Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness saw Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch scouring the multiverse for her lost children, but one notable character remained absent from Wanda’s other lives.
The Doctor Strange sequel picks up where the Disney Plus series WandaVision left off, with Wanda’s spell over the town of Westview broken and the children she magically conjured into being for herself and Vision now lost. When Wanda relinquished her hold over Westview, not only did her children cease to exist but so too did her version of Vision. While the original Vision has now been rebuilt and had his memories returned by the Wanda’s Westview Vision, neither version of the character was seen – in the MCU’s 616 universe or any other universe – in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
While Wanda claimed that her children existed in all other universes in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, suggesting she had never ended her manipulation of Westview in those realities, nothing was said of Paul Bettany’s Vision. Variants of Wanda’s illusory version of the character might have been expected to feature in universes where Wanda was seen with her children, but he did not appear in the film at all. Speaking to Collider, Elizabeth Olsen recently talked about why the decision was made not to feature Vision in the film:
“There’s a whole list of things, like my brother, my parents. I think the main reason when we would talk about if there is this multiverse, and in the version of the universe this woman wasn’t with Vision. We liked having that be a mystery. For some reason he’s not in her world. I always thought of her as more of a domestic Wanda. They got divorced. They’re separated. She’s not wearing a wedding band for a reason. Like those kinds of things. We liked the idea of her being on her own. The idea really is that the most important thing once you become a mother in the world are your children, and that’s why.”
It sounds like the decision to exclude Vision from the film developed out of the idea that Wanda’s focus would be primarily on her children, who would be more important to her than anything else. From a story standpoint, this was probably a wise move, as introducing Vision into the mix would have diluted the film’s focus on Wanda’s grief as a mother and the bond between a mother and her children (even when those children were created with dark magic). Interestingly, the suggestion that Wanda may have divorced Vision or never have been with him in other universes could suggest that without Vision’s influence and moral support, as seen in WandaVision, Wanda would never have released the town of Westview from her control.
Here is the synopsis for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:
The MCU unlocks the Multiverse and pushes its boundaries further than ever before. Journey into the unknown with Doctor Strange, who, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary.
Directed by Sam Raimi from a script written by Michael Waldron, the film stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, with Michael Stuhlbarg, Rachel McAdams, and Patrick Stewart.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is in theaters now. Stay tuned for all the latest news on the MCU film and Elizabeth Olsen’s Marvel future, and be sure to subscribe to Heroic Hollywood’s YouTube channel for more original video content.
Source: Collider
