ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Did Marvel Just Reveal How Wanda Returns in Avengers: Doomsday?

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

Wanda Maximoff returns! A new comic about the TV reveals how and could return to the MCU! Instead of dying in Multiverse of Madness, did the Time Variance Authority prune her? and will she return as a pawn of Dr. Doom in Avengers Doomsday? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the Grandview's shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series.

Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. You break the rules and become a hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn't seem fair. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie, and Marvel may have just revealed

how Wanda Maximoff is going to return to the MCU. In a new issue of the comic Marvel's TVA, they show Wanda in her Multiverse of Madness costume locked inside the TVA, hinting that maybe. Maybe this is actually where Wanda will be at the start of Avengers Doomsday. Now later, I'm going to be joined by a friend of the channel and the man who originally broke the story, Dodd Sites, and our very own Wanda super fan, Brianna McLarty.

And we're going to talk about how this sets up the perfect Doctor Doom intro and why Loki could be the villain who is behind Wanda's kidnapping. And best of all, this one panel could wipe secret invasion off the map so Marvel can start again. And before we get started, I want to let you guys know that you can now listen to Screencrush on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere that you get your podcast. So quick refresher since it's been four years since Wanda Vision and three years since Multiverse of Madness. Has it really? I am so old. It's terrible, isn't it? Well, at the end of Wanda Vision, Wanda stole the Darkhold, a grimoire filled with dark magic from Agatha Harkness, in an attempt to understand her own abilities.

I'm not a witch. I don't cast spells. No one taught me magic. By her next appearance in Multiverse of Madness, the Dark Cold had corrupted her, turning her fingers black, and causing an obsession with replacing a multiversal variant of herself who still had her children. that quest, she killed a lot of people, went to Wondegore, and tried to steal a child's power before she was brought back to her senses by a variant of herself. No good they'll be loved. So at the end of Multiverse of Madness, Wanda destroyed Mount Wondegore as well as the dark hold in every single reality, and she also, theoretically, killed herself in the process.

She is dead, though, isn't she Herb? Oh, she's really most sincerely dead. But since the moment the movie ended, people have had their doubts. First of all, we never saw a body, and we all know... No body, no crime. And secondly, by the end of Multiverse of Madness, she was the Scarlet Witch. She's one of the most powerful beings in the universe. It'd be way too easy for her to just die by being crushed by a building.

I mean, this isn't season 8 of Game of Thrones, right? But didn't the MCU confirm she died? No, not technically. In the book, The Marvel Cinematic Universe, an official timeline, they say that Wanda destroys Wanda Gore and collapses it upon herself, ending two great threats to all of the multiverse. So that just says that she's no longer a threat. It doesn't say she died.

Now, the theory that the TVA got Wanda actually first emerged after Deadpool and Wolverine. In that movie, we see the Wondagore carving of the Scarlet Witch in the void implying that the TVA pruned it. Yeah, well, couldn't that just be the mountain but from like another universe or something? I mean, sure, but if the TVA were going out pruning Wondagore Mountains, then it would make sense that they would prune the one that we saw in the 616 universe.

After all, the TVA are now policing the multiverse and keeping it safe from threats like Kang variants. And in Multiverse of Madness, Wanda shows that she is a major threat to the multiverse. She dream walks, which causes universe destroying incursions. She seeks to replace one of her variants and kidnaps her children, and she changes timelines. And worst of all, we see that she is susceptible to the control of the darkhold. Also, she even destroyed the only book of Ashanti,

and by destroying every dark hold in the multiverse, she altered innumerable realities and timelines. And, as the TVA comic shows us, the TVA is worried about Wanda and her variance. But I'll tell you one thing I am not worried about, and that is the show Daredevil Born Again. I am so excited for that show. And that's why I wanted to show you guys these new Daredevil parody merch that we designed at our merch store. We have this, tribute to the hallway fight, no fear.

The Fisk Will Fix It, Shirt and Yard Sign, the Rabbit in a Snowstorm, shirt and poster, and fridge magnet. And this is a replica of the Battle of New York newspaper. And of course, we have our classic Nelson and Murdoch Law and Order logo and the Scales of Justice logo. Links for all of those are below. Now, I will say that the artist of the book, Perry Perez, has clarified that the Scarlet Witch scene in the TVA is not the MCU's Wanda, but rather a similar variant. But this still shows us a roadmap of how Wanda will probably return in Avengers Doomsday and Secret Wars. And a little later, I'm going to go into a theory about how Dr. Doom stealing Wanda from the TVA can be one of the most bad ass scenes ever in the MCU. It would 100% sell me on the idea of Robert Downey Jr. as Dr. Doom.

And a little bit later, I'm also going to talk about how Loki could be the reason why these are the same. Wanda variants are locked up to begin with. But first, I want to talk to Dodd and Brianna to get their opinions and theories about Wanda's apparent resurrection. So, Dodd, you actually wrote this article for screen rant, right? So first, I want to get your take on this. I mean, I'm hesitant to say, like, 100% with certainty that this is, like, what the MCU is going to do to bring back Wanda.

But I will say that, like, the TVA comic is heavily based off of how the TVA is presented in the MCU and kind of allowing for a little bit of wiggle room within, like, you know, We haven't seen Spider-Gwen in the MCU, but, you know, she can interact with the TVA here in the comic. So it's been kind of like a bridge for some of their other characters to kind of segue them into something that feels like the Marvel universe. I do think it presents a really good possibility. And like, honestly, it could be a really good fix for a lot of the problems that the multiverse saga has implied. Because, like, in the TVA comic, what actually happens is they find out that, like, Mobius has been affected by reality shards. And Spider-Gwen is, like, kind of pushed down to find.

this lab where she discovers the Scarlet Witch because of her dreams, which implies that Wanda is like being able to manipulate reality even when she's in this chamber of sorts. So anything that we've seen, anything in the MCU that we didn't like in the Multiverse saga that we can kind of just attribute to, ooh, it's just a spooky weird reality bending thing that Wanda did down at the bottom of the TVA that was affecting the multiverse. So you're telling me, I feel like it's dumb and dumber, you're telling me there's a chance that secret invasion is not canon. There's a chance.

Oh, my gosh. Okay, so I was about to ask, because I haven't read this book yet, right? I'm currently reading, I just finished up a bunch of Daredevil, now I'm on a bunch of Fantastic Four, you can guess why. Originally in the comics,

the TVA was like a Marvel end joke for keeping continuity of their books streamlined, right? So you're telling me that this book isn't that necessarily. Is it more, the TVA is more like it is what we see in the MCU? Yeah, almost exactly, like what we see in the MCU, right? Like, even Mobius looks like Owen Wilson. I mean, like, it's very much made to look and feel like what if these characters, characters that we haven't seen in the MCU, like Spider-Gwen, could play around in the TVA. And so now TVA number three is starting to take that one step further and really start to pull

some of those bigger, more significant characters in. And, you know, this also ties with, like, a lot of everything that we saw in Deadpool and Wolverine, right, with Wandergore and the statue being there and the implications that like if the statue from Wanda Gore is in there, right, the TVA had to have pruned it. And there's only one dark hold because there's only one dark hole in the multiverse. So really all the pieces here fit really well. Well, there's a dark hold in different universes, but there's only one book of Ashanti. But Brianna, I know this has to be especially fun for you as a Wanda. fan girl what i we've been over this but just for people who are meeting you for the first time

what were your broad stroke thoughts on her treatment in multiverse of madness oh god okay as someone who loves wanda i kind of i like to test that movie as someone who loves horror movies very fun as someone who really like sam ramy fun as someone who loves wanda i hate that movie and the thing is i will hate it significantly less if they give her a better art coming out of it and i just have always felt and this is an arc yeah just an arc please um and i've always felt even and this isn't just me being a fan girl it's never made sense to me for that to be the end of her story for a lot of reasons not seeing the body very weird i honestly doubt with how strong she was in that movie that she can just like die uh by like of building being collapsed on her i kind of feel like

some, like, little part of her brain would just create a force field or something around her. Like, I just don't think she can go down like that. But really, my big reason, I don't think it makes sense for her to be dead, is I don't think the MCU right now has anyone else that can take on a multiversal threat. Like, not at the same level of her as her. What you have with really strong superheroes, even superheroes like Captain Marvel, they don't really have any multiverse expertise. You get a little bit of that at the end of the Marvels.

But we know Wanda is stronger than Dr. Strange. She beat Dr. Strange without any problems. America Chavez has not made any other appearances. So I think it will change. Well, she could beat America Chavez as well. I mean, America Chavez didn't really beat her. She just won. Yeah, she just kind of, yeah, exactly.

Like Wanda was the only person that could take herself down. Like the Roman Empire. The only things could destroy Wanda was herself. Yes. So I think when it comes to something like Doomsday or Secret War, I think it'll be really difficult for them to convince me as a fan that Dr. Doom or I know they've put most of the stuff with Kang to bed, but let's pretend he does come back. I'll be really surprised if anyone other than Wanda could take them down.

I mean, unless they do like an Ant Man 3 thing, which would be very unsatisfying. But it's always made sense for me that she needs to come and fight because they just do not stand a chance. Like, Feigey has said she is the strongest person in the MCU. And that was an endgame. Now she's creating like bubble realities and it's like serial killing the entire, the entire sorcerer, all the sorcerers. So I think she needs to be there for the movies to make sense. And honestly, when you go back and think about it, right? Like when you think of the very concept of multiverse of madness, the TVA not being all involved in that movie kind of doesn't really make sense, right? And so, like, this to me seems... Unless they were, unless, like, they were

behind the scenes. Like, that's the thing about the TVA. There's so much subterfusion, how they do stuff, right? Right. But, but, like, from the perspective of the audience of knowing who they are and being able to see behind the scenes, right, you know, like, we would have thought that we would have seen them a lot more in that movie, just given what they do and what they're supposed to be doing, right? So it would make sense, as you're saying, like, if they were doing it all along behind the scenes, right? But they just kind of snap Wanda out of, you know, out of that reality at the last second and essentially punished her for her crimes across the multiverse, or at least tried to, right? And then in doing so, right, create these different realities and abnormalities

across the multiverse just by trying to imprison her. I mean, like, that works to me. I also think it's very possible that sort of like the time travel we see an endgame where it was all like self-contained, that everything she was doing with some of the multiversal travel stuff was in the timeline. It was self-contained. It was supposed to happen. And then what wasn't supposed to happen was her destroying all of the dark holds. And that's why they had to come get her. Because that then, like, sets a ripple effect across pretty much every universe that had Agatha, Wanda, any of these characters that might touch a dark hold, it's now gone. And I think that might have been her big crime was the destruction of all of the dark holds or it could just be

a culmination you know like we talked about earlier i think these are all great theories now later on i am going to talk about how we you know what we think could be loki's role in all of this and like how much of an active hand loki actually has in running the tv a but i do want to say that there's a couple things about this theory that i absolutely love one well three things one wanda's alive. That's the best thing. She's going to get a real arc. I think she's wanted to, I think Elizabeth Olson is confirmed her return, so cool. Two, the fact that we could decanonize secret invasion and then do the story right as an Avengers movie. That's amazing to me. But also, as somebody who loves theorizing and coming up with stories,

if you have to introduce Dr. Doom, right, as this huge threat to the multiverse, I think you have to begin Doom's Day with one of two different scenes. One, he rocks into the arena and he kills all the kanks. That's, that's one. That we'll probably see. Two, I love the idea of Dr. Doom, because we've talked about this in videos in the past, how time travel, how his time platform is basically the same technology as the TVA's doors. I love the idea of him hacking the TVA doors coming in and just Robert Downey Jr. Like in Iron Man 3, he has that whole scene where he like takes the, like, has his gear and he like infiltrates the mansion. Just seeing him do that in the TVA, going down into the dungeon

to exactly what he's been looking for Wanda Maximoff. The idea of like this little thing in the comic being a tease for that moment like that I think that opening scene would take all of us who were like not that hyped on Doomsday and we'd be like okay, fucking settle

in. Like this is going to be what we were promised, right? That would be awesome. And maybe we'll get it to Kevin right now. Like that's a great one. And it ties into Young Avengers because we know at the beginning of Young Avengers, she's like chilling with Dr. Doom and Latvaria and with no memories.

She's just like, I don't have kids. I don't know about Westview. I don't know about House of M. So it would make total sense. I do think that, I don't know, we'll see what happens in Vision Quest because it's kind of too early for me to predict. I do wonder a Vision Quest

might feature Joe Locke reunited at the end. I don't know. It's interesting to see how they're going to adapt Children's Crusade. We've talked about on the channel, but I really do think it's going to be about, it's going to take place in the void. And I love the idea of these kids.

And I think it might be a movie. I think there's one movie they haven't announced yet. I love the idea of these kids traveling through different realities. You know, in one reality, they can go to actual Old Man Logan. And the next reality, they could go to, you know, whatever MCU cameos we want to throw in. But unlike a lot of MCU shows, Moon Night, it would make sense because each episode could be them in a different region of battle world in the void. I think that would be a lot of fun. And then we see Spider-Gwen.

And it all feels full-s-all. Played by Emma Stone. Is that our Spider-Gwen cast, or do you want to go somebody younger? I kind of want to go someone younger, I think, just partially, because I really like, I mean, obviously they're very different, but I love the Sonyverse movies. I don't love the Sony-verse movies. I like the animated movies that are into the Spider-Verse. Let me be very clear.

We knew what you meant. Although, you got to admit, a Craven cameo would be hilarious. I would die. Like that would be so... I kind of feel like they could get Aaron Taylor Johnson to do it. Or Matt... Oh, well, Dakota Johnson, good luck. I do think Sidney would come back as Julia Carpenter in a heartbeat

if they're not courting her to play the Black Cat. Yeah, yeah. I'm feeling like Black Cat's where she's going, but that is still a good pick. So that's where I land on this. I'm super excited to see this character back. I think that the Marvel machine just didn't do her arc any justice, and I'm pretty pumped. Does you guys got any final thoughts we want to add in here?

Bring back my girl. That's it. The potential of having Wanda, you know, somehow influencing every, you know, misstep that we've had in the multiverse, I think, is really, you know, that has a lot of potential to fix a lot of things and kind of reset a lot of things that people didn't like. All right. So here's my last question for both of you guys.

Okay. So Dodd, I'll start with you since you brought it up, right? Now, like I said, I do have a theory on how Loki can fit in. to all this. I'm pretty excited to tell you guys. But first, Dodd, I've already taken secret invasion. What is the thing that you hope that was, in the MCU, that was Wanda's fever, fever dream hallucination? All the reshoots for Brave New World. Ouch. Coming out swinging.

I think that movie would have been so much stronger if, I, I don't know, which version of that film was the stronger political version of the film, but it definitely felt like I saw clips of it in the movie, right? Just clips, right, that had just been cut away from all the ties of it. And, like, Captain America as a movie, like, you had, you know, the first Captain America movie was inherently political. Winter Soldier, probably the most political MCU movie they've ever made. Civil War had even implications like that.

I mean, like, all kinds of stuff. Political light. Come on. Like, the government's watching you, but the government's hydra, so don't worry about it. Come on. I mean, for sure, for sure. But as far as the MCU goes, that's probably been, like the closest that they've ever towed to the line. And I think that they went completely gloves off with, with Brave New World. And so I would rather like to see Anthony Mackey get, I think, the

Captain America movie that he deserves with the punch that it deserves. And that's the one I would have retconned by Wanda if I could. I don't know how, but just make it happen. Brianna, apart from her arc, which would be canon, apart from her arc in multiverse. I mean, at least half of the jokes in Love and Thunder. Like just half of them. Just take half of them out, and I'm good. I love that you're so granular, though, that you're not saying the entire movie, like Dodd did. You're like, just a little less improvisation from Thor on the boat would have really gone a long way, right? Please.

Like, I love, I wanted to love that movie because I love Ragged. So bad. I was more excited for that than any other. Go ahead, sorry. Same. No, I was super excited from that. So, yeah, no, I want her to come into the real world, tell Taikaabotiti that he, that he, cannot just do like complete improvisation um and then she can go back into the

MCU and then we'll all remember the movie as just being the movie we all wanted I don't know if she could pull that off but Deadpool definitely can we've already seen them influence screenplays and other realities so that's definitely a possibility so Dodd Brianna thank you guys very much for joining me and now I want to tell you guys our theory on how Loki could figure into Wanda's resurrection so like we just said the TVA has to be featured in Doomsday in Secret Wars the show Loki was a real standout from most of the other projects in the saga. It especially stood out as one of the best Disney Plus shows. And this TV

series is literally at the center of the Multiverse saga, so they have to feature the TVA in Doomsday and Secret Wars. And like I said earlier, having Doom invade the TVA and dismantle it, which showed that he is more powerful than Kank, even more powerful than Infinity Stones. Some of the guys use him as paperweights. But I don't think they can address the TVA or the dying multiverse without including Loki. Loki sits at the center of the multiversal tree overseeing the branching timelines. But he does not interfere with the timelines. I mean, that way he's able to preserve free will. In the MCU 616 universe alone, think how many events we've seen that threaten entire realities. That means that the multiversal tree is sick and rotting.

And Loki's being is now tied to this multiversal tree. So if the multiverse is dying, the rot would be affecting him as well. Like in Doomsday, I think they should show us Loki wasting away on his throne as a visual metaphor to show the dying multiverse. He's trying to keep the multiverse from eating itself, but his power is not enough. That Wanda that we saw in the comic is being held in some kind of stasis chamber, but I wonder if that chamber could also be a kind of battery. Like maybe, Loki and the TVA realize that they need some kind of dark magic to sustain the multiverse. Maybe the chaos magic of Cathone is something the TVA needs to stabilize this tree. So if that's the case, the TVA could have several Wanda's

trapped in tubes and they're like siphoning off their energies. So when Doom saves Wanda, like I talked about earlier. At first, we think he's a hero. But then, like in the book Children's Crusade that Brianna mentioned, he instead uses Wanda for his own evil plans. But that's just our theories. What do you guys think? Is this how Wanda should return? Should Wanda return at all? Let us know down in the comments below or on our free-to-join Discord server. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. Thank you.