VisionQuest Reveals Wanda Maximoff’s Return in Avengers: Doomsday and Hallelujah for That

4 min readThe following story contains spoilers for VisionQuest. LIKE WandaVision AND Agatha All Along before it, VisionQuest turned out to be among the best Marvel projects to be released in the post-Endgame era. And given that the series was billed as the conclusion to the trilogy that those prior two shows set up, that should come as no surprise. While many Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and shows in the last five years have struggled to figure out what works and what doesn’t—and what manages to resonate with audiences over time—these shows, released over the course of a nearly six-year span, have clearly understood that the recipe for success is pretty simple: a slightly raised concept, and some characters people really love.VisionQuest took a formula that felt like something of a hybrid of what made the other two shows successful and rode it. Where WandaVision had a super high concept (Wanda turning her world into a surreal series of sitcom references), returning stars (both Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany led the show), and new characters people became obsessed with (Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha), Agatha All Along then introduced the idea of bringing in a vital new character in Wanda and Vision’s son Billy (Joe Locke) to go along with the returning Agatha.VisionQuest splits the atom by pairing Bettany with a returning James Spader as Ultron (truly fantastic throughout) and introducing Ruaridh Mollica as Tommy, Wanda and Vision’s other superpowered son. The show’s consistently strong, surprising, and well-paced writing from showrunner Terry Matalas—to go along with fun new characters like the Paladin (Todd Stashwick) and E.D.I.T.H. (Emily Hampshire)—made it an easy, fun, watchable hit. And it helped that in the end, it came with a punch.The show continued to expand on Vision becoming human, something Bettany has proven to be brilliant at during the course of his time in the MCU, but it also gave layers to Spader’s Ultron, proving that the franchise can allow some of its iconic villains to stick around and play in shades of moral gray.By the end of the show, Vision, Tommy, and Billy have made it through the adventure, discovered themselves, and reunited as the family unit we’ve long known they were meant to be. There was just one lingering question: Where’s mom?VisionQuest asks the question near the end. Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff was the most popular character (and briefly became one of the best villains) in the MCU in the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame; WandaVision was a massive smash, hitting during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and becoming the closest thing to water cooler talk material that anyone could get at the time. Olsen’s performance, nominated for an Emmy, was one of the most important reasons why.She took a more sinister arc in the following year’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and—spoiler alert—appeared to be “dead” at the end of the movie. Which puts a serious wrinkle into the possibility of her reuniting with her robotic husband and immaculately conceived sons.But this is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we’re talking about stories based off of comic books. There’s always a way.Watch VisionQuest HereIs Wanda Maximoff Alive in VisionQuest, Avengers: Doomsday, and the MCU?Marvel StudiosOf course she is! Wanda Maximoff is one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most beloved characters, and Elizabeth Olsen’s performance as her is truly fantastic. You didn’t think Kevin Feige would leave her alone beneath a mountain, did you?Sure, it’s been more than four years since we last saw the Scarlet Witch at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but as the credits scene for VisionQuest (likely a moment taken right out of next month’s Avengers: Doomsday) shows us: She’s back. Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.) picks up the bit of mountain she was crushed underneath, and her eyes rocket open in a Jon Snow–esque awakening. “Scarlet Witch, awaken,” Doom says. “Your power will be mine.”It’s not hard to read into what’s going on here. It’s clear that in Doomsday, Doom is recruiting from some of our existing and most powerful Marvel heroes in an attempt to fuel his own takeover of the world. In the 2015 Secret Wars comic, Doom saves the universe from destruction after incursions (the collision of parallel universes) threaten to destroy everything; the result finds unexpected allyships as Doom takes his place as God Emperor. In that story, Doom’s second-in-command is Doctor Strange… someone we’ve already seen have quite the experience with Wanda (in Multiverse of Madness). Will they wind up allied once again in Doomsday?The news of Wanda’s return also comes as we learn that her on-screen hubby will also be in Doomsday. “I got to hang out with Paul Bettany, who I love,” Anthony Mackie said in a recent interview, spilling some of the beans.If VisionQuest was the conclusion of the WandaVision trilogy—and a darn good one—it sounds like Doomsday could feature a full-on Wanda and Vision reunion. And what Marvel fan who’s been along for this ride (and stuck it through to this point) wouldn’t be excited for that? Let’s get the family back together, shall we?Evan is the culture editor for Men's Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn't.