If there is one thing WandaVision’s Episode 6 has confirmed it is that there is a greater villain at work in Westview. It is not all Wanda. How could just Wanda’s grief give her powers enough to mind control thousands of people for days on end?
Besides, if Wanda really wanted a happily-ever-after, why does time move so quickly in Westview? A whole decade passes by in the span of one day. Wouldn’t Wanda want to have more time with Vision and her sons if she was behind all this?
Most importantly, how does she not remember how it all started? All she remembers is “feeling completely alone and empty.” Who do we know that thrives on the pain and sorrow of others, devours tragic souls to trap and enslave them forever? The devil, of course, and Marvel has its own version of the devil known as Mephisto. So did Episode 6 just confirm Mephisto as the main villain in WandaVision?
1. Who is Mephisto in the comics?
Mephisto is a long-time Marvel comics villain known for his ability to alter space and time, possess the souls of those who hand over them willingly, godlike strength and durability, and unlimited ability in the mystic arts. The demon served as a tempter who made bargaining rounds with nearly every Marvel hero, vying for their desires in exchange for a piece of themselves.
Mephisto first appeared in Silver Surfer #3 back in 1968. After tormenting the chromed hero for a few years, he eventually moved on to Thor, Ghost Rider, and the wider cast of Marvel comics like Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, and Scarlet Witch. His ultimate desire was always to capture as many souls as possible and dominate the world.
So, is Mephisto on MCU yet? No, Mephisto is yet to appear in the MCU but his presence has been teased in multiple films.
For instance, Spider-Man is known to have struck a very famous deal with Mephisto. In exchange for erasing Spider-Man’s marriage to Mary Jane Watson, Mephisto saved Aunt May from death and made the world forget that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. With Spider-Man: Far From Home ending with Peter’s secret identity exposed, perhaps the big-screen version of Spider-Man could find himself making a similar deal.
Coming to WandaVision, as per Marvel comics, Mephisto had played a hand in the birth of Wanda’s kids. In the comics, Wanda’s powers were always overtly magical and she drew on Mephisto’s source of dark energy to create her twins. It ends badly for the comics Wanda because Mephisto later takes his power back, and with it Wanda’s kids too.
With Wanda giving birth to twins in WandaVision and those twins acquiring mutant capabilities in Episode 6 (same as Wanda and her twin Pietro), we can expect a tragic end for the series.
1.1 Is Pietro Mephisto?
WandaVision’s Episode 6 has also solved another logistical hindrance to Mephisto being the show’s main villain since he is yet to make an appearance on the show. The latest episode sees Quicksilver, aka Wanda’s brother Pietro, behaving rather queer. So much so that fans are asking, “Is Pietro Mephisto?”
The Halloween-special episode sees the WandaVision family dressed in their original costumes. Just as Tommy and Billy are ready to start the day with Pietro, he tells them to “unleash hell demon spawn”. This one sentence is a significant reference to the comics as Billy and Tommy are actually part of Mephisto’s soul, Wiccan and Speed.
Add to that the mystery surrounding Pietro’s entry into Westview. Wanda was clearly surprised to see him at her door at the end of Episode 5 even though in the next episode he claimed it was Wanda who wanted Pietro to distract Vision. But how she comes to accept the X-Men Quicksilver to be her Marvel brother remains a mystery.
Throughout Episode 6, Wanda is trying to test this wrong-face Pietro with questions about her childhood to see if he answers correctly. Pietro quite cleverly manages to steer clear of them and diverts the topic whenever that happens. There seems to be an enchantment at work here which is clearly not Wanda’s, thus making her a target of magical manipulation herself.
How the X-Men Pietro got to Westview is a big question for the Marvel Multiverse as well. If this Pietro is really Mephisto in disguise, then MCU will have to come up with alternate explanations to its multiverse for Phase 4. Whether or not this Pietro is Mephisto in disguise or sent by the devil, remains to be seen. But whichever the case, it does sound like Marvel’s Lord of Hell is on his way to the MCU.
1.2 Why Doesn’t Wanda Know How She Created the Hex?
If WandaVision has established that Wanda is in control of Westview, it has also consistently highlighted moments when her absolute authority has been put to question. In earlier episodes, we saw Wanda leave the Westview bubble at will and cast Monica out for letting slip the truth of Pietro’s death.
At the end of Episode 5, Wanda even admits to controlling the reality of Westview but still cannot remember how it all started, how the Hex came to be. This was just when a recast Pietro came intruding into her family life, as proof of another thing beyond Wanda’s control.
In Episode 6, we also see how she had no control over Vision’s free will or inquisitivity about what lay outside of Westview. Wanda also could not predict the superpowers her twins displayed in the episode. Maybe not individually, but these events together point to an involvement of another unseen party.
1.3 Is SWORD Under Mephisto’s Control?
Episodes 5 and 6 have consistently drawn our attention to the real motive behind SWORD’s interest in the Westview anomaly. General Hayward’s outright dismissal of any voice siding with Wanda seemed outrageous at best and premeditated at worst in Episode 6. We learn later in the episode that Hayward had a way to track Vision’s movements inside the Hex which he did not share with the group. It may also be noted that Vision’s body was under SWORD’s supervision when Wanda stole it from them. Were they really just storing the body or had other ulterior motives?
A less popular aspect of Mephisto-is-WandaVision’s-villain theory is that Mephisto is actually controlling SWORD. Fans have even pointed out that SWORD’s icon resembles an inverted cross, a sign usually associated with the devil. With Hayward’s instinctual violence towards Wanda, maybe MCU is playing the ‘good organization is secretly evil’ card.
Others have also pointed out how Hayward’s office decorations include his wall frames arranged in a hexagonal pattern. The significance of the six-sided hexagonal goes beyond just the shape of the Hex, the name Darcy gave to Westview. The number six has demonic connotations with the devil’s number known as 666. Maybe Mephisto is puppeteering the director?
2. Who Really are Tommy and Billy?
A peculiar aspect of Westview anomaly is that if Wanda really wanted to create a happily-ever-after with Vision, why was the speed of time in her warped reality so quick? It should have been slow so she could have as much time with Vision and her children as possible. A whole decade passes in the span of one day. More importantly, what happens when all the decades run out and the sitcom reality reaches the present day?
The answer to such existentialist questions about Westview could lie in knowing more about Wanda’s sons, Billy and Tommy. Wanda and Vision’s children Billy and Tommy jump to the forefront of the early 2000s Malcolm in the Middle-style sitcom of the week in Episode 6. The twins are born only a couple of episodes back and are already in their preteens for Halloween when they start exhibiting superpowers.
Their growth is accelerated externally by Agnes’ magical spray on the newborn twins or Quicksilver inspiring Speed to realize his own fast moving capabilities. At other times, pain plays a crucial role. The pain of not being able to keep a stray dog as a pet forces the twins to age themselves by five years and Wiccan realizes his telepathic powers when his father is in pain.
In the comics, the history of Wanda’s children is a complex one. With a synthezoid for a husband, Billy and Tommy were but Wanda’s magical constructs which could come to life as Wiccan and Speed only with help from the devil. In the source material, Tommy and Billy are created by Wanda after unknowingly summoning two pieces of Mephisto’s soul. But Mephisto later absorbs them into himself, thus taking fragments of his soul back and driving Wanda insane.
The twins return later in the comics as young Avengers but are reincarnated as William Kaplan and Thomas Shepherd. In MCU, however, Billy and Tommy could join the young Avengers directly since WandaVision has not been very diligent in following the comics. The formation of Young Avengers has already been teased in the MCU with Cassie Lang in the Ant-Man movies and Avengers: Endgame and Kate Bishop in the TV series Hawkeye.
How the show achieves this remains to be seen. But one thing that’s crystal clear is that the whole point of the Westview anomaly is the creation of Billy and Tommy and Mephisto could easily be behind all of it.
2.1 Is Agnes a Villain on WandaVision?
There are strong speculations among fans about Wanda’s neighbor Agnes actually being the sorceress from the comics, Agatha Harkness, who served both as a villain and a hero in the stories. It was Harkness who had wiped Wanda’s memory after her twins were reabsorbed by Mephisto to spare her the pain. It’s possible Agnes, like Agatha, is also working for Mephisto orchestrating the reality-warping madness that is consuming Wanda.
The role of Agnes is anything but neighborly in the birth and raising of Tommy and Billy. She is an omniscient and omnipresent person on the show, appearing whenever Wanda is in need of something.
It was Agnes who arranged dinner for Wanda’s surprise guests, introduced her to the ways of the Westview community (recalling past episodes is painful, I know), pacified the newborn twins, brought a kennel for their new puppy, among others.
But Agnes has had darker roles to play and was the messenger of pain on multiple occasions. When Sparky the dog died, it was Agnes who delivered the bad news to the twins. If Wanda had not stopped them, the twins would have aged themselves just to avoid feeling the pain (seemingly Agnes’ intention).
In a way, if Vision had not met Agnes on the outskirts of Westview he might not have tried to breach its boundaries. Vision’s voluntary exit from Westview not only sparked superpowers in Billy but also forced Wanda to expand the town’s boundaries.
If contributing to the twins’ growth is supporting Mephisto, then Agnes is proving to be nothing but an ally of the devil. But whether she also helps out Wanda like in the comics or not, remains to be seen.
3. If not Mephisto, Then Who?
Mephisto is likely to be the overarching villain of MCU Phase 4, just as Thanos was to the last three phases. So if WandaVision does not bring in Mephisto, then that means MCU has to have planned another supervillain. Who can it be? Will it be Wanda? Or someone else entirely new?
3.1 Why Wanda Could Still be the Main Villain
Wanda’s character has been nothing short of contradictory on WandaVision. We never know what Wanda is really thinking, even when talking to Vision. It is not that she is lying but she is not being entirely honest either. Like when she fibbed about Geraldine’s sudden disappearance to Vision or her persistent denial of his suspicions about Westview’s reality – she always has an ulterior motive behind her words.
So when she says she does not remember how the Hex was created or how the Westview anomaly began, we cannot be entirely sure if she’s saying the truth. It becomes very likely that Wanda is solely responsible for everything that is going on in Westview.
If we consider that Wanda is the real villain of the series, and of the MCU Phase 4 by extension, it won’t be too much of a stretch. After all, Wanda had come close to destroying Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. With all of WandaVision only ratcheting up Wanda’s capabilities, it is not ridiculous to think that Wanda may just turn into the most powerful super-being of MCU by end of the show.
Mephisto could still be present as Wanda’s secret fount of power but remain in the background while she runs the show.
4. About WandaVision
WandaVision is a Disney+ MCU miniseries created by Jac Schaeffer featuring the Marvel Comics characters Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch and Vision. Cast members include Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, Randall Park, Kat Dennings, Evan Peters, Debra Jo Rupp and Fred Melamed.
The series takes place three weeks after the events of Avengers: Endgame, Wanda Maximoff and Vision are living an idyllic suburban life in the town of Westview, New Jersey, trying to conceal their true natures. As their surroundings begin to move through different decades and they encounter various television tropes, the couple suspects that things are not as they seem.
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