WandaVision is going to be a heartbreaking tragedy and none of us are ready

The poster for Disney+ series WandaVision teases an idyllic suburban world with dark secrets and we’re definitely not ready for how heartbreaking this story will probably get.

The first poster for the upcoming Disney+ streaming series WandaVision was revealed at this year’s annual D-23 Expo and it’s not only gorgeous, it’s downright heartbreaking for what it implies about this upcoming story.

Because in case anyone had any doubts, WandaVision is not going to be a happily ever after kind of tale.

That’s sort of a given, one has to assume, since half of the series’ titular romance is dead. And, like, dead dead, not just brought over from an alternate section of the Avengers timeline dead. It’s hard to imagine a world in which the Vision we know survives in any significant capacity; because let’s face it, if Wanda could have brought him back at the conclusion of Endgame, she would have.

Wanda Maximoff is, on paper, the most powerful character in the MCU, after all. Okay, maybe Carol Danvers could take her in a fight, but it would be hard going. Scarlet Witch’s abilities are canonically world changing and we haven’t even seen her use all of them yet.

Though it certainly looks as though that is about to change.

How do we know this? Because the entire concept of WandaVision makes no sense.

As it’s currently being described to us, this show should not exist. No one can even really even explain what it is, that’s how bizarre it is.

The idea of Wanda and Vision starring in a 1950s-era comedy, complete with a nosy neighbor (played by Kathryn Hahn) and guest appearances by C-list MCU characters that’ve never even met one another, is fairly absurd on its face.

Even the poster for the series seems intriguely, well, wrong.

The image – which is pretty incredible, by the way – displays a sort of magical suburban sweetness that feels almost fake in its utter perfection. When have either of these two characters ever had this kind of domestic bliss? Do we really think they’d get to start now?

Plus, the shadows of both Vision and Scarlet Witch – in her traditional comics headdress, no less – loom large over both of them, indicating that no matter how perfect their life together may seem, the story can’t escape who they really are.

It seems obvious now that WandaVision will somehow adapt a version of the either the classic X-Men 2005 House of M comic run, which saw Wanda remake reality in the wake of a personal tragedy, or the more recent 2015 Vision limited series, in which the synthezoid tried to live a normal suburban life with a family he created himself. (This included a partner whose brain patterns were based on Wanda’s own, just for an extra, added bit of disturbing pain.)

At any rate, it seems extremely unlikely that the world Wanda and her love exist in during this show is a real one. And the most probably explanation is simply that Wanda, in her grief, has somehow created a splintered reality or pocket dimension in which to try and process – or possibly avoid – everything that’s happened to her.

The title WandaVision could even work as something of a double entendre – it’s a show about these two particular characters, yes, but it’s also about “Wanda Vision,” a.k.a. the way she’s seeing and/or projecting the world at present.

Which, mostly likely, would be one in which Vision was still alive.

Theoretically, this should be incredible to watch, as Wanda is a character whose perspective, agency and motivations have often been neglected within the MCU. She’s suffered a tremendous amount of personal strife, let none of the films have really bothered to delve too deeply into how all those losses might have affected her. WandaVision represents a perfect opportunity to change that, and to introduce her more cosmic, reality bending abilities to the universe at large.

(Something that certainly seems plausible in the wake of the announcement that Scarlet Witch will also appear in the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel subtitled Multiverse of Madness.)

In all honesty, there’s just no way that this series ends without some serious heartbreak, pain and tragedy, and none of us are likely ready for the emotional fallout from it. Even if it does appear as though the story will be set to a laugh track along the way.

But I’m sure we’ll all be signing up to stream it anyway.

WandaVision is slated to debut on Disney+ in the spring of 2021.