never getting to be together. Here's hoping that the finale puts a stop to that...

WandaVision: The Series Finale

 "Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme. It is your destiny to destroy the world."

Now that's how you do a series finale. Satisfying, action-packed, eventful, and full of several little geeky Easter Eggs.

The main A plot is, of course, the battle between Wanda and Agatha, which is epic, cool and full of revelations. The Darkhold makes its MCU debut, and Agatha claims that the Scarlet Witch has her own chapter... and gives the above quote. Ominoud. As is the fact that we end up with a maturer Wanda, having accepted what she's done and the people she's hurt (the scene where the citizens of Westview literally beg Wanda is both powerful and necessary), flying away to explore the full extent of her magical nature. Agatha's fate is an act of almost fairytale cruelty, forced to live indefinitely as her sitcom character.

Then there's the white Vision. Those of us who remember John Byrne's run on West Coast Avengers at the end of the '80s are well aware we need to be alarmed. But in the end we get a fight between Visions which is both cool and satisfyingly resolved.

It's a busy episode, perhaps. Darcy skewers naughty old Hayward but that brief moment is pretty much all that we see of her. Woo gets to look cool in the end, and Monica (still not Captain Marvel- yet) gets a nice little post-credits sequence with a Skrull. But it is, in the MCU way, perfectly balanced between story beats, action and character. 

It's true that Wanda (and Vizh) seem to get over the twins not being real a little too easily. But overall this is a superb ending to a magnificent series.

WandaVision: Previously On...

 "The only way forward is back..."

This penultimate episode is, in its metatextual way, a flashback episode, and thus full of exposition. It's also rather serious, being full of the trauma of Wanda's tragic life, meaning the metatextuality can't be allowed ro get too fun- although Kathryn Hahn is a hoot (in a good way) as Agatha. Nevertheless, the episode is necessarily formulaic and, while well-executed, was never going to be the highlight of the season.

There's good stuff here, though, starting with Agatha's origin in Salem, Massachusetts in 1693, hinting at unseen depths of MCU magic lore. Wanda's tragic life is necessary to be seen, and her childhood love of American '50s and '60s sitcoms is cute. It doesn't really matter that the events leading to Wanda creating sitcom magic Westview through awesome power ("magic on autopilot" as Agatha says) are pretty much as we expected: it's all about the emotional beats.

And then there's the revelation at the end from Agatha: Wanda uses "chaos magic" and (let us old Marvel Zombies forget we knew this of old) she is the "Scarlet Witch", which no doubt means something in terms of MCU magic lore...

This was worthwhile. But bring on the finale...

WandaVision: Breaking the Fourth Wall

 "Agatha all along..."

This episode, like all the rest, is enormous fun. This time the sitcom fun comes from The Office-type mock documentary comedy, which fits perfectly with the theme of a depressed Wanda as her reality seems to fall apart- with even Billy and Tommy seeing, worryingly, to have disappeared by the end.

Meanwhile there's fun with clown Vizh and escape artist Darcy at the circus, followed by his feeding him much-needed exposition as Wanda's subconscious seems to delay them. The two of them make a great double act.

But the real hero- and in some ways the real star- is Monica, who heroically manages to fight her way into Westview once again, and it's hinted that she may have gained her Captain Marvel superpowers along the way. Her confrontation with Wanda is magnificent, and would have been the highlight of the episode... were it not for the revelation of Agnes as being Agatha Harkness, and that she has been the baddie all along... as attested by her awesome theme song.

Fourth wall... who needs it? I'm loving this.

WandaVision: All-New Halloween Spooktacular

 "Don't go past Ellis Avenue!"

It's clear by now that this is a phenomenal series, based around a superb central concept and oozing all the dramatic goodness out of each angle week by week so that each episode is better than the last. But never mind that: it's Halloween, so Vizh, Wanda and Pietro, for one week only, get to dress up in their proper costumes as Vizh, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Hooray!

Also, Pietro is quickly becoming my favourite laddish waster in television, in a very Nick Frost version of the character. And, if Tommy has his powers, does this mean Billy will be casting hexes?

But the plot continues to move in fascinating ways. Vizh has noticed that, in the fringes of town, people are ill-defined and can move less and less- and he sees one poor woman repetitiely performing the same action, Sisyphus-like, as a tear rolls down her cheek. It's a poignant contrast to Pietro's bro-like approval of his sister's handiwork in their heart to heart. And Vizh is spurred on to escape, especially as he comes across Agnes as, in a scene to give one the shivers, he frees her mind as he dis last episode with Norm- to be told that he's an Avenger, he's dead, and "No one leaves. Wanda won't even let us think about it."

Meanwhile, outside the literal Westview bubble, Director Hayward is proving to be such a dick that Monica, Jimmy Woo and Darcy are forced to leave and start their own gang- following which, interestingly, Darcy tells Monica that going through the barrier twice has altered her molecular chemistry. Please tell me she's going to get her Captain Marvel superpowers?

But the end is magnificent, as the Vision attempts to escape the bubbe despite the fact it means his death- of course, he explicitly said he never wanted to be resurrected in the first place. But Wanda expands the bubble to grab all of SWORD and turn them into a circus (ha!)- including a handcuffed Darcy, but not Monica, Jimmy or a Hayward who flees like a rat. Wow. I'm loving this.

WandaVision: We Interrupt This Programme

"So you're saying the universe created a sitcom starring two Avengers?" 

Wow. Three episodes of teasingly and ingeniously bizarre fourth wall shattering weirdness made bloody good telly regardless, but it feels like such a satisfying rush to get so much of an explanation as to what's going on.

The first reveal is that Geraldine is in fact Monica Rambeau, complete with a couple of audio clips from Captain Marvel! Captain Monica Rambeau, no less, to remind us that (to my generation at least, it is she- not Carol Danvers, not Mar-Vell, not Billy Batson- is the real Captain Marvel. But here she is, in flashback, in Endgame, jus after Bruce Banner clicked his big green fingers into a world where five years have passed and her lovely mother Maria died five years ago.

Ever curiouser, Monica is sent on a mission to the New Jersey town of... Westview. And the town seems to have been erased from local memory, while there's a barrier around this mysterious town. This is wonderful stuff. And then we see Monica get inside, as a team of boffins (led by the rather awesome Darcy from the Thor films, a nicely female twist on the maverick scientist trope) discover the sitcom being broadcast... and so they see the three episodes we've already seen. And it's very clever indeed how different certain things look in context.

As Monica says at the ens, "It's Wanda". And Wanda, with her scarily powerful hexes, has everything under control. This is simply amazing.

WandaVision: Now in Colour

 "Think you may have taken the hedge trimming too far there, old buddy!"

This is, on the one level, yet another episode of a retro comedy that is yet another deconstruction of an old-fashioned sitcom staple- in this case the pregnancy episode. Suddenly, while no one has aged and the supporting characters are the same people we're slowly getting to know, it's the '70s now- and a particularly exaggerated '70s where Geraldine has Pam Grier hair and the opening titles have gone all hilariously Brady Bunch.

And it works well, as comedy, on multiple levels. Yet the pretence that reality is slipping. There's a moment where Vision starts to work out the plot holes in his life so Wanda just rewinds things; this entire reality is clearly all here as wish fulfilment for her on some level.

And it is this that casts a disturbing light on Wanda's pregnancy and the birth of Billy and Tommy. I can't comment on any similarities with that '80s The Vision and the Scarlet Witch limited series (Bill Mantlo?), but I certainly remember what John Byrne would later do to the twins in the pages of West Coast Avengers. I fear for Wanda. Especially with what she seems to do to Geraldine (through a wormhole into what may be reality) when she blurts out that Wanda's brother Pietro was killed by Ultron.

I have thoughts about what may be going on. This is all a bit Life on Mars, but I suspect the resolution wont be simple. This is bloody good telly.

WandaVision: Don't Touch That Dial

 "Are you using your night vision, Vision?"

For a second wek in a row we get a genuinely funny piece of retro comedy... bt it's becoming more obvious that none of this is actually reality, and that it may represent a world that Wanda has retreated into in order to avoid an unpleasant reality.

The comedy is similar to last time, and represents more of '50s suburbia, and we're introduced to more of Wanda and Vizh's neighbours as they try to fit in. The comedy is great, with a stage magic act going all Tommy Cooper in entertaining fashion. Emma Caulfield from Buffy has a great part, too.

And yet... things from the real world are blending in. For the second episode in a week we get a mock advert- this time not Stark Industries but Strucker. And there's a scary moment at the end where the menacing noises from the start seem to be caused by a bloke in a hazmat suit emerging from a manhole... until Wanda seems to panic and alter reality. Hmm.

And Wanda is, impossibly, pregnant. Tommy and Billy, from that '80s Bill Mantlo limited series? Leading potentially to... well, what John Byrne went on to do in West Coast Avengers?

Regardless, this is magnificently original, brave and superb telly.

WandaVision: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience

 "Oh, what kind of housewife would I be if I didn't have a gourmet meal for four just lying about the place?"

Yes, I know: I have loads more of the Netflix Marvel series to do (although apparently Kevin Feige has de-canonised them and there is bad blood), and I will do so, but the new stuff on Disney Plus is extremely zeitgeisty, so I'll do that firs. And WandaVision is a brilliantly brave and creative choice to be the first Marvel series on Disney's own streaming service- weird, genre-busting, metatextual and wonderful.

On the surface, this is an I Love Lucy-style '50s American sitcom episode, set in '50s middle American suburbia, in black and while, with the Vision doing an undefined (and lampshaded as such) job while Wanda stays at home as exactly the sort of housewife Betty Friedan was talking about. We even have a standard retro sitcom plot in that the boss is coming to dinner.

The comedy really works, especialy with the addition of Wanda's magical powers and Vizh being a synthetic being capable of phasing through matter. It's a fun, if short, half hour. Yet already there are hints in the background of something very odd. The titular couple can't remember anything about their pasts when pressed. Lots of detail about their lives are hazy. It's all quite deliberately made so as not to feel quite real.

So far I think it's all in Wanda's head, the grief of someone with hex powers. But we'll see...