#Spectral's Comic Breakdowns

[thespectralvision]

The White Vision: A Comic Overview (Part 3)

PART ONE - Vision Quest Part 1 (WC Avengers #42-45), Avengers Spotlight #23, and Marvel Comics Presents #38

PART TWO - Vision Quest Part 2 (WC Avengers #47-49)

Vision Quest Part 3 (West Coast Avengers #50-53):

West Coast Avengers #50 picks up the Vision part of the story again, where we dig deeper into his associations with the original Human Torch. Hank Pym and the rest of the WC team had been looking into this, after they were approached by a woman named Ann Raymond, the wife of Toro, the sidekick to the original Human Torch.

BACKSTORY: While you may recognize the name The Human Torch as Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four, he took the name as tribute to the original WWII era hero. For those who aren’t as familiar with comics - the Human Torch was one of the first Avengers waaaaay back alongside Captain America in Marvel Comics #1 (1939). He was an android created by a scientist named Phineas Horton who could set himself on and control fire. He deactivated himself because he feared he was a danger to those around him. It was believed that Ultron stole his body and used it to create Vision, which is a big part of the Giant Sized Avengers run that ends with Wanda and Vision’s wedding.

Wanda is not exactly thrilled with this...and Vision once again leaves the other West Coast Avengers behind to help her. (Spectral’s Commentary: See, this is why I don’t buy Vision just leaving Wanda behind and not caring about her anymore because he’s White Vision. He keeps making the effort for Wanda’s sake. Almost like he still cares, even if he claims it is just the way he’s programmed - and trust me, this is not an isolated incident.)

The story then gives us a lot of backstory regarding Ann and Toro and the original Torch. Her husband was believed to be dead, but she is hoping that with the news Vision is NOT the Torch, perhaps that information had been false too. The team (minus Wanda and Vision) agree her story may be plausible and decide to help Ann look for her husband and the Orignal Torch.

After giving her some time to cool off, Hank Pym goes to talk with Wanda and Vision and explain what is going on. 

(Spectral’s Commentary: I love Vision’s hand on Wanda’s back in that panel. Again, over the course of this story it seems he is getting more comfortable with Wanda even though he’s still clearly adapting to the changes)

After more discussion, it is brought up that Immortus (who was involved in Vision’s journey as self discovery waaaay back in the Giant Sized Avengers arc) seems to be the common thread between these discoveries. And how convenient we get a panel of Immortus himself, spying in on the West Coast crew. (Immortus may be better known to MCU watchers as He Who Remains from Loki...or, better known as a variant of Kang the Conquerer)

We move forward to the team going to investigate the aformentioned cemetary. They are denied the rights to exhume the grave but decide to go around it with Vision being extra weird and phasing into it instead.

We then get one of my favorite Scarlet Witch panels (she has no time for all this nonsense and it’s so very Wanda), and the use of her Hex powers reactivates the Torch. He flys off and Simon goes after him.

The issue gives us a change of scene, returning to the Maximoff-Vision house where a poor distraught babysitter is given a suprise - It was Agatha all along! (Not really she’s here to help the poor girl out)

Simon gets the Torch back down and he shakes hands with Vision. It’s a big deal.

They all go back to the West Coast Avengers headquarters and talk about what’s happened. Hank Pym concludes Vision was not made from the Torch, but rather, Ultron used spare parts from the Torch to assemble him, hence the assumption that they were the same android. Everyone is happy, the Torch cries (Even Androids can cry after all), and then...Iron Man appears?! (Spectral’s Commentary: IronMan is believed to be dead at this point so it’s kind of a big deal)

Issue #51 picks up with Hank, Simon, and US Agent John Walker interrogating Iron Man (who they believe is an imposter). More importantly however, Wanda and Vision have a talk as they head to their home to check on the boys:

(Spectral’s Commentary: Yet again, Vision is trying to please Wanda and make her happy. She’s the one rejecting *him* at this point. It’s a complicated situation, and I can understand her side...but I rarely see this brought up in discussions about the White Vision. Most of the time it is implied he doesn’t care or doesn’t even try and just leaves, but throughout this run he seems to be making an effort for Wanda’s sake.)

Agatha is waiting for them and reveals that the twins are not real, but also knows how devestating this news is for Wanda (and she assumes, Vision). Vision seems unaware of this fact, likely becuase when they are together the boys are present, and Wanda denies Agatha’s claims. She even directs Vision to comfort his wife. 

(Spectral’s Commentary: I have a lot of opinions about why Wanda and Vision’s marriage falls apart other than Byrne didn’t want them together, because I like context. I suspect if Vision was himself and not dealing with his own issues at this point, and had been able to grieve with Wanda or at least offer his support, things may have turned out differently. Wanda has effectively lost her husband AND her children within weeks of one another, honestly all things considered she’s reacting more rationally than a lot of people I know. I have additional interpretations of what happens between them I’ll get into further in at the end of this run, but it’s all snowballing to that point.)

While Wanda, Vision, and Agatha have a chat, the Human Torch goes for a flight around the complex...and a bunch of demons attack! What a day - but that’s pretty normal for Avengers honestly. The team get to work fighting them, but a few manage to get to Wanda and Vision’s home. Wanda is not handling this well and Vision is doing his best while Agatha prepares to fight.

And while their parents are distracted, the demons (lead by Master Pandemonium) manage to steal Billy and Tommy away.

Pandemonium returns to his creepy Hell-hide out and gives an evil villian monologue to the boys, telling them about how he was saved from death by Mephisto but the price to pay was shards of his soul. He’s trying to get them back and only missing two - the two that were ‘stolen’ by the Scarlet Witch to create her babies.

Wanda is, understandably, distraught by all of this. The West Coast Avengers gather in her ruined home to discuss a course of action. Vision is even trying to comfort her:

Only, the team are more interested in how Agatha showed up (since the last they heard she was dead), and get distracted discussing that. Wanda gets angry, punches Wasp, and demands Agatha help her get her boys back.

Agatha agrees, with the usual ‘You can’t go alone it is too dangerous’ and the team all agree to help, because that’s what friends do. Agatha opens a portal to Hell, and they all go through it. We also get a cut of Immortus (Kang) watching this and getting upset that they are foiling his plans which haven’t actually been revealed.

The WC Avengers end up in this trippy fantasy world and fight their way through the demons to get to Pandemonium’s stronghold, where he is waiting. Oh and the babies are now his hands:

(Spectral’s Commentary: Yeah...I don’t know either.)

Our final issue of Vision Quest (WC Avengers #52) picks up here, with the Avengers telling Wanda to be careful or she may harm her children in the attempt to save them.

Pandemonium keeps taunting everyone as they fight, reminding the team that they boys are part of him to begin with.

Vision is...frankly useless. He makes it 6 pages in and gets knocked out by a demon. It feels like a cheap way to not have to deal with him in the fight, in my opinion, but here we are.

We then return to Earth, where Agatha, The Human Torch, and Anne  (Toro’s wife) are hanging out and waiting for the team to return. They end up discussing what is going on and how Wanda’s children play into this whole mess and Agatha explains Wanda wanted a normal life for herself so desperately she used her magic to create one (sound familiar MCU fans?).

(Spectral’s Commentary: I find it interesting that Agatha comments that there are MANY types of reality, and Wanda’s powers are great. While she confirms Wanda can’t create life from nothing, she does not outright say the boys are not real in some sense.)

The Avengers are struggling in the fight against Pandemonium and his hordes of demons, but Hank Pym has a realization - if William and Thomas are the pieces of his soul, why were they born BEFORE his accident?

On cue, Mephisto pops up (yup, that Mephisto that everyone thought was going to appear in WandaVision).

Turns out Mephisto tricked Pandemonium. After Mephisto’s supposed death (at the hands of Franklin Richards in Fantastic Four #277), his essence had been shattered. With only a fraction of his power, he turned Pandemonium into his tool to regain them. 

The Human Torch shows up at this point claiming to have the final two pieces of Pandemonium’s soul, and bargains with him to let the Avengers go. Of course it’s also a trap, and when Pandemonium falls for it he’s still missing a piece and implodes. Agatha Harkness had given the Torch the pieces but didn’t tell him what they would do.

Mephisto gloats at this point, saying he has reabsorbed William and Thomas into himself. Agatha’s cat-demon Ebony transforms and attacks him. Agatha also reached out to Wanda, and is able to get the team home. Only, by doing so, the spell also erases Wanda’s memories of William and Thomas. It allowed the old witch to defeat Mephisto temporarily, and she explains everything that happened to the team.

The team disagree with this, but ultimately what is done is done. Agatha explains that Wanda’s memories of the boys will be locked away, as if they never existed. (Spectral’s Commentary: Yeah, that’s going to come back and bite everyone in decade or so. Avengers Dissassembled/House of M here we come!)

That is the official end of the Vision Quest arc, though there are a few more stories before Vision officially leaves Wanda behind. I’ll get into those more in Part 4, but I want to include some ‘retcons’ from the Tom King 2015 Vision run before we do.

The Vision (2015) #7:

One day I’ll likely do a full breakdown of the Tom King Vision run, as it is my absolute favorite comic story. King took time to explore Vision’s trauma in a way no one really had, and issue 7 is all flashbacks of Vision and Wanda’s relationship. The White Vision panels are of particular interest to me, because they changed my initial impressions of Vision Quest and play into how I interpret the character.

Firstly, the issue implies that Vision was aware the boys were disappearing when Wanda was not thinking of them.

Spectral’s Commentary: Vision being aware of this, and trying to talk with Wanda is an interesting interpretation since it was never implied in the original run. Vision is nothing but a happy father in the older comics, and I like the idea that he also desperately wants a normal family. It’s something he and Wanda share - they have both been other their entire lives, and that other-ness drew them together in both the Comic-verse and MCU. Wanda lashing out against Vision feels very in character for her, and to start showing the cracks in their marriage before his own deconstruction I think helps understand his frame of mind later on when he eventually leaves her.

We then get the infamous “Daddy why are you white?” panels (which break my heart). Vision, freshly reconstructed, denying he is the same Vision. This is something Vision Quest didn’t delve into so much, but we start to see more of after in later White Vision stories (and in post-White Vision as well). 

Spectral’s Commentary: “Is the truth not kind?” Is a wonderful line. It feels like something Vision would say regardless of if he is white or red, and echos the sentiments in the previous pages when he has the fight with Wanda. Vision is a being of logic, and of right and wrong. At his core, the white Vision is not a villian or a monster, he is simply coded to see the world in 1s and 0s as it were. There is a panel way back in old comics where Vision is asked if he is lying, and he states his circuitry makes lying difficult. When he is reconstructed, it is very much like someone hit the reset button. There is no malice or cruelty, just cold logic in his responses. If you’ve read up to this point, we see that he fights that to try and pretend things are like they were for Wanda’s sake. He has emotions buried in there, he just doens’t know how to process them right now.

The final pages from the King run I’ll include here take place after Vision Quest, and allude to a scene in West Coast Avengers #53. It is one of my favorite scenes in the comics, mostly due to my own interpretation.

If you are not familiar with the King run, in this issue the idea of “Tomorrow always comes” is a repeating theme in this issue, first introduced as a way for Wanda to cheer Vision up when they first start dating:

It’s then used again during their wedding night:

Which just makes the callback here beautiful but painful:

This throwback is one of the reasons I adore this comic run so much. Vision telling her he will leave, and discussing that they are both ‘like new’ is poetic. I would love the MCU to play with this idea, though I am not certain how much they will - but there is certainly an opening to do so.

In the issues following Vision Quest we see Wanda is catatonic. She’s a broken woman, incapable of processing losing so much in so little time, not to mention likely side effects of Agatha’s spell. King adds a scene of Vision coming to her, and the artwork just sets the mood. The way the rain seems to play on his face in the final panel to almost look like he is crying, and his changing expression to imply some sort of emotions - sorrow, sadness. 

Spectral’s Commentary: So this is where I’m going to get into some headcanons and meta regarding Vision Quest and the White Vision. In a few issues we’ll see that he certainly *does* experience emotions, though Vision continues to claim he does not even beyond the Alternate Visions story (Avengers #360) where he gets a red body back. As I get further in this series we’ll see as he plays at being human but it is always clear there is a Wanda-shaped hole in his life that Vision can’t quite fill. That’s still true as of comics coming out today. It is my opinion that Vision feels something here - that he is dissapointed and greiving the life he wanted just as much as Wanda. He lost his sons too, even if he isn’t certain they are his sons right now. The King run explores this more in my opinion, when he creates a wife based on Wanda and just happens to give them twin children - and how desperate he is to hold onto Vivian in a later Champions story arc. Something to keep in mind regarding Vision and his emotional state here, is that Vision Quest all takes place within a matter of DAYS. Trauma like this would take anyone weeks to process, so for him to be so distant and emotionless right after his reconstruction seems natural, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel anything - no matter how hard Byrne tried to make that seem. I believe that seeing Wanda in so much pain, and knowing that he (even indirectly) caused it, was uncomfortable for Vision. He couldn’t fix this problem, he couldn’t bring their boys back or even give her other children - this plays into his future choices to not reunite with Wanda A LOT. When he finally makes the choice to leave her with that in mind, it seems less like he does not care about Wanda but more like he can’t bear seeing her so unhappy and knowing that.

Phew that was a lot! I hope you enjoyed these first few installments. My goal is to work through EVERY White Vision comic appearance, though admittedly we may skip around a little - I will notate when a story arc does not have enough content to justify delving into though.

[otterskin]

Inverted Mobius, Mr. Tesseract and The Avatar of Truth

The mystery of the weird collar has deepened, thanks to @nebulousfishgills​ - by which I mean they totally solved it.

To those just joining me, I noticed this in my previous breakdown of the Loki trailer here.

Mr. Mobius, played by Owen Wilson, has an ‘inverted suit’. His collar is an indentation in his suit, rather than going on top of it.

So, first, a scene from Endgame that I seriously did think of when we learned there was a character called ‘Mobius M. Mobius’ in Loki (played by Owen Wilson). And yet I didn’t put this together. Thanks again to nebulousfish for making me realize that these things might not be coincidences.

When Mr. Stark is inventing time travel, he asks his AI to create a depiction of a Mobius Strip, inverted.

Which gets him this:

Anyway, what is a Mobius Strip, and who is Mobius M. Mobius? (Not to be confused with Morbius the Living Vampire, though wouldn’t it be funny if he was mistaken for Mobius M. if this show gets big first?)

I am not a quantum theorist or comic book aficionado by trade, so let’s do a Wikipedia-Fu on it.

In mathematics, a Möbius strip, band, or loop (US: /ˈmoʊbiəs, ˈmeɪ-/ MOH-bee-əs, MAY-, UK: /ˈmɜːbiəs/;[1]German: [ˈmøːbi̯ʊs]), also spelled Mobius or Moebius, is a surface with only one side (when embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space) and only one boundary curve. The Möbius strip is the simplest non-orientable surface.

An example of a Möbius strip can be created by taking a strip of paper and giving one end a half-twist, then joining the ends to form a loop; its boundary is a simple closed curve which can be traced by a single unknotted string. Any topological space homeomorphic to this example is also called a Möbius strip, allowing for a very wide variety of geometric realizations as surfaces with a definite size and shape. For example, any rectangle can be glued left-edge to right-edge with a reversal of orientation. Some, but not all, of these can be smoothly modeled as surfaces in Euclidean space. A closely related, but not homeomorphic, surface is the complete open Möbius band, a boundaryless surface in which the width of the strip is extended infinitely to become a Euclidean line.A half-twist clockwise gives an embedding of the Möbius strip which cannot be moved or stretched to give the half-twist counterclockwise; thus, a Möbius strip embedded in Euclidean space is a chiral object with right- or left-handedness. The Möbius strip can also be embedded by twisting the strip any odd number of times, or by knotting and twisting the strip before joining its ends.

A Möbius strip does not self-intersect but its projection in 2 dimensions does.

Uh....right. Well, that clears everything up, doesn’t it?

Let’s crib off someone else’s work. Thanks to Thomas Wong on Medium, I was able to understand this a little better.

A Möbius strip is just a strip of paper, turned and taped together. It it only has one side, so an ant walking along the strip eventually returns to where he started. If we metaphorically interpret the ant, not as returning to a point in space, but a point in time, then it alludes to time travel.

...

As previously discussed, after a measurement, the quantum mixture (half born and half never born) becomes a definite state (born or never born). Finding the “spectral decomposition” is to find all the possible energies (eigenvalues) and states. Using these, one can determine how a quantum object evolves with time.

Combining this with the metaphoric interpretation of the Möbius strip, it could be that Stark found how to make quantum objects evolve such that they revisit a point in time, hence time travel.

Okay, that’s a little easier to understand. So how does this relate to the character Mobius M. Mobius, aside from him being named after the strip and the (apparently antiquated) ideas about time travel?

Well, he was based on Marvel Comics Legend Mark Gruenwald, a guy known for his passion for the lore of the comics, which he knew in innate detail. He even wrote the Official Handbooks and whatnot. Likewise, Mr. Mobius is a stickler for detail and one of the few members of the TVA even allowed a face - although it is off the rack, as he’s one an infinite number of clones (god I love the TVA so much already, it’s heaven for a Douglas Addams fan like me).

Despite being a clone, he rose through the ranks and is nearly the top guy, serving only underneath Mr. Alternity (and I am not familiar with these comics so feel free to correct me). Mr. Alternity has almost no comics history, but is based on editor Tom Brevoort.

There are several other misters, all of them near-identical to ‘Moby’. Mr. Orobourous, Mr. Paradox, Mr. Tesseract (!) and Mr. Oburos. They are also minor characters, but let’s look at all these names.

Clearly they are named after quantum theories of some-sort or another.

Mr. Mobius: Mobius Strip Theory - the idea that, essentially, is about the shape of time itself and the theory of traveling along that shape.

Mr. Alternity : Alternative universes

Mr. Ouroboros: A divine figure representing the beginning and the end of time in an endless cycle of death and rebirth.

Mr. Oburos - I’m not sure, but I think this is a variant of Ouroboros. 

Mr. Paradox - Temporal paradox, causal loops - ex. The Grandfather Paradox

Mr. Tesseract - An object that exists in 4 dimensions. Time is often called the fourth dimension.

Obviously that last one is interesting, considering how the Tesseract will be the start of our adventure. The Cosmic Cube was renamed for the MCU, and in the comics has no relation to this minor character.

But what if it now does?

What if Tony has caused a change in the very appearance of Mr. Mobius when he inverted the Mobius Strip - literally inverting his clothing because he changed the shape of the Mobius - does that mean that these seemingly human-looking misters are in fact some sort of avatars for aspects of time itself? And if Mr. Tesseract is representative of how space and time intersect in the fourth dimension, wouldn’t a rogue god twisting space and time with the device that shares his name cause him some affect? Perhaps why the TVA noticed something was amiss to begin with.

This would be a departure from the comics, but the characters have almost no history there. They are ripe for new ideas.

Or, then again, since Loki will be working for the TVA - perhaps he’s the one who becomes ‘Mr. Tesseract’?

But continuing with that ‘Avatar of Aspects’ idea, let’s get away from this sausagefest for a second and visit my next newest favourite character -

I’m guessing she’s one of the Justices of the TVA. What gives it away? The imperious look, the giant oaken table, or the fact that I’m suddenly self-conscious when she looks at me? It’s the last one, of course. She’s a natural judge.

Of the named TVA judges, there’s :

Justice Goodwill, Justice Hope, Justice Liberty, Justice Love, Justice Might, Justice Mills, Justice Peace and Justice Truth.

Could they also possibly be avatars of their respective aspects?

If I had to guess, I’d say this is Justice Truth, as pairing up Loki with an avatar of Truth seems like it’d be a smashing good time, similar to how he was paired with Verity Willis in the comics. She might even be a composite character with Verity.

Verity’s power is detecting and seeing through all lies and illusions. I think this powerset will be given to Justice Truth, except instead of deriving it from a magic ring that she swallowed, she’d simply be the actual ‘Embodiment of Truth’ - and let’s get real here, when I said ‘Avatars of Aspects’, I was using that clunky phrase because the more obvious one - God of - is already ‘taken’. So Justice Truth may well be the ‘God of Truth’, as it were.

I think she’ll end up in something of a buddy-comedy with Loki, giving him someone to bounce off against who literally cuts through his carefully crafted veneer.

I’m reminded of a great quote from Taika Waititi when he was talking about what he wanted to do with Loki in Ragnarok:

“(He’s) someone who tries so hard to embody this idea of the tortured artist, this tortured, gothy orphan...It’s too tiring trying to be like that,” he says. “And, most humans, we get over ourselves, we get to that point where we’re like, ‘man, being a tortured artist is actually, like, a lot of work. Maybe I should just be real and present, and just be me, and I don’t have to be a tortured artist to be interesting, I can just be a f*cking weird New Zealander and that’s enough.”

...I think Taika is a living Loki, tbh, ha ha. No wonder he gets it.

Waititi, Yost, Pearson and Kyle did great work to cut through Loki’s illusions, both with dialogue and the visual allegory of his projections being dispelled by handy thrown objects, culminating in the very sweet ‘I’m here,’ scene at the end of the film. Loki seems to be much more open and expressive at the end of that film, and it seems like a weight has lifted off his shoulders.

But while this new Loki (Loki 2.0? Loki’s Show’s Loki? Loki II? Lokii? Lokii.) is shown a clip show of Ragnarok (one I previously theorized will be deliberately incomplete), that’s quite different from actually experiencing it, and he’ll be as performative as he was in Avengers and Thor 2. Instead of processing that ‘lack of presence’ as he did in Ragnarok, which came about as a result of Thor finally seeing through Loki’s illusions (guess he doesn’t fall for it anymore) as a result of their long history together, I suspect the band-aid will be torn off much more harshly by a total stranger who nonetheless simply sees through him.

Loki in general has a bad relationship with the truth (see the famous Vault Confrontation scene), and literally putting him on trial before the Truth Herself would certainly be enough to get him to switch from this phony expression:

To this one:

That’s not much of a facade there.

It’s not the same character arc as Ragnarok, but it does get us to a similar place, albeit in a darker and less healing way for Loki. I mean Lokii.

Anyhow. That’s what I got out of this thing.

[undertheinfluencerd]

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Warning: SPOILERS for Afterlife of the Party.

Here’s a full guide to Netflix’s Afterlife of the Party soundtrack, which delivers a short list of poppy, upbeat party songs by American pop and R&B singer Spencer Sutherland and one score track by composer Jessica Rose Weiss. Starring actress Victoria Justice of Nickelodeon fame (VICTORiOUS) as Cassie, a fun-loving, albeit irresponsible social butterfly, Afterlife of the Party follows Cassie into a purgatory-like afterlife after a freak accident kills her, where she’s offered the opportunity to right all her unresolved wrongs on Earth, thus earning passage to the “Above” (heaven) or, if she fails, to the “Below” (hell).

Matching the Afterlife of the Party‘s comedic “death-but-fun“ premise is a 5-track EP soundtrack that errs more on the side of fun than death. Put another way, while Cassie is stuck in the In-Between, a limbo state between heaven and hell, the album has both feet firmly planted in heaven. In fact, the album is exclusively upbeat and danceable, featuring four original songs performed by Sutherland, who stars in the movie as the famous fictional singer Koop whom Cassie idolizes; one of which includes a duet with Sutherland and Justice. Though Cassie’s fangirl obsession with Koop is repeatedly made obvious throughout the film, what’s understated about their budding connection is how, despite the chasm separating life and death, their separate journeys seem to have always pointed towards each other, with a charming twist ending that sees the two entering a “pearly gates” of sorts hand-in-hand.

Related: The Kissing Booth 3 Soundtrack Guide: Every Song

For his feature film debut, Sutherland’s character has more of ambient presence in the movie, whereas the real-life pop singer Sutherland plays a more central role to the Afterlife of the Party soundtrack. Pop music fans may know Sutherland as a contestant on the UK version of The X-Factor in 2017, performing Marvin Gaye’s sultry “Let’s Get It On” for his audition and James Arthur’s “Say You Won’t Let Go” in a group performance. Sutherland has also released multiple singles starting with “Heartstrings” in 2013 up to “Freaking Out” in 2019, before landing both an acting and singing role in Afterlife of the Party.

At the helm of the Afterlife of the Party soundtrack, Sutherland is the movie’s musical heart and soul. On the topic of entering the movie industry through the channel of music, Sutherland expressed in an exclusive interview with Alexisjoyvipaccess his eagerness to take on more acting roles: “I’ve found such a passion in acting now from this, and I would love to do a lot more in acting, but also a lot more in musical acting, because it was very cool to tie the two together. It was amazing.“

Whether or not that means we’ll see Sutherland in more musical acting roles in the future remains to be seen. Nonetheless, his performance in Afterlife of the Party is key to the “party” aspect of the story, and it seems likely that Netflix will continue along this pop musical trajectory with its future titles. With that in mind, here is a breakdown of each song on the movie’s soundtrack, as well as an additional song heard in the movie.

“Blush” by Spencer Sutherland – Played multiple times throughout the story, Sutherland’s “Blush” (or, rather, Koop’s “Blush” from the character’s perspective) is arguably the main theme song of the movie. Introduced by a radio DJ voiceover as “the number one song of the day” at the movie’s opening when Cassie is considering various outfits in front of her mirror, “Blush” is soon after described by Cassie and her best friend Lisa (Midori Francis) as “their song” when it’s heard playing at a dance club. This is significant when later, after Cassie dies, Cassie fulfills her role as Lisa’s spectral wing-woman  by trespassing into Max’s (Timothy Renouf) apartment, Lisa’s hunky neighbor, to sabotage his record-player into accidentally playing “Blush” during a chance encounter between Max and Lisa, who is wearing a “KOOP” shirt at the time. Max takes advantage of this “coincidence” to ask Lisa on a date to see the music video set of a Koop song.

“Drive” by Spencer Sutherland – While hanging out in Lisa’s apartment, Lisa initiates an “impromptu dance party” with her deceased friend Cassie after commanding Google to “play ‘Drive’ by Koop.” It’s revealed during this exchange that Lisa introduced Cassie to Koop’s “greatness,” further suggesting of the importance of Koop’s music to their bond.

Related: Every Song In Cinderella 2021

“One Look” by Spencer Sutherland – The music video Max refers to when asking Lisa on a date, Sutherland performs “One Look” in the flesh (as Koop) while standing in front of a blue convertible with a surrounding team of backup dancers. Taking advantage of her ghostly transparency, Cassie transports herself onto the music video set, much to the awe of Lisa, and she starts dancing in front of Koop, who seems vaguely and nonchalantly aware of her presence. During the song, Cassie approaches Koop for a kiss before she’s abruptly snapped back to the In-Between headquarters, where she’s chastised by her quirky guardian angel Val (Robyn Scott) for neglecting her purgatorial responsibilities.

“Home” by Spencer Sutherland & Victoria Justice – Breaking up the Sutherland monopoly on the Afterlife of the Party soundtrack is a duet track with both Sutherland and Justice, heard during the story’s end after a recently deceased Koop and Cassie meet in an elevator ascending to the Above (heaven). As the two walk hand-in-hand towards Above’s idyllic, flowery mountain range, the song starts as the end credits roll, signifying that Cassie and Koop are finally “home.”

“Score Suite” by Jessica Rose Weiss – The one non-Sutherland song on the movie’s soundtrack, “Score Suite” is the only listed track on the list attributed to the composer of the film. While somewhat more somber in parts, at least in relation to Sutherland’s dance tracks, “Score Suite” is predominated by a majestically whimsical tone familiar to many rom-com scores.

“I Only Have Eyes For You” by The Flamingos – Not listed on the official Afterlife of the Party soundtrack, “I Only Have Eyes For You” by The Flamingos plays from the record-player in Max’s apartment, presumably as intended by Max this time, to set a romantic mood for him and Lisa, as they cheers to “regret” over wine, confess their feelings for one another, and kiss.

Next: F9 Soundtrack Guide: Every Song Explained

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[an-ice-guy]

This is si me’s bio, enjoy! It’s kinda meh since my thoughts are scrambled right now so I might change it later but for now here it is!

Name: ? (Haven’t decided, might go with Xander? I don’t have a solid name for myself yet either)

Age: 12 (Was 16, he de-aged in the process of going to paranatural...idk how much sense that makes but w/e time travel might’ve had a hand in it.)

Gender: Demi-boy, prefers he/him pronouns but is ok with they/them pronouns.

Orientation: Aroace

Spectral energy: Frosty blue

Spirit: Cold Snap (Ice spirit)

Spectral type: Medium

Abilities: Cryokinesis (Ice manipulation), Freezing liquids, cooling the air around him, so on and so forth. Frost Breath. Capable of generating icy armor. General spectral abilities as well such as making a spec-shot and having a very rough idea of how to form spectral energy thanks to CS’s guidance.

Motivation: Saving Mayview from disaster, Helping the activity club and his friends. Other than that, he’s also motivated to survive and to find out how he got here.

Personality: My si is a rather calm and friendly person, who is hard to anger due to him being a rather patient person. He has a goofy side to him as well, cracking jokes and making silly puns in an attempt to get people to laugh, since he likes seeing people happy. He cares deeply for his friends and family, and the one way to get him irrevocably angry is to mess with them. He shares this trait with Cold Snap

That being said, his humor doesn’t make him too silly. He’s pretty serious about things he cares about and in real danger, he’s capable of turning serious in a flash. He’s rather intelligent and uses this to his advantage, outwitting his opponents by using trickery and thought. Si me is a clever person and thinks carefully about what he’s going to do before he does it and is rather good at finding out what a person is most likely going to do. He is not above using underhanded tricks to win a fight.

Though he is intelligent, si me isn’t very booksmart. Math and English are his two worst subjects, even though his vocabulary is pretty good. Science eludes him most of the time as well, but History is something he’s decent at.

He enjoys it greatly when his friends are happy and loves to spend time with them doing goofy stuff. He would do anything for his friends/family, and that is a dangerous personality facet to have in his case.

Another thing he is good at besides making a joke or two is keeping secrets. He’s a rather secretive person and has a few secrets he keeps close to himself, secrets he’d prefer nobody ever hear. One of them being that he’s from another dimension, and that he knows what’s going to happen in the future. He’s also deathly afraid that if they found out his secret that they’d start to hate him for keeping said secret, and that they’d blame him for not telling them beforehand.

He isn’t happy all the time either, as a result of his life before coming to Mayview. He is selfless to the point where he would give his life to help his friends and family, and is afraid of burdening other people. He is rather prone to panicking or overthinking as well if he doesn’t take the time to slow down and think about the future. Cold Snap helps with that, but the underlying anxiety is still there. He is pretty self-loathing as due to depression issues, and has breakdowns sometimes where he just needs to be alone for a while to cry things out. He’s incredibly fearful of a couple of things, the most prominent being that he is afraid of most is being unable to save Mayview or the lives of his friends, or failing them because he couldn’t prevent a disaster from happening. Blames himself for things a lot as a result.

He usually hides all this from his friends as well, and his calm demeanor is somewhat of a farce. It’s mostly true, he is a rather calm individual, but he oftentimes uses his calmness and humor to hide the fact that he might be absolutely terrified in a situation like a fight, or uses it to mask his pain when he’s feeling particularly not so great. Doesn’t wanna worry anyone.

All in all, he’s a goofy yet calm person and cares deeply for his loved ones, but is selfless to the point of worry and is afraid of burdening the people around him. Also a Depressed Mess™.

His view on spirits is a positive one, and he respects and values Cold Snap’s presence as well as that of others. Doesn’t like Francisco Guerra very much due to his treatment of them (cough) the training dummies (cough) because he believes it to be wrong to hurt them like that. 

History: He doesn’t like to say, but his condition before coming to Paranatural was not a good one.

Goals: Si me came to Paranatural under mysterious circumstances, he doesn’t know why, or how, but he landed in Mayview. His journey is going to be a long one, but he’s going to attempt to save Mayview from whatever disaster is going to happen. He has read the comic Paranatural, so this gives him knowledge of the future, which he is going to use to help both the town and the activity club.

Battle style: Fragile speedster: He’s ok at dishing out the pain, but he certainly can’t take it. He prefers to attack quickly using his ice abilities, and oftentimes using a stomp that generates icy spikes from the ground. He can generate armor with his abilities much like Cold Snap, but prefers to not use it because its much harder to dodge attacks with armor weighing you down. He’s pretty decent at attacking, and can certainly dish out the pain, but against a mighty glacier, he might not last very long. He isn’t as clumsy as Cold Snap, quite the opposite, he’s rather graceful so getting him to trip up might be a bit hard. He is a pretty fast runner, and has a bit of stamina, but his arms might as well be wet spaghetti noodles for how hard he can punch something. As a result, he uses icy weapons to his advantage to stab or slice at his opponents.

He uses lies and deceit to trick his opponents into giving him the advantage, and certainly isn’t above fighting dirty. He also isn’t afraid of running away if things get a bit too hairy for him. If someone’s life is on the line though, he’s not going to up and leave them, he’s going to stay and fight. Even if it causes him pain in the long run.

[nofomoartworld]

Supernatural Monsters Haunt in a Floating World

Yoshitoshi, ‘Demon Retrieves Her Severed Arm’. Images courtesy of Ronin Gallery

The landscape of Japanese myth is populated with all manner of ghosts, demons, the dead, and odd creatures, much of it detailed in several centuries worth of Ukiyo-e art. In Ronin Gallery’s latest exhibition, Ghosts, Demons and the Bizarre, dozens of woodblock prints and paintings by Japanese artists, including masters Kuniyoshi and Yoshitosi, explore the more fantastical realms of the imaginative art form known as Ukiyo-e or “pictures of the floating world”.

As Ronin Gallery’s David Taro Libertson tells The Creators Project, Ukiyo-e typically featured landscapes, beautiful women, nature, and famous fictional or historical figures, but these pictures of the floating world also included Yokai or ghosts, which were among the art form’s most common subjects.

Yūshin, ‘Ghost Lanterns’

“The term Yokai comes from the Japanese symbols for weird or strange and are a class of supernatural monsters prevalent in Japanese folklore,” Libertson says. “While Yokai are depicted as having the capacity to bring good fortune and act as nightmarish omens, they are almost universally depicted as mischievous bordering on comical.”

“More often than not they appear as something vaguely humanoid with animal traits,” he adds. “However, there are many Yokai that look like household objects and even some that have no tangible appearance at all.”

Toyokuni III, ‘Ichikawa Kodanji as Ghost of Kasane’

Ukiyo-e, as Libertson explains, originated in China. The woodblock printmaking arrived in Japan alongside Buddhism during the 6th century. Though the technique was used to communicate Buddhist scripture, by the 17th century printmaking served as a medium in the country’s artistic renaissance.

This coincided with the ruling power lying in Edo (modern day Tokyo) during the Tokugawa Shogunate, which was based in Kyoto. Merchants and consumers flowed into Edo at this time. And since they were barred from entering Japan’s samurai culture, the townspeople (chonin), developed their own culture—the “floating world”—which revolved around kabuki theaters and Yoshiwra, Edo’s legalized prostitution district. Ukiyo-e, or pictures of the floating world, emerged around 1660 in the form of monochrome prints, and tended to have erotic themes.

Kuniyoshi, ‘Hosokute’

Libertson says this primitive period, with masters like Moronubu and Masanobu, were known for elegant and vital lines. By 1700, the first color prints emerged, which were hand-colored with vegetable-based pigments. A costly process, these pigments were replaced in 1765 by full color prints, and by 1810 artists were depicting actors as individuals rather than roles.

Because the Tenpo Reforms forbid depictions of Edo’s brightest stars in the mid-19th century, Libertson says that famous place pictures (Meisho-e) filled the gap. Around the same time, easing of travel restrictions and the ubiquity of landscape prints—like those by Hokusai and Hiroshige, both of whom appear in the exhibition—fueled what Libertson calls a national wanderlust.

Yoshitoshi, ‘The Good Woman's Spirit Praying in the Waterfall’

“Alongside Meisho-e, Yokai (legendary prints of ghosts, spirits, magic, etc) and Musha-e (warrior prints) sidestepped the Tenpo restrictions,” Libertson says. “As the Tokugawa Shogunate weakened, anti-authoritarian legends gained popularity. After the fall of the shogunate and the rise of the Meiji Emperor in the early 20th century, woodblock printmaking became a medium of politicization and propaganda. Western clothing and inventions spoke to the rapid modernization avidly encouraged by the emperor.”

One of the undisputed masters of Ukiyo-e is Kuniyoshi Utagawa, and several of his works appear in Ghosts, Demons and the Bizarre. Born in Edo to a silk dyer, Kuniyoshi first studied art under Shunei, then began studying woodblock printing under Toyokuni I at age 14. Three years later he left Toyokuni’s studio to work as an independent artist.

Kuniyoshi, ‘Taira Ghosts Attacking Yoshitsune in Daimotsu Bay’

In 1827, Kuniyoshi released his dramatic series 108 Heroes of the Suikoden, which depicted famous samurai and other legendary heroes of Japan. The public loved the work, so Kuniyoshi began championing the fierce and fantastical in his brand of Ukiyo-e.

“He had a ravenous imagination and the full scope of his work reveals an aesthetic sensibility capable of assimilating almost any experience,” says Libertson. “No doubt, however, his particular genius felt most at home in the world of martial glory, where epic battles decided the fate of empires and fierce warriors clashed to the death. His imagery was so popular in his time that he received requests for tattoo designs.”

Kuniyoshi, ‘Magician Takezawa Toji’

Yoshitoshi Tsukioka lived a more tumultuous life. One of the last great masters of Ukiyo-e, he studied under Yosai, and suffered several mental breakdowns, one of which resulted in a stay at the Sugamo Asylum. Yoshitoshi’s breakthrough came in 1885 with 100 Aspects of the Moon, a series of 100 beautifully rendered prints that explored Japanese and Chinese legend with old and new techniques as Japan was rapidly modernizing.

“Yoshitoshi’s work is known for its eerie and imaginative component,” Libertson says. “His considerable imagination and originality imbued his prints with a sensitivity and honesty rarely seen in Ukiyo-e of this time period. From ghost stories to folktales, graphic violence to the gentle glow of the moon, Yoshitoshi not only offers compositional and technical brilliance, but also unfettered passion.”

The imagination and technical ability included in Ghosts, Demons and the Bizarre is often stunning, as is the range of the works’ subject matter. Horiyoshi III’s Namakubi in Winter will gross viewers out with its depiction of a decapitated head hung from a tree. But the next minute they will be astounded by something like the spectral beauty of Yūshin’s double exposure-esque Ghost Lanterns. Whatever the reaction, viewers will enjoy this look back at Japan’s rich artistic history.

Click here fore more information on the works in Ronin Gallery’s Ghosts, Demons and the Bizarre exhibition.

Related:

Rarely-Seen Samurai Weaponry Finally Goes on Display

Takashi Murakami Floods Paris with Effervescent Neo-Pop Art

[Premiere] How a 'Scream' of Post-War Japanese Art Pioneered Modernism

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[thespectralvision]

The White Vision: A Comic Overview (Part 2)

Find Part One HERE

Vision Quest Part 2 (West Coast Avengers 1985 #47-49):

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the first few issues of the Vision Quest story. There is a brief interlude for WC Avengers #46, which introduces The Great Lakes Avengers and doesn’t mention Vision or Wanda. After the one shots mentioned in Part 1, we jump into WC Avengers #47. 

Wanda is desperatly trying to convince their fellow Avengers that Vision needs help. T’Challa has come to visit, and even he does not seem to think that Vision is acting any different after his make over. 

They are still convinced that Vision’s ‘soul’, AKA the data taken from Wonder Man, is the missing element. 

Simon discusses this further with Janet Van Dyne, The Wasp, while training and confirms he is in love with Wanda. At this point, he doesn’t want to give in with hopes Wanda may eventually move on and choose him over the cold, distant white synthezoid that she’s married to.

There’s also a whole thing with US Agent and Tigra that I would LOVE to see in the MCU because it’s hilarious to me, but that is completely unrelated to Vision (or this story)...

Feeling like the others are ignoring her concerns, Wanda steals a Quinjet and decides to follow some other leads instead. 

Wanda puts the jet in stealthmode and cuts the comms so the team can’t track her and Vision. Hank, Janet, and the others then receive a visitor looking for Wanda and Vision, believeing he is related to the original Human Torch and wanting information.

Wanda takes Vision to Saunders College, who it is revealed had reached out to her previously. They claim they can help Vision and he agrees, not because he thinks he needs help, but because it is upsetting Wanda. Emotionless android indeed.

There is a brief interlude with Captain America and She-Hulk, who get an emergency warning that a Quinjet has been destroyed (hint- it’s the one Wanda stole, the College crushed it once she and Vision walked away) and this just sets them showing up in a little bit.

The dean discusses what they want to do and ask Vision to follow them, leaving Wanda alone. She’s understandably worried and Vision seems a little confused about all this emotional stuff but not unkind.

I think it’s important that the comic keeps reminding us what Wanda is going through - she’s seeing the man she loved acting weird, but no one seems to be listening. This is added to the trauma of seeing him dissassembled (WandaVision did a fantastic job of recreating that scene), and Vision doesn’t know enough about who he is or who they are together to be able to offer her the support she is needing. It doesn’t help that Wand has *always* had a ‘us vs the world’ mentality when it comes to herself and Vision - mostly thanks to her treatment as a mutant in this world. I think this issue also addresses how little the other Avengers really know Vision (which has been an ongoing issue with him since early stories that persists into modern ones - he’s just odd, and while they respect him and care about him, no one but Wanda ever seemed to take the time to get to know who Vision was beyond the Android Avenger.

Wanda is taken to a private waiting area as well...but it’s all a trap. The College has no interest in Vision - they just wanted to get her alone. Turns out they’ve got some weird primordial sentient goo called That Which Endures (not a Symbiote like Venom though it has that kind of feel to me). That Which Endures apparently helps natural selection and evolution along, and targets which species survive and which die out.

Yeah...idk it’s weird. 

And the issue ends with another reminder that Wanda’s kids seem to be disappearing on all her babysitters.

The story picks up in issue #48 with some backstory about the black ooze. The college is infiltrated by individuals affected by this substance, and they are trying to use Wanda due to her mutant powers (which is ironic considering all of the retcons in more recent years confirming Wanda isn’t a mutant to begin with). That Which Endures belives it is time for mutant kind to rise up and claim the Earth from the humans. The parallel to Vision being reprogrammed is a nice nod though:

They are alerted to a warning that Captain America and She-Hulk are on the way though, and decide to give them a show to try and keep the experiment hidden from the Avengers. They are taken to meet Vision, then go looking around the facilities.

And they find Wanda, now fully controlled by the ooze who attacks.

Wanda defeats Cap and She-Hulk, and we have a cut to Hawkeye and his ex-wife Mockingbird, flying with their new friends the Great Lakes Avengers, also trying to locate Wanda’s quinjet. The West Coast team are also investigating, trying to determine if Vision really is connected to the original Human Torch or not. SImon has another heart to heart with Janet, moping about Wanda not loving him again. They also decide they need to find Wanda.

We return to find out that Vision has been just...lying there waiting for Wanda to come back. 

Yes Vision, go find your wife.

He doesn’t find Wanda, but he *does* find Hawkeye and friends. They all head back to the college. Meanwhile Wanda, looking like her normal self again, comes to speak with She-Hulk and Captain America and apologizes for the attack. She (or rather the ooze speaking through her) explains what is going on...but Hawkeye and co. arrive and start attacking the people working on the base. Superhero chaos ensues, until thy all realize they are on the same side here. Oops.

One of the Great Lakes Avengers, Mister Immortal, enters the radiation chamber holding “The Assimilator” which creates the telepathic link between That Which Remains and it’s hosts. He soaks up all the radiation, the link is lost, and all the people under it’s control are freed. Yaaay, happy ending for all. This story ends with Wanda seeking comfort from Vision, who is bad at reciprocating, and Cap has some wise words. I think yet again it’s ironic how hard Vision Quest tries to dehumanize Vision, yet delves into these philosophical ideas of humanity, memories, and such.

And we’ll end Part 2 here. Part 3 will finish off Vision Quest, and get into all the Mephisto nonsense!

[thespectralvision]

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (Part 3)

So after a number of discussions about where Wanda (and Vision) are likely to appear post Multiverse of Madness in the MCU, a lot of rumors and ‘leaks’ are pointing to a likely Young Avengers Children’s Crusade adaptation. I’ve not read the run in some time, and decided to refresh myself and do a breakdown of it for those not familiar with the story. I’ll be including my commentary about how I think they could adapt this for the MCU.

This series of posts WILL HAVE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS SPOILERS. If you have seen MoM or don’t mind, feel free to keep scrolling. It will also obviously have spoilers for the comic stories Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and Children’s Crusade.

PART ONE - Background Info from The Vision and The Scarlet Witch (1985) and Vision Quest, Avengers Disassembled, and House of M

PART TWO -  New Avengers #26, X-Men #204, Young Avengers Presents #3, and The Mighty Avengers #21-34

This section will explore the first half of The Children’s Crusade arc in detail.

You can find a complete listing of my Comic Breakdown posts HERE.

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (2010) #1-5

We start the issue with a quick recap of the past few arcs and an introduction to the Young Avengers team.

Spectral’s Commentary: Once again, trying to convince me Jonas!Vision is just Vision. Nope. Not buying it Young Avengers.

The Young Avengers and the actual Avengers are fighting the Sons of the Serpent, and there is an explosion. At first the teams think it was the Serpent’s, but it was Wiccan’s powers. After they’ve returning t their headquarters, the YA team are worried about the levels of power Wiccan is using, thinking he may become another Scarlet Witch (who is still MIA to their knowledge).

Carol (Captain Marvel) fills the YA crew in on what happened with Wanda Maximoff, recapping Avengers Disassembled and House of M for the kids and the reader. It prompts Billy to ask if they believe he and Tommy are the missing sons of the Scarlet Witch.

Billy still doesn’t believe Wanda was capable of the horrible things she did, and argues that she must have been controlled by some other force because she was a hero.

Background: The Scarlet Witch was Billy’s favorite Avenger, and he had an encounter with her when he was a boy in Young Avengers Special (2005) #1, before his powers manifested. She gave him some motherly advice that ultimately led to him discovering his powers, though he nearly killed another teenager who was bullying him in the process. This is part of why he’s a bit touchy about the subject of The Scarlet Witch.

Billy walks out, and the YA’s find him. They seem just as worried as the Avengers, afraid of Billy’s abilities after what they just witnessed. Except Tommy, who supports him. Even Teddy (Hulkling, Billy’s boyfriend) tells him he’s worried.

Billy goes home, but Captain America is there waiting for him to bring him back to the Avengers headquarters for monitoring. While they fly back, Billy asks Cap about Wanda.

Steve warns him that being connected to Wanda isn’t going to “win any friends” after what she’s done. Billy challenges him, asking if the Avengers ever considered Wanda may have been innocent, knowing her history of being used and possessed. Hulkling shows up saying he’s going wherever Billy goes, and Cap is ok with that. They are given a guest room at the Avengers which Billy pulls a Wanda on and makes much nicer.

Billy and Teddy are about to have a nice couple moment when Tommy interrupts. He tells them he’s rescuing them, and Vision phases in through the wall. Tommy uses his ability to vibrate everyone’s molecultes fast enough to vibrate through the wall (like father like son?) and once they are outside the rest of the Young Avengers are there waiting. Billy argues that he should go back, because he doesn’t want to put his friends in danger, but they suggest he go looking for the Scarlet Witch instead. Their reasoning is simple enough - if Wanda did all of this in response to losing her boys, she can undo it once she knows her boys are still alive.

As they discuss the matter, Magneto makes a trademark Big Entrance, saying it’s time Billy and Tommy meet their grandfather.

Issue #2 picks up there with Magneto tells Billy and Tommy he accepts them as his grandchildren, and that they need to go to Transia together. Billy tells him they have already been there and she wasn’t there (as shown in Young Avengers Presents #3).

Patriot and Kate Bishop don’t seem convinced, and while they argue the Avengers show up to stop Magneto. Billy once again argues that the Avengers should go find her, but Magneto understands the truth of the matter.

Billy decides the only way to resolve all of this in-fighting is by finding Wanda and he casts a spell, teleporting the Young Avengers away. The Avengers decide they’ll let the kids lead them right to Wanda so they can finish the job, taking out both her and Magneto.

Unsuprisingly, Billy’s spell took them to Transia. Billy wants to send his friends home but they once again tell him where he goes, they go. They also make fun of Magneto being ‘the world’s oldest Young Avenger’.  Oh and Billy uses magic to disguise them, dressing them like the Von Trapps. Like mother, like son apparently. (Jonas!Vision in the nun outfit is far funnier than it should be to me)

Patriot expresses his concerns that they are betraying the Avengers to Kate, and Jonas!Vision tells Cassie he has a bad feeling about all of this. From what he has observed, magic always comes with a price, and he is not certain anyone will like what the price might be.

Magneto stops at Magda’s grave, telling theboys she was his wife and therefore their grandmother. He fills us in on backstory (all of which has been retconned since), talking about how he lost control of his powers and Magda fled to give birth at Wundagore Mountain. She died and the twins she gave birth to (Wanda and Pietro) were taken in by the Maximoffs until Magneto saved them from the mob (going back to Wanda and Pietro’s origin story in X-Men (1963) #4. He regrets the way things ended up and tells Tommy and Billy he will not let the same thing happen to them.

They all link hands (after Tommy grumps about it) and Billy is able to sense Wanda in the village nearby. Tommy takes the initiative, wanting to show off his own skils and darts off only to run into Quicksilver. Pietro tells him if he and the Young Avengers don’t leave, Magneto won’t be the only person he kills. Magneto and the rest of the Young Avengers join them, and Pietro warns him off.

Billy tries to reason with his uncle, but Pietro just picks him up and runs off. He tells the boy he is only trying to save him from Magneto, and Billy reminds him that if he wants to get away he can just use magic and suggests they work together towards their common goal of finding Wanda. They are interrupted by Speed, who comments on his similarities to Pietro who challenges him to a race (Tommy wins but mostly because Quicksilver was distracted by Magneto).

As they get back to the village they spot Wanda, but Quicksilver’s attack against Magneto backfires and he impales her with a stake - and reveals that she is a robot. A Doombot, to be precise, and the issue ends with the team realizing Wanda is a prisoner of Dr. Doom.

Issue #3 starts with a quick recap of who Dr. Doom is, and how he uses both sorcery and technology. Pietro is convinced Doom is holding her captive, but Magento makes a good point:

They formulate a plan to infiltrate and try to find Wanda. Billy triest to sneak off and go to Latveria alone with a transportation spell, but Quicksilver catches him and they talk. Before they can leave together in secret, the rest of the Young Avengers join them however and Teddy is not happy.

Teddy once again threatens that if anything happens to Billy they’ll have to deal with him, and we cut to the Avengers who have summoned Simon Williams aka Wonder Man. The Avengers want Simon to help them track down Wanda, and he argues that Vision or Quicksilver would be better choices. Iron Man tells him that because Wanda rescurrected Simon, his existence is the last remaining trace of Wanda’s magic on this plane of existance. He thinks they can trace Simon’s unique energy signature back to find Wanda. Simon asks the important question though - what will they do when they find her. Wolverine is blunt about it and tells him they need to kill Wanda, and Wiccan too, and Simon punches him.

Simon declines to help the Avengers, but tells them he will go find Wanda before Wolverine can and flys off alone.

Billy leaves Teddy a note explaining that he is going to go off and do some recon in Latveria, and that if Teddy reads the note it means he likely has been captured. He’s found by Doombots, but he disguises himself as Wanda and asks them to take him back to Wanda’s room.

It works and he’s taken inside - only to be attacked by Wanda herself. She asks what he is doing there and he tells her he is there to rescue her from Dr. Doom. Wanda tells him he’s mistaking her for someone else, and that she’s getting married tomorrow to Doom, who finds them together.

Issue #4 begins with Doom attacking Wiccan. Billy accuses him of kidnapping Wanda and putting a spell on her, but Doom and Wanda tell him she is there of her own free will. Billy keeps pushing, telling Wanda she’s The Scarlet Witch and Doom tells him to stop, claiming he is trying to protect everyone.

Doom ends the fight by hitting Wiccan with a blast of fire. Wanda tells him the boy was harmless, and Doom tells her she is too trusting and that by being linked to him she will have many enemies.

“After the wedding tomorrow...nothing and no one will ever come between us.” Wanda tells Doom. We cut back to the Young Avengers, Quicksilver, and Magneto planning their attack. We also see Wonder Man arriving, and reaching out to the Avengers he knows followed him.

Doom uses magic to heal Billy from their fight, and tells him that what is best for the world is if Wanda remains unaware of who she is.

Doom goes on to explain that Wanda came to find him, on behalf of her people. He tries to appeal to Billy by telling him they are similar - both had mothers who were powerful sorceresses, powers that emerged at a young age, and that they share enemies. He reminds Billy that if the Avengers find Wanda, they will kill her. He offers Wiccan protection, telling him he can stay as long as he wishes - or if Billy refuses he will be a prisoner, and reveals that the healing spell also took Billy’s powers away.

The Young Avengers start their plan to save Billy, splitting into two groups. Quicksilver takes Patriot and Stature, and sends Kate and Hulkling with Speed. Jonas!Vision will work on his own to use his phasing abilities to work around Doom’s security. Before they can initiate the plan though - the Avengers arrive.

Billy tries to use his powers and is interrupted by Wanda, who asks him about The Scarlet Witch.

He agrees to tell her if she will help him escape. While they walk through the tunnels under the castle, Wiccan fills Wanda in on their history.

When they emerge, they walk straight into a fight between Doom’s forces, the Avengers, and the Young Avengers. Wolverine goes after Wanda and Wiccan tries to fight him off, and Iron Lad appears to save the day, saying he’s back because the future depends on him saving Wanda and Wiccan.

Background: Iron Lad (Nathaniel Richards) is from the 30th Century of Earth-6311, and is one of the many iterations of the entity best known as Kang the Conquerer. Iron Lad was also a founding member of the Young Avengers. He left to return home after slaying Kang, to ensure the Young Avengers were not erased from history (Young Avengers #5). His suit of armor became Vision 2.0 aka Jonas, and his mind was the template much like Simon Williams was the template for the original Vision.

Issue #5 begins with Nathaniel’s arrival causing a commotion, and everyone realizes Billy and Wanda are missing. Doom has taken them away from the fight, and is hurting Billy while Wanda begs him to stop, telling Doom it was her fault.

It gives Magneto a chance to catch Doom offguard. Wiccan runs off, and tells Wanda to come with him before Doom can capture, kill, or marry her. They reunite with the Young Avengers plus Nathaniel.

Doom catches up to them and Nathaniel pulls them all into the Timestream, just as the Avengers find Doom. He explains what he was doing - trying to keep Wanda safe from everyone, but he failed and now Wanda could unleash havoc across the past and future.

The Young Avengers and Wanda discuss where to go, deciding to show Wanda the past. She agrees, hoping that if she sees what she did she may remember, and that way she can try to set things right. They agree to go back to the day the Scarlet Witch brought Jack of Hearts back to life (aka the beginning of Avengers Disassembled).

The arrive at the old Avengers Mansion before it blew up and Wanda looks around. While she does that, Nathaniel, Jonas!Vision, and Cassie have a little love traingle chat.

Spectral’s Commentary: I think it’s funny how no one can agree if Wanda and Vision divorced, annulled their marriage, are just seperated, or if she was a widow. It seems to be different each time it gets brought up after Vision Quest.

Before they can resolve this, Cassie runs off because she see’s her dad, Scott Lang (who was killed by Wanda during Avengers Disassembled). He points out that the Jack of Hearts costume is in poor taste and the team find Jack of Hearts approaching Wanda, reanimated. He begs Wanda to not make him go through with her plan, but the team pull her out before she can change history and jump to another time.

The Mansion explodes again, only Scott Lang is with the team when they jump. The Young Avengers end up back in their original timeline in the same location, but Iron Lad isn’t sure how they got there because his suit is still recharging. Wanda, now in her Scarlet Witch outfit, tells them she did it.

And that is where we’ll end Part 3. The second half of The Children’s Crusade will be discussed in Part 4.

[thespectralvision]

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (Part 1)

So after a number of discussions about where Wanda (and Vision) are likely to appear post Multiverse of Madness in the MCU, a lot of rumors and ‘leaks’ are pointing to a likely Young Avengers Children’s Crusade adaptation. I’ve not read the run in some time, and decided to refresh myself and do a breakdown of it for those not familiar with the story. I’ll be including my commentary about how I think they could adapt this for the MCU.

This series of posts WILL HAVE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS SPOILERS. If you have seen MoM or don’t mind, feel free to keep scrolling. It will also obviously have spoilers for the comic stories Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and Children’s Crusade.

You can find a complete listing of my Comic Breakdown posts HERE

Background:

Ok, first off I’m going to be honest - I have not read a lot of Young Avengers stories. I like the team well enough with one exception - I hate Vision 2.0. The fact that he’s treated like normal Vision and the stuff with Cassie Lang is a big squick for me, even though I am aware he is technically a different entity than the original Vision. For those who don’t know, Vision was killed by Wanda during her breakdown in the Avengers Disassembled story arc. Vision’s operating system back ups were uploaded into Iron Lad’s (Nathanial Richards) Neurokinetic armor and became sentient. He retained memories and has a similar personality to the original Vision, but it is very clear he is NOT the same entity, as his brain patterns are based on Iron Lad’s where the original Vision’s were based on Simon William’s (Wonder Man). He’s essentially a ‘teenage’ Vision, and does not retain any feelings for The Scarlet Witch and falls in love with Cassie Lang (Stature). This story arc is not appealing to me since I love the orignal Vision so much, and as such I have not gone and read a lot of stories featuring Vision 2.0. If I get details wrong, please let me know - I try to research context if I don’t have it but there are a lot of comic books out there and sometimes things are missed.

I am familiar with Scarlet Witch stories, however. There is quite a bit of background leading to where we find Wanda, and I would like to do a breakdown of those stories eventually too, but I’ll summarize the important bits below.

Pre-Avengers Dissassembled/House of M:

Wanda Maximoff, aka The Scarlet Witch, fell in love with and married her fellow Avenger The Vision. They decide they want to start a family, but due to Vision’s biology as a synthezoid that is not a possibility - unless you are The Scarlet Witch. In The Vision and The Scarlet Witch (1985) #3, a vision of Agatha Harkness tells Wanda to channel magical energies through herself to fight off the coven of New Salem.

It works, and Wanda uses her abilities to use this power and impregnates herself. Dr. Strange confirms this, and then 9 months later in The Vision and The Scarlet Witch (1985) #12 Thomas and William are born.

There isn’t much to say after this until the Vision Quest arc beings a few years later, in 1989. I’ve done a detailed break down on Vision Quest in my White Vision series (Links found HERE), but the important part is the reveal that William and Thomas were never real. While Wanda’s powers are great, she is not able to create life from nothing. To make the boys, she stole pieces of Mephisto’s soul. In order to defeat Mephisto, Agatha Harkness removed Wanda’s memories of the boys to break the link between her and the demon.

Avengers Dissassembled (Avengers #500-503, Avengers Finale):

About 15 years later (real-world years, it’s a little ambiguous in comic timelines), Wanda finds out about her boys and what happened to them. Until that point she had been oblivious to their existence after the spell Agatha cast, and when she learns that all of the Avengers have been hiding the fact that she was a mother from her she seeks revenge. She attacks the team in a series of seemingly unrelated events, including turning Vision into an army of Ultron-bots, leading to She-Hulk rampaging and tearing Vision in half (hence his death and the eventual creation of Vision 2.0). 

Spectral’s Commentary: Wandaattacking the Illuminati in Multiverse of Madness feels like the MCU take on this particular storyline, with Wanda attacking the ‘heroes’ because she wants her children back. Not an exact adaptation obviously, but I enjoyed the nods to the comics.

Doctor Strange confirms the attacks all have a magical origin and asks about Wanda and her children, suspecting she or one of them may be the one behind the attacks.

Spectral’s Commentary: So not going to lie, the fact that Doctor Strange somehow missed the memo regarding everything that happened with Vision Quest is hilarious to me. Isn’t keeping track of witch-android babies created with magic and monitoring hell dimensions his job as Sorcerer Supreme?

Steve Rogers even tries to speak with Wanda, finding her creating illusions of her happy family and attempting to convince her it isn’t real. It doesn’t end well for him.

After this, Wanda joins the fight and attacks the gathered heroes. Strange manages to defeat her using the Eye of Agamotto to show her the truth, which ‘snaps’ Wanda’s ‘fragile mind’ (I never said this was good writing for our beloved Scarlet Witch). Meanwhile another team who went to find Agatha for help find the witch dead, murdered by Wanda. The story ends with Magneto arriving and asking that Wanda be put in his care. The list of casualties from this run is Vision, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man, which will come into play in the Young Avengers.

House of M (House of M #1-8):

Avengers Disassembled is followed up with the often discussed House of M arc. Now, I’m going to be honest - I don’t love House of M either (I liked how the MCU handled the concept more, where she created the reality to get Vision AND her kids, but I’m also biased because Vision is my favorite character. That said, I understand that in context it had been a long time since Wanda and Vision were together in the comics which is likely why he was not involved in her false-world.)

House of M is an 8 issue series, and I’m going to skip over the non-Wanda relevant parts. I recommend reading it just because it is one of those Marvel stories anyone wanting to get familiar with the comic-verse should be aware of.

The run starts with a recap of Wanda giving birth to the twins, but Charles Xavier shows up and tells her they aren’t real.

It works to pull Wanda back into reality for a moment, and she realizes what she’s done and is distraught.

Spectral’s Commentary: I find it interesting that she says she killed her “husband” here, since she and Vision have not been together since Vision Quest. There were pushes that they may get back together in the 1998 Avengers run, but Avengers Dissassembled happened before it ever actually happened.

We then move to Charles and Erik (Magneto) discussing the conversation with Wanda. They are keeping her sedated as her mental state continues to fracture. We also get a nice little monologue from Magneto, talking about how he regrets what he did to his children (this is before retcons that Wanda and Pietro are not his) and how he’s lost both his fight against the humans and his family.

The Avengers have a fancy new tower since the Mansion blew up a few months ago, and they call in the X-Men. Turns out everyone is going to decide what Wanda’s fate will be. The scene changes to Quicksilver watching Wanda sleep, and Magneto asks him what is wrong. He tells his ‘father’ that the X-Men and Avengers are discussing what they are going to do, and that he believes they plan to kill Wanda. Magneto tells him that may be the right thing to do.

Sure enough that’s the main plan. Some want to save Wanda, namely Wonder Man and Captain America, and the others want to put her down. Both sides have good reasons for their feelings. Xavier and Dr. Strange say they have done everything they can for now, and Strange is looking into further ways to help her but needs more time. A group of them decide they want to speak with Wanda for themselves before making a decision, and a Quinjet heads to Genosha. Only when they arrive, Wanda and Magneto are gone. They go looking, and we follow Spider Man as he encounters a glowing white light - then wakes up back at home.

The next several issues I won’t get into too much detail because they don’t directly involve Wanda, and instead focus on the characters who start to realize something is wrong. Peter Parker is married to Gwen Stacy, Steve Rogers is an old man who never became Captain America, Wolverine is part of SHIELD’s special Red Guard team, etc. They have weird partial memories of their former lives however, which leads Wolverine to remember Genosha. He starts piecing things together, finding out that in this reality Mutants run all existing countries, and the world has been united under the House of M, by Magneto.

Wolverine ends up with a group of enhanced humans running an underground resistance movement including Hawkeye (no longer dead), Luke Cage, Cloak, and a few other familiar faces. Wolverine starts explaining he remembers a world where Magneto and his children were a problem, specifically Wanda - and the others tell him she’s “the human one.” 

Logan fills them in on what Wanda in his world was like, and a rundown of the events in Avengers Disassembled. The resistance movement are skeptacle at first, but Luke Cage believes Logan, because a little girl (Layla) showed up the day before and told him the same thing, which triggered his memories from before too. After talking with her, everyone realizes they have gotten everything they ever wanted. They realize Magneto in the original reality had Wanda give everyone what they always wanted, so he could get what he always wanted.

They all go to find Emma Frost, and Layla uses her power to unlock memories on her. She remembers Genosha, and decides they are going to go back and kill Magneto for what he has done. Logan agrees, but reminds Emma they need more people to pull this off.

They put together a team, using Layla’s powers to unlock memories of heroes to help them including Scott Summers (Cyclops), Peter Parker (Spider Man), Kitty Pryde, Dr. Strange, Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel), Tony Stark, Matt Murdock (Daredevil), and Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk). While they are deciding what to do, the team is attacked by SHIELD’s Red Guard team, but Layla’s powers remind them who they were in the real world too. They decide they all need to go to Genosha, to try and find Charles Xavier. Only...the final panels of Issue #5 reveal he sacrificed himself so Genosha could survive.

We move to Genosha, and the House of M Gala. The X-Men and Avengers who have had their memories restored attack, creativing a diversion so Emma Frost and Layla can find Xavier. They find his memorial and nearly give up - but Cloak arrives and tells them there is no coffin.

Doctor Strange finds Wanda by Astral Projecting, playing with her children. He tells her he knows she created Layla to help them come here and stop Magneto. Wanda denies this, saying she doesn’t know who Layla is. Strange pushes her and Wanda continues to deny knowing what is happening. Strange manages to get her to explain what happened, leading to the creation of this reality.

The story returns to where it begins, with Pietro comforting Wanda as she tells him she won’t fight the Avengers and X-Men coming to kill her, before she created this world. She and Pietro discuss her being too cowardly to end things herself, and how they both liked being Avengers. 

Spectral’s Commentary: You know, rereading this run to write this post, I can’t help but wonder if Vision isn’t included - because Wanda thought he would be happier without her. Ouch...something I’ll have to think about. I just always find it strange that she creates this perfect world where everyone is happy, and she has her boys, but NO ONE mentions Vision at all. Yes in the real world he was killed in the previous Avengers Disassembled arc, but when Wanda created this reality surely she would have brought him back in some way? She brought back Hawkeye after all - as we see in the next few pages.

Strange realizes Magneto did not cause this, it was Quicksilver, and Emma asks him to find out where Xavier is. Before Strange can ask Wanda however, she falls over, shot by Hawkeye. This upsets one of the boys, and Clint is taken apart again - by the child. Wanda realizese how far things have gone out of control.

Magneto finds out Pietro is behind all of this, and confronts his ‘son.’ Wanda senses the attack on her twin, and leaves her room at last to find him. 

She brings Pietro back with her powers, and lashes out at Magneto for what he’s done to her and her twin. The others are still unsure what to do about Wanda, and by the time they realize what she’s about to do - she says the now infamous words “No more mutants.”

There is another white explosion and Wanda once again rewrites reality.

The final issue (#8) shows our heros back in their old lives. Layla is a girl going to school, Peter Parker wakes up with MJ. The Avengers discuss how things are back to normal - but then we cut to Xavier’s school to find out the mutant students seem to have lost their powers. Emma Frost rushes to use Cerebro, and confirms the worst - that nearly all of the mutant population is simply gone.

The only people who know what happened are those who’s memories were unlocked in the other reality. The arc ends with the remaining X-Men locating Magneto in the ruins of Genosha, asking him where Wanda is. Magneto tells them he doesn’t know.We then see Wanda in what appears to be a small market town, going about her day.

Spectral’s Commentary: Alright, so if you’ve read up to this point, thank you! While this isn’t everything the MCU has thrown at Wanda, it’s pretty clear that WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness have handled the primary plot points of these two big Scarlet Witch stories. They sort of reversed them - WandaVision has more in line with House of M, and MoM has more in common with Avengers Disassembled, but right now our MCU Wanda has done some big, bad stuff. MoM also pulls in a number of the C’Thon stories as well, which I want to explore in a different series. The important thing here is - Where will Wanda go next? I’m going to go into the issues following House of M and into the Children’s Crusade, which was the next big arc featuring Wanda in the 616 Comics in the next post.

[thespectralvision]

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (Part 4)

After a number of discussions about where Wanda (and Vision) are likely to appear post Multiverse of Madness in the MCU, a lot of rumors and ‘leaks’ are pointing to a likely Young Avengers Children’s Crusade adaptation. I’ve not read the run in some time, and decided to refresh myself and do a breakdown of it for those not familiar with the story. I’ll be including my commentary about how I think they could adapt this for the MCU.

This series of posts WILL HAVE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS SPOILERS. If you have seen MoM or don’t mind, feel free to keep scrolling. It will also obviously have spoilers for the comic stories Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and Children’s Crusade.

PART ONE - Background Info from The Vision and The Scarlet Witch (1985) and Vision Quest, Avengers Disassembled, and House of M

PART TWO -   New Avengers #26, X-Men #204, Young Avengers Presents #3, and The Mighty Avengers #21-34  

PART THREE - Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #1-5

This section will explore the second half of The Children’s Crusade arc in detail.

You can find a complete listing of my Comic Breakdown posts HERE.

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #6-9

Issue #6 picks up with Wanda remembering her past. She explains how she blamed the Avengers for taking her sons away, and how she had wanted them to suffer loss the way she had.

Hawkeye, The Beast, and Jessica Jones are here to help though, and discuss what is happening. I appreciate the throw back to New Avengers #26 again, and the reactions to what happened.

They watch and prepare for an attack, then realize the Ultron Bots and Kree she summoned are not attacking the Young Avengers and friends - they are attacking Wanda.

Billy asks someone to help him get up to talk to Wanda, since his own powers are still missing and he can’t fly. Cassie helps him out, and Wiccan tries to calm Wanda down by telling her her friends and Vision are alive, and he believes he and Tommy may be her sons.

Wanda believes him, and they share a tearful hug. Tommy is less happy about this, stating that even if she is their mother it doesn’t change what she did or the fact that she’s still wanted for her crimes, meaning she will just disappear again now that they’ve found her. Wanda tells him he is right, but it means the Young Avengers did their job and that she is proud of them.

The Avengers reach out and make contact, and they have Wonder Man and Pietro with them. They tell those at the Mansion to keep Wanda there until they arrive, and Wanda beleives they are going to kill her and that she deserves it. Clint says they won’t do that, and Beast once again brings up the idea that maybe Wanda can undo what happened. He suggests all former Mutants should have the choice if they want their powers back or to remain normal, and that they need a group to test this on.

They meet with X-Factor, a group of Mutants composed of Shatterstar, Multiple Man, STrong Guy, and Rictor. They aren’t so keen on the plan, and mention Pietro’s own failed attempts to use Terrigen Crystals (stolen from the Inhumans) to restore Mutants that lead to the deaths of those involved. They tell Wanda as soon as the Mutant communities learn she’s alive they’ll be coming for her blood. The X-Factor team are about to leave when Rictor says he is willing to be a test subject.

And - the spell works! 1 Mutant down, 1 Million to go, give or take. Wanda laments that she doesn’t know how to find them all, and the idea that she can use Cerebro is brought up. Only...that means she’ll have to face the X-Men who are not a fan of The Scarlet Witch.

Rictor says he’ll put in a good word for her, but there are still doubts the X-Men will agree to this plan. And lucky for them, the X-Men are already outside to meet her. The Avengers arrive first though, and this time they decide to defend Wanda.

The Young Avengers, X-Factor, and Wanda emerge from the Mansion and Rictor is able to calm everyone down by announcing Wanda gave him his powers back and that they have a plan. Wanda finally reunites with Quicksilver and Magneto, and she tells the Avengers she takes full responsibility for what happened, but she wants to try to fix things before they lock her away.

Scott Summers (Cyclops) doesn’t agree and says the Avengers don’t get to negotiate on behalf of Mutant-kind. Magneto tells him to back off, but Wanda tells him she’ll go with the X-Men. As predicted, Magneto isn’t a fan of that plan and the fighting breaks out again. Emma Frost triest to use her abilities to get Wiccan and Speed to go with her, and Wanda doesn’t like that much.

Wanda’s magic knocks out all of the X-Men attacking them and she teleports the Young Avengers...back to Castle Doom. Doom is waiting, and Wanda tells him things have gotten a bit complicated. The YA crew seem suspicious about this turn of events.

Wiccan suspects Doom was controlling Wanda from the beginning, amplifying her powers to allow her to manipulate reality the way she has but Wanda denies this and once again takes full repsonsibility. She confirms she now remembers everything, and fills us in with how things got to this point.

(Spectral’s Commentary: It doesn’t specify when Wanda went to Doom seeking help, but I would assume this was after her memories of the boys were returned just prior to Avengers Disassembled)

With everyone filled in on what happened, Wanda asks Doom why he didn’t tell her when he found her with amnesia. He replies he couldn’t risk loosing her, and implies he does have feelings for The Scarlet Witch. Wanda aks him to help her reverse all of this, and Doom agrees.

Patriot has concerns about this, considering Doom is a known super villian, and Wanda tells him he’s right to be worried and that Wiccan will be their back up plan. Billy reminds the team he doesn’t have his powers, and Doom tells him he does, the spell only made him think he didn’t and removes it.

Wanda plans to jump ahead in her plan and try to restore the powers of ALL Mutants, with the help of Wiccan and Doom’s magical abilities to amplify hers. Once again Patriot thinks this is a bad idea and tries to convince the rest of the Young Avengers to help him stop them, but they decline. Patriot decides he’ll do things himself then and steals Kate’s bow to fire and incidiary arrow at Wanda, and hits her.

It stops the spell, and Wanda tells them she can’t feel the lifeforce of the Mutants anymore. Then Doom tells everyone not to worry, and we see him without his mask, his burns miraculously healed.

Issue #8 explains Wanda’s power to alter reality was transferred to Doom when the spell was interrupted. He claims he’ll only use these new-found powers for good (sure Victor, sure.)

Doom (Ahem Victor) goes on to tell Wanda he can’t reverse her spell because that is impossible - but he can cast a new one. He promises the Mutants will lack for nothing in the new world he is going to create. Kate doesn’t seem convinced, calling him a dictator and Wanda agrees, not because she doubts his intentions but because that kind of power corrupts anyone who wields it.

Victor seems less convinced, arguing that he’ll prove his ability to lead and the world will simply agree with him. Wanda counters again, saying that maybe the world will - but the Avengers and the X-Men will not. Doom isn’t worried about that, believing the two groups will fight amongst themselves and remove the problem entirely. He offers his help to the Young Avengers however, and once again asks Wanda to marry him.

She gives him an ultimatum and Doom’s true colours come out (shocking). He simply teleports Wanda and the YA team back home, hoping that the X-Men and Avengers will start fighthing again and kill her themselves.

Iron Lad suggests they once again jump into the time stream to escape and Jonas!Vision argues that won’t fix it. He tells Iron Lad that sounds like something Kang would do (there has been tension over Cassie Lang between these boys for a bit and this plays into the argument). Cassie breaks it up and says she and the others need to stay here, but Wanda tells them they should go.

Everyone starts taking the blame for this mess (except Tommy), which allows the X-Men to attack. Emma Frost knocks Wanda out and reads her mind, confirming Wanda no longer has her powers or the ability to restore the mutant population. Magneto tries to convince the other X-Men that Doom is responsible, but Cyclops is still adamant Wanda needs to be brought to justice. Tommy jumps in here, wanting to know what they think they can do to her:

Spectral’s Commentary: I appreciate the comic addressing this, since it’s such a big topic I see regarding MCU Wanda and what has happened. While she should be held accountable, Speed is making some good points - how do you punish someone with her level of power?

When the idea of just letting her go comes up, Wiccan reminds the X-Men that they made Magneto a member of their team despite everything he had done, as well as Emma Frost, Rogue, and Gambit. They also bring up Wonder Man, Ant-Man, and Vision’s own origins as villains. It’s a good speech.

Doom shows up at this point, all glowing and white light and he tells everyone she deserves forgivness and that he will set things right. (Spectral’s Commentary: He also mentions that Wanda allowed herself to be posessed by The Power of Creation itself when trying to save her son’s lives which is...an interesting take on her abilities. Wanda and what she can do has been changed *so* many times in canon but the idea that she doesn’t have the ability to do this naturally is odd to me, since I’m more familiar with the post Uncanny Avengers Vol 2 retcons.)

Victor tells everyone he can give them everything they have ever wished for, or nothing at all. They just have to accept him as this god-like ruler of everything. Naturally, this doesn’t go over well.

The newly resurrected Ant-Man (Scott Lang) flies up on one of his ant-friends to fight, and Doom presumably kills him (again). This makes Cassie mad so she jumps into the fight, and the Young Avengers go after her. While this is happening Wanda and Wiccan try to recast the spell that was interrupted earlier.

Victor falls for the trap and with the portal open he starts to absorb more of the power, only as Wanda predicted he can’t control it. It burns him and he returns to his previous state, once again disfigured and angry at Wanda. He tells her she was nothing to him and leaves her to her fate with the X-Men and Avengers.

In the aftermath, Scott Lang returns to the group, still alive...only to find Cassie dead.

Iron Lad says he can take her into the time stream and prevent this from happening, but Jonas!Vision tells him it’s too late and to leave here here, with her father. Nathanial takes his anger out on Jonas!Vision, in a fight that is very similar to fights that took place between the original Vision and Wonder Man back in the day.

Iron Lad ends up ‘killing’ Jonas!Vision, and with him out of the way he tells the Young Avengers he’s taking Cassie with him and leaving. The Avengers tell him he can’t do that, and the other Young Avengers refuse to go with him. We’re left with this very ominous panel that I’m sure will come back to haunt everyone in a few issues.

Wanda holds Jonas!Vision’s head and yet again, they try to convince us he’s the same Vision. (Spectral’s Commentary: Despite not having any interractions between him and Wanda in this entire 9-issue story. Ugh. This is why Jonas annoys me so much.) Everyone decides to just blame Doom for this mess.

Cyclops doesn’t like it but he agrees that Wiccan and Speed’s argument is right - Wanda’s death wouldn’t accomplish anything. He decides it’s better to allow her to live and try to make up for what she did, knowing she can never achieve that. With that the X-Men depart. Captain America tells Wanda “Once and Avenger, always an Avenger.” 

Wanda isn’t so sure, and Simon approaches her. He gives her a hug, and tells her she’s better on her own and she should be with her family - and that he’ll always be there for her. Magneto tries to get her and Pietro to agree to a family trip, and Wanda declines that too. She wants to be alone to figure out what that means first.

We move into the epilogue where the Young Avengers discuss what to do next. The first order of business is to rebuild Jonas!Vision, but Kate disagrees, arguing that it would be cruel to bring him back with Cassie gone.

Patriot also decides he’s going to step down, blaming himself for preventing the Mutants of the world from regaining their powers when he interrupted the spell the first time. Kate Bishop also decides she is going to leave, stating that she failed as team leader on this mission and blaming herself. This blame-circle continues with Billy piping up.

It leaves just Tommy and Teddy, and Teddy reminds Speed he could use this as a chance to finally have a normal life. Tommy is less convinced.

We jump forward a few months to find Tommy, Billy, and Teddy together watching the news. Billy seems depressed, and Teddy decides he’s had enough. He ends up proposing though (awwwww).

Whilte they are making out after, Carol shows up and tells them Cap needs to speak with them at the Mansion ASAP. The Avengers thank them for doing all the things they failed to do - finding Wanda, stoping a fight with the X-Men, and defeating Doom, and we end with them being made official Avengers and revealing the statue built to honor their fallen friends.

Spectral’s Commentary: So there we have it, the Children’s Crusade! I can see why there is a lot of speculation we’ll be seeing this in the MCU. I think it would make for a good Young Avengers movie or series, expecially since in the MCU right now all of the YA characters have been introduced except Teddy, and I’m almost certain he’ll be introduced in either Secret Invasion or the Marvels. 

If I were to do this, I would replace Jonas!Vision with White Vision. He and the Young Avengers go looking for the Scarlet Witch who has been missing since Multiverse of Madness. While she’s ‘presumed’ dead, Strange and Wong didn’t seem to think that at the end of the film and the nature of her final scenes is very much open to bring her back in. We also know MCU is going to give us Fantastic Four, and that usually means Doom. What better way to introduce Doom than have our heros travel to Latveria and find Wanda there? Vision, Wiccan, and Speed reunited with The Scarlet Witch, and all of them ‘remembering’. It would fulfill the ideas WandaVision set up with “family is forever” and let Wanda and Vision say “Hello” again.

I hope anyone who’s made it through these posts has enjoyed them! I’ll be returning to my White Vision re-read when I have time, and if there are any story arcs people would be interested in me doing like this feel free to send me an ask!

[thespectralvision]

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (Part 2)

So after a number of discussions about where Wanda (and Vision) are likely to appear post Multiverse of Madness in the MCU, a lot of rumors and ‘leaks’ are pointing to a likely Young Avengers Children’s Crusade adaptation. I’ve not read the run in some time, and decided to refresh myself and do a breakdown of it for those not familiar with the story. I’ll be including my commentary about how I think they could adapt this for the MCU.

This series of posts WILL HAVE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS SPOILERS. If you have seen MoM or don’t mind, feel free to keep scrolling. It will also obviously have spoilers for the comic stories Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and Children’s Crusade.

PART ONE - Background Info from The Vision and The Scarlet Witch (1985) and Vision Quest, Avengers Disassembled, and House of M

This section will explore Wanda’s whereabouts between House of M and The Children’s Crusade story arcs, as well as the set up for Wiccan and Speed going to look for her.

You can find a complete listing of my Comic Breakdown posts HERE.

New Avengers (2004) # 26:

So, before we get into The Children’s Crusade story itself, there are a few issues that show what Wanda is up to inbetween these event stories. New Avengers #26 is one of those issues. It released December 2006, about a year after House of M’s publication. It starts with Clint Barton (Hawkeye) coming back to life at the end of the House of M story. He visits Doctor Strange and they discuss House of M, Wanda, and Clint’s death. Clint asks Strange where Wanda is, seeking revenge, and Strange tells him he doesn’t know - Wanda has disappeared, or may have comitted suicide. Clint doesn’t believe that and says he needs to find her, to ask about what happened for his own closure. 

Clint ends up in a town located near Mount Wundagore. He helps a woman who’s bag was stolen, and when he sees her face, he faints. 

He wakes up and the woman is watching him, and she confirms her name is Wanda Maximoff. She also mentions her ‘Aunt Agatha’ asleep in the house. Clint is shocked and asks how long she’s lived her. Wanda tells him she’s lived there her whole life, and that her family are all gone except Agatha. 

He asks her about what she thinks about the Mutants and what happened in House of M, as well as about the Avengers. It’s clear Wanda does not know what he is talking about.

Wanda finally offers to go find Clint’s friend, and Clint simply says “She’s not here.” He gets upset, feeling like he can’t get the closure he came here to find. Wanda offers some advice from a Disney film, telling him to just let the feelings go. She also tells him the trip wasn’t a total loss. And ah, sleeps with him.

Background: For those who don’t know, Clint’s had a thing for Wanda in the Comic-verse for a long time. In fact, him hitting on Wanda was part of the story arc leading The Vision to finally admit his feelings for her way back in Avengers (1963) #99

The next morning Clint wakes up and he acts as if he is going to look into Aunt Agatha’s room, but doesn’t, and the issue ends without giving further information about what happened.

X-Men (2004) #204:

Another issue that discusses a little of what Wanda is up to before Children’s Crusade is X-Men Vol 2 #204. The Scarlet Witch content is part of the 2nd story in the issue, and this released in Oct 2007, about 2 years after House of M’s publication. 

Hank McCoy (Beast) is having a nightmare, where he and the Scarlet Witch are sitting inside an hour glass. He asks her why she did what she did, and Wanda shows no remorse for the events of House of M. 

He wakes up, and Nightcrawler is there waiting for him. Kurt asks Hank to go back to the school, and Hank says he can’t. Kurt argues that he can’t fix everything himself, and Hank tells him he is dreaming about Wanda. He believes he is being pulled toward something, and travels to Wundagore. 

While in town, Wanda approaches him and he asks her to join him. Once again she mentions her Aunt and says she’s lived here her whole life. Hank points out her American accent, and Wanda says she learned from movies. (Nice nod, MCU)

She also tells him later in the conversations She “doesn’t believe in magic.” Interesting. She asks Beast if he believes in wishes, and tells him a fairy tale. Hank doesn’t appreciate it, and gets the feeling she is warning him to stay away. Much like Hawkeye, the idea of “sometimes it better not to know” comes up.

Hank feels like something doesn’t make sense about this - why would Wanda make herself a nobody when she could be anything? 

Hank leaves Transia, commenting that he found nothing but then again he wasn’t sure what he was looking for.

Young Avengers Presents (2008) #3:

A few months after Beast’s encounter, Marvel gives us this story. We start with Billy Kaplan (Wiccan) telling Teddy Altman (Hulkling) about a dream he keeps having, where the Scarlet Witch is his real mother.

Billy says that the dreams are getting worse, and he feels that he needs to find the Scarlet Witch to find answers about his past. He also says that maybe if he can find and help her, The Scarlet Witch can come back and what happened before won’t happen again. Teddy, being Grade A boyfriend material, says he’s coming too.

And then Speed (Tommy Shepard) crashes the sweet moment. And they make a TERRIBLE pun. A Vision Quest? Wow Marvel, wow.

Teddy stays behind, using his Skrull shape-shifting ability to mimic Billy to cover for him. Tommy and Billy travel to Genosha, and explore the ruined island, the last known location of Wanda Maximoff.

Tommy searches the island in the time it takes Billy to arrive, and they head to Wundagore next. Tommy checks everything again, and it seems like another dead end.

The last place they look is...New Jersey (Leonia in the comics, not Westview - but same idea). Wiccan leads them to the house they were born in (The Vision and the Scarlet Witch 1985 #12).

Tommy runs up to the door and opens it and ends up in Hell. Billy calls him a dork because obviously it was a trap and Tommy should have known better. Billy manages to get inside the house and is approached by a face recognizes - Master Pandemonium (from Vision Quest)!

Billy fights him, managing to hold his own. Meanwhile Tommy wanders the hell dimension trying to figure out how to get back. In the middle of the fight, Pandemonium realizes why Billy is familiar - his magic is the same as Wanda’s.

Pandemonium leads Billy to Tommy, and they go upstairs to talk. Pandemonium recaps Vision Quest for the boys, and fills us in on his tragic backstory since that day.

Billy asks him why he came to this house then, and Pandemonium tells him he was seeking peace and solitude. He asks the boys the same question.

Pandemonium tells them they are better not knowing, as their past contains only chaos and darkness. The boys catch a bus back home and discuss the weird encounter, saying they’ll update the database on Pandemonium’s whereabouts, and lament not finding Wanda. Billy decides maybe she just doesn’t want to be found and for now they should let things be.

The Mighty Avengers #21-34:

So at this point, we’ve pretty established Wanda is living in Transia (near Wundagore), and has no memory of her former life as an Avenger or a mutant. During this time, Loki disguises themself as Wanda for a time to form a team to lead the Avengers against C’Thon (who has posessed Quicksilver). Since this Scarlet Witch is not really Wanda, I won’t get into too much detail here, but these events lead to the Young Avengers wanting to find the REAL Scarlet Witch and that is why I am including this arc here.

The world is in chaos - fires, floods, raining blood, lots of Old Testament apocalyptic stuff. Loki!Wanda appears in a number of locations to characters such as Jonas!Vision (Vision 2.0) and Cassie Lang (Stature), as well as to US Agent John Walker and Omega Flight (Canada’s Avengers basically), Bucky Barnes (who is Captain America at this time), Tony Stark, Hulk, and others. Meanwhile, Hercules, Amadeus Cho, and Edwin Jarvis are looking for Hank Pym. They find him in a lab with Jocasta, and try to recruit him, and he confirms he has tracked all of this activity to a central source - Mount Wundagore.

We then move to Wundagore and find Modred the Mystic, who has a long history with Chthon (Starting with Marvel Chillers (1975) #1, and he was the one who kidnapped Wanda and gave her to Chthon way back in Avengers (1963) #185-187) Modred is turning himself into the Darkhold, while Bova (the cow midwife created by the High Evolutionary who raise Wanda and Pietro, and who has been Modred’s caretaker since he was driven mad) tries to convince him not to.

Amadeus Cho and Jarvis manage to convince Hank Pym (now calling himself the Wasp in tribute to Janet Van Dyne who died suring the Secret Invasion arc) to join them, and they go through a sci-fi portal door thing and end up in Wundagore, where Loki!Wanda is waiting for them, along with the other heroes she’s gathered.

Modred senses magic and an army coming to stop him, as well as something he’s overlooked. He completes the spell, telling Chthon to walk the Earth and fill his vessel - and reveals it is not Wanda but Pietro who has been posessed.  Turns out the Knights of Wundagore had recruited Quicksilver, and he had agreed, seeking redemption for what happened in House of M. Only it was a trap, and Modred was waiting for him.

The Avengers gathered argue and try to fight Wanda (and each other), until Jonas!Vision points out this isn’t really Wanda, just her astral projection. Chthon isn’t impressed.

Loki!Wanda dissapears, and Chthon takes advantage of Quicksilver’s superspeed abilities to cast his spells around the Earth, sowing chaos. Loki!Wanda worries she has failed, as Pym can’t keep the motley crew assembled together, and spots Tony Stark. She sends Hulk after him, meanwhile the rest of the team commadeer a local inn and set up temporary Avengers HQ. Cassie asks the important questions - WHY is ‘Wanda’ doing this?

They decide to investigate the caverns, and they are attacked by Modred. Tony shows up and strikes Modred down, and the fight gets Chthon’s attention from half a world away. It is revealed by Bova that the real Pietro is currently trapped in the Darkhold book.

Issue #23 starts with Thor, being summoned to an audience with Loki (currently Lady Loki). She confirms Asgard has been cut off from the rest of the world, and how she wants to fix this having been exiled so many times before in the past. Meanwhile, Tony takes over the Avengers team at Wundagore (which Hank protests), and they tie Modred up. Bova tells them Modred is not the real threat, Chthon is, and that he’s posessed Quicksilver’s body.

Chthon returns to Wundagore, bringing Eldritch abominations and chaos in his wake. Iron Man suggests they need to destroy Wundagore Mountain itself, since it is the source of the demon’s power. Hank realizes a flaw in Tony’s plan - Wundagore is full of Uranium and blowing the mountain up will cause even more destruction.

Loki!Wanda manipulates things further, setting off the Hulk who attacks Chthon in Quicksilver’s body, slamming him into the ground. It doesn’t work, and Chthon gives the tradmard evil villain ‘now I can spread Chaos across all of creation’ speech. Hank thinks they can maybe use the telepathic field to weaken him, but it also backfires - but gives him another idea. Hank is able to use his Antman helmet’s communication features to scramble the language center of Quicksilver’s brain, rendering Chthon’s spells useless.

It gives the team the edge they need, and Modred starts a spell to pull Chthon out of Peitro’s body and into his own. It allows them to free Pietro from the book.It allows the Avengers to re-bind Chthon to the Dark Hold however, and the day is saved.

Hank Pym decides to lead this new group as the new Might Avengers, but Quicksilver said he has other plans. He suspects Chthon and the Dark Hold were also part of Wanda’s madness, and he may be able to track her down - then “Wanda” appears to his suprise.

The world goes back to normal and we return to find Jonas!Vision and Cassie debating if they should tell the others that The Scarlet Witch is back.

The Dark Reign story ends with Asgard returning as well, and we see Loki confirm their involvement, and the reveal that Wanda was Loki all along.

The Mighty Avengers #24 starts with another confirmation that Loki is taking on Wanda’s form to manipulate the world. We also see Jonas!Vision and Cassie discussing if they should tell Billy and Tommy about “The Scarlet Witch.”

Before they get a chance to tell the Young Avengers their discovery, they enter the Mansion to find “Wanda” is already there, along with the new teal of Mighty Avengers. We then cut to Quicksilver who is searching for Wanda around the world. He bumps into the Mighty Avengers, and “Wanda” manifests again, telling him to leave them alone.

He catches up to them again a little later, and asks about Wanda only to be informed “The Scarlet Witch comes and goes as she pleases.” The team agrees there is something odd about this, but once and Avenger always an Avenger and welcome Quicksilver into the fold, thinking he may help as they trying to find Wanda too.

Some time passes, and Quicksilver comments in issue #25 that it seems like since he’s joined the Mighty Avengers, The Scarlet Witch has appeared less and less. There is an entire plot taking place, and eventually Cassie Lang stumbles on “Wanda”. Loki!Wanda decides she has had enough of these mortals getting too close to discovering her deception.

Loki!Wanda convinces Cassie to leave, only she goes and recruits some friends. The Young Avengers rejoin the story, thinking Cassie and Jonas!Vision are going to leave them to be full time Mighty Avengeres, but Cassie tells them about The Scarlet Witch.

Wiccan takes matters into his own hands and summons Loki!Wanda with magic, and she’s not happy about it.

Only before she can attack, Clint Barton appears as Ronin with his own questions. 

Loki!Wanda escapes, for now, but the team are aware that she is not the real Scarlet Witch. A few issues later (#32), “The Scarlet Witch” returns to recruit the Avengers for a new mission - but this time they confront her.

Hank has a plan though, and his goggles record the energy signature of her magic. And in Issue #34, the Avengers finally reveal to Quicksilver that the Wanda they have been speaking with is not actually his sister.

He reacts as well as can be expected, and the team head to Loki’s summer palace to confront them about all of this. The Mighty Avengers manage to capture Loki, and we get this weird panel of Jonas!Vision making Cassie jealous (Spectral’s Commentary: This weird back and forth with him being a completely unique entity but also having flashbacks to OG Vision is what annoys me about Jonas!Vision. It was retconned when original Vision is reconstructed in a few years, but ugh.)

Thor arrives to save his brother, and Loki admits he has no idea where Wanda actually is, meaning Quicksilver’s failed in his mission to find her, as have the Young Avengers - for now.

Spectral’s Commentary: PHEW That was a lot! We’ll finally get into the ACTUAL Children’s Crusade story in the next installment. I wanted to cover where Wanda is in the Comic-Verse and set up how difficult she’s making it to be found before getting into that though. As for the MCU using these stories? I’m not so sure. Where Multiverse of Madness leaves us, I think we’ll certainly see Wanda again in Wundagore with amnesia, but I don’t think they’ll send Clint to find her, or anyone else. Same with all the Loki stuff - Loki in the MCU has his *own* problems to deal with first. I could be wrong, but my guess is they’ll just skip ahead to The Children’s Crusade if the rumors are true.