WandaVision Writer Debunks Popular Fantastic Four Theory

WandaVision viewers got a little bit too excited after watching Episode 4, thinking the seeds had been planted for Marvel's First Family to be introduced right on the heels of an official Fantastic Four movie announcement. The episode did two things to set up this hype. First, it saw SWORD's acting director Tyler Heyward explain to Monica Rambeau that the space program had seen half of its people erased in the blip and the remaining half losing their nerve. Then, Darcy revealed she was finding strong traces of CMBR outside of Westview. Looking deeply into those details, Marvel fans can see ties to the Fantastic Four's origin, but WandaVision's head writer Jac Schaefferadmits this was never intention.

The CMBR (which stands for cosmic microwave background radiation) was enough to set Marvel fans down a speculative rabbit hole about the Fantastic Four heroes getting their powers. As it was explained, CMBR waves were present when the universe exploded with the Big Bang. That same explosion created the Infinity Stones, of which the Mind Stone powered the Vision's synthezoid body and was used to unlock Wanda Maxinoff's power. This would seem to explain why the CMBR waves are emitting from Westview and could be the same waves which give Johnny Storm, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, and Ben Grimm their powers.

Then, there's the thought of missing astronauts. As the Marvel Comics story goes, the Fantastic Four got their powers when they used a stolen space ship to essentially get lost in space before stumbling upon a situation which granted them their powers. Could there have been astronauts out in space who were thought to be lost causes, only to return during the blip and make this their story? Certainly possible but not any sort of intentional plan by WandaVision's consideration.

"I have to tell you that thee CMBR, it was a coincidence," Schaeffer said. "When I was putting my pitch together, I was trying to figure like, 'What's the science behind a broadcast? How does that even work?' When I was in college, I had a friend who his thesis was building this machine that was about measuring CMBR. So, I've always been really fascinateed by relic radiation and the idea of also how television signals in the air work. I'm gonna embarrass myself if I talk about it...I've never reeally understood how TV signals work. I did a little bit off research, we had this expert and she helped me. CMBR was my own original pitch, separate from anything else as my own fascination. The thing about how radio waves are out deep in the universe, they just went out there and they just keep going out there. All of that seems like really fertile ground for a show about two Avengers in a sitcom."

To be fair, it is not fully debunked and might be an expert level diversion from acknowledging that Heyward's comments about SWORD's space program could actually be an indication of the Fantastic Four forming. Then again, that might just be the wishful thinking prompting such optimism.

Are you hoping to see Marvel Studios use this opportunity as a happy accident (or secret plan) to tell the Fantastic Four's origin story? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram!

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