Scarlet Witch, one of comics’ most powerful and complex characters, is arguably the most underserved Avenger in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. WandaVision, Marvel Studios’ upcoming streaming series for Disney+, aims to change all that.

The mutant offspring of Magneto in the comics, an “enhanced” member of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the MCU, Wanda Maximoff is an exceptionally complicated, broken-not-sprained character in any medium. No better was this explored than in one of Marvel’s greatest stories, the game-changing and tragic House of M, a 2005 event comic from writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Olivier Coipel in which Wanda reshaped all of reality after the loss of her children. In her new world, mutants reigned supreme, while normal humans were second-class citizens.

Now that the X-Men are back under Marvel Studios’ roof, Wanda and the MCU seem primed to mine some of the rich drama that the House of M built. In doing so, the Disney+ show — which, when first announced, was met with puzzlement bordering on indifference by fandom — could become as important to Marvel’s live-action future as M was to its comic legacy.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun. We’re gonna get weird, get deep and finally understand Wanda Maximoff as Scarlet Witch.” That was the edict revealed from the stage of Marvel’s Hall H panel when Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige announced the overall narrative strategy behind the upcoming WandaVision series, slated for release Spring 2021 on Disney+ and set to spill into the horror-tinged Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, opening May 7, 2021 and also to feature Olsen’s Wanda.

WandaVision, set after Avengers: Endgame, aims to explore the fallout Vision’s death has on Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen). The best, and most readily available, way to deliver on that is to tell the House of M story through the MCU’s lens.

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