Whilst Marvel's TV projects still sound like an incredible idea, they all seem to have been plagued by production curses. Falcon and the Winter Solider was recently pushed back yet again (this time to 2021), the news on animated series What If...? has been slow but a second season was already hinted at last year by Marvel overlord Kevin Feige himself, Loki production was paused in the face of *that* global pandemic and Hawkeye... well, eye have no idea.
So who is our hero? The one that can see us out of this production nightmare? The Iron Man of this story? WandaVision. And Disney graced our screens earlier this week with the first trailer.
Marvel have given us a trailer that answers a lot of questions but makes us ask even more
Part classic sit-com, part Marvel themed chaos, the series is described as seeing "Wanda Maximoff and Vision - two super-powered beings living idealised suburban lives - begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems." Thankfully, that's just what this latest trailer shows. We start in black and white; with even the aspect ratio fitting the time period. Wanda seems to be a stay-at-home wife, apron round her waist in the kitchen and (somehow) constantly looking her best. Vision meanwhile, saunters in with a briefcase and a newspaper, yet retains his original/'metallic' form. In fact, it isn't until he comes home that Wanda signals for him to smile and he transforms into his Paul Bettany/human self, triggering canned laughter from the 'audience'. Is the outside world of this suburban town accustomed to seeing him looking more inhuman? How? Why?
If you haven't guessed yet, Marvel have given us a trailer that answers a lot of questions but makes us ask even more.
At dinner with (presumably) Wanda and Vision's neighbours, things take a turn. They don't seem to remember anything about their past. But before we can even begin to question that, we're thrown into colour, the ratio filling out the screen and Kathryn Hahn’s character casually telling Vision he's dead. Cast your minds back to when we could actually watch films in the cinema, and you might remember that Vision died twice in Avengers: Infinity War. Once when Wanda killed him to retrieve the mind stone, and then again after Thanos reversed time to get the mind stone instead of Wanda. The stone is as much a prominent part of Vision's forehead as it was in the films (after all, it does give him life). Whether this character has malicious purposes remains to be seen, but it could be a fair guess that someone is after that stone again.
Missing from the trailer, unfortunately, is Thor's Kat Dennings. Whilst rumours circulate all over the internet about what her role might entail, her lack of presence here could suggest a bigger role in the MCU than Jane Foster's sidekick.
All in all, WandaVision is shaping up to be a great entrance for the characters of MCU films into the television business. Fingers crossed that despite all the setbacks, its successors can maintain the quality.
WandaVision is set to release on Disney+ later this year.
