We’ve been wondering about the fate of Wanda and Vision’s boys since the start of February. February 2020, that is. The Scarlet Witch’s sons have their own incredible, complicated story in the comics. Ever since we saw them appear in a trailer, we’ve been waiting for the answer to a question that could have huge ramifications on the MCU. Are they real or not? (Or somewhere in between?) Their powerful mother’s fragile mental state—and therefore the world—could hinge on the answer. Unfortunately, WandaVision‘s penultimate episode gave us reason to be pessimistic over the twins’ fate. They still have hope for a future, but it could depend on their mother walking a dark road.
WandaVision‘s eighth episode, “Previously On,” upended what we thought we knew about the show. Director Hayward lied in episode five about Wanda stealing Vision’s body. She did go to S.W.O.R.D. to collect her love’s remains, but she didn’t end up taking them. Hayward’s suggestion that she could resurrect her “soulmate” didn’t even tempt her to try.
Wanda left Vision’s deconstructed corpse behind, and instead traveled to the sleepy little town of Westview. There, she visited a plot of land that she and Vision had purchased. After a lifetime of trauma, it was all too much. In an explosion of uncontrolled grief and anger, Wanda created the Hex, her own perfect little world. And she created an all-new Vision to share it with.
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Agatha explained exactly what all of that means. Wanda is the Scarlet Witch, a mythical being who isn’t even supposed to be real. She is “capable of spontaneous creation.” She can form sentient life from nothing. But Wanda is not an all-powerful god; there are limits to what even she can do. Her Vision began to disintegrate when he left the Hex; he can only exist within the parameters of Wanda’s surreal magical world. Which means Wanda’s twin boys are also likely constrained by those same rules of limited existence.
Wanda’s sons were already a unique type of miracle birth. Vision, whether a synthetic android or a tangible manifestation of magic, doesn’t have any DNA to pass on. Like everything else in Westview, Wanda’s powers conjured her twins from nothing. That’s what Agatha said about the boys birth as she held them both prisoner. “Oh, yes, your children,” Agatha said. “And Vision, and this whole little life you’ve made, this is Chaos Magic.” The boys, like the Hex and their father, are the offspring of Wanda’s love and pain. They are magic.
Like their father, the twins can exist when apart from their mother. They also possess legitimate powers. Billy was the one who heard his father was in trouble outside the Hex on Halloween. They exist inside of the sitcom Westview. But that’s exactly why they seem bound by the Hex’s magic, same as their dad.
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Ultimately, the question of whether the twins are real or not might be a matter of semantics. They are sentient beings in this magical world. But if they can’t exist outside of it, what does it matter? How long can this charade continue? Wanda seems certain to lose them like she has lost everyone she has ever loved. And from what we know of both the show and the comics, nothing good will come from her losing her sons.
Our very own Eric Diaz explored the original comics history of the twins last year. No surprise, it’s very complicated. The boys’ story involves major retcons, timeline issues, and questions about which souls were in which bodies and when. That’s why we’ve been questioning the nature of the boys’ existence since the first released footage.
In the comics, Wanda’s sons weren’t even as “real” as they are on the show; at least not to begin with. She made them from magic. But they vanished entirely when she wasn’t near them or she was focused on something else. It was later revealed that they were really fragmented pieces of the demon Mephisto’s soul. (He’s the possible big bad viewers have theorized could be behind everything on WandaVision.) Billy and Tommy came from dark energy. When Mephisto decided he wanted those parts of him back, he reabsorbed the boys. The loss of her sons left Wanda in a catatonic state. As readers later learned, Agatha Harkness erased Wanda’s memories of her kids.
Things ended even worse in the classic 2005 “House of M” series, which our Rosie Knight has previously covered. That’s when Wanda and her reality-altering abilities flipped the world upside down. Mutants were the dominant species, not humans. For a time, Wanda lived a peaceful life of her own creation that included having her “sons” back. When she realized none of that world was real, including her boys, she destroyed most of Earth’s mutants. (Partly because her comic book father Magneto had been behind the deception.) Not exactly a great sign for the citizens of Westview. Or anyone else in the MCU. We’ve now seen on WandaVision what Wanda is capable of when she’s in pain.
Wanda did get a form of a happy ending. Mephisto absorbed the twins back into himself. But the boys ultimately destroyed the trickster from within. All thanks to the powers their mother had imbued them with. Eventually, the pair returned as teenagers. They then went on to become the superheroes Wiccan and Speed. (As we said, their stories are a lot weirder and more complicated than all of that.)
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What does all of this mean for the show? Wanda’s boys are real, but only inside the Hex, which is already crumbling. Without some kind of intervention, when it falls apart for good, they will likely fade away. Same as their father when he left that magical realm. That could break Wanda for good, unleashing her Chaos Magic on the whole world. The ramifications of that scenario are unfathomable.
But she might be able to avoid that. Maybe Mephisto, Agatha, or some other sinister force could offer her a dark bargain to bring them back. Granted, that could lead to a different type of monstrous outcome.
Not all hope is lost, however. There is always the possibility that Wanda is so powerful that she can find a less problematic way to save her husband and/or their children. But no matter whether Billy and Tommy are real or not, there’s a path for them to exist in the actual world. It just might mean their mother has to walk a dark road to safely bring them into it. And who knows what other witches or demons could follow her on it?
Featured Image: Marvel
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike, and also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
