Tomorrow, October 13, we return to the world of WandaVision, but it is important to remember that this family is not waiting for us in the house in Westview. Wanda is considered dead, Vision has recovered memories he still needs to recognize as his own, and Billy and Tommy have found ways to continue existing that their parents never even witnessed. VisionQuest, premiering on Disney+, returns to one of Marvel’s most interesting stories precisely because, beneath all the magic and technology, its question remains profoundly human: how do we keep living after losing what defined us?

The series is the third chapter of the trilogy that began with WandaVision and continued with Agatha All Along, with Paul Bettany returning as Vision, James Spader back as Ultron, and Terry Matalas, of Star Trek: Picard, as showrunner. But following the order of the shows is not enough to remember where we stand. Between them, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness took Wanda somewhere very different from where we left her, while Agatha brought back the children she believed she had lost. There is quite a lot to sort out before returning to this family, with spoilers, naturally, for everything that has already happened.

Before Wanda’s husband, there was the creation of Tony Stark’s

Bettany has been with Marvel since 2008’s Iron Man, although initially he was only the voice of J.A.R.V.I.S., the artificial intelligence that assisted Tony Stark. Vision did not acquire a body until Avengers: Age of Ultron, and his origin already contained a contradiction: he emerged from a project meant to protect humanity that ended up producing a threat to its existence.

Tony and Bruce Banner used the Mind Stone, which was inside Loki’s scepter, to develop the Ultron defense system. The artificial intelligence concluded that saving the planet required eliminating humans, an interpretation Tony certainly had not included in his planning. To obtain a body worthy of that ambition, Ultron turned to Helen Cho’s technology, combining synthetic tissue, vibranium and the Stone itself. The Avengers intercepted the creation before he completed the transfer of his consciousness, uploaded J.A.R.V.I.S. and, with Thor’s intervention, brought Vision to life.

It is important to remember this origin because Vision was never simply a program installed in a machine. He emerged from a combination of different elements and, upon gaining consciousness, made a choice that separated him from Ultron: to defend life. The film presented him as someone capable of reflecting on his own existence, recognizing his adversary’s pain and still understanding that he had to stop him. Ultron’s return in VisionQuest therefore revisits something more intimate than a familiar villain.

Wanda and Pietro were also involved in this story. The siblings hated Tony because they associated his company’s weapons with their parents’ deaths in Sokovia, and initially allied themselves with Ultron. When they discovered what he really intended to do, they switched sides. Pietro died in the battle, Wanda joined the Avengers and Vision eliminated the last physical manifestation of Ultron shown in the film. That victory brought the future lovers together, but it also added another loss to her life.

Love came before the family and could not protect them

Captain America: Civil War brought Wanda and Vision closer in a way that remains lovely to revisit. He tried to understand what she felt, prepared food for her and attempted to use logic to offer some comfort, even when logic was not enough. At the same time, the two were caught up in a conflict over the control of the Avengers, and Vision helped restrict her freedom at the team’s compound. Affection did not automatically put them on the same side.

By Infinity War, their relationship already existed, although it depended on discreet meetings. They were trying to work out how to build a life together when Thanos turned the Mind Stone into a death sentence. In Wakanda, Shuri tried to separate it from Vision’s structure without destroying him, but the battle interrupted the attempt. Wanda had to do what he asked of her: destroy the Stone and kill him to prevent Thanos from completing the Infinity Gauntlet.

What followed made the loss even crueler. Thanos reversed that moment using the Time Stone, brought Vision back only to tear the Stone from his forehead and killed him again in front of Wanda. She lost the man she loved twice, without her own sacrifice having prevented the catastrophe. Shortly afterward, she vanished in the Snap.

That is why Endgame did not resolve her story. Hulk brought back those eliminated by the Snap, and Wanda was among them. Vision had died before it, so he was not resurrected. The world moved forward five years, but she did not live through that interval. When she returned, she found a reality in which everyone had endured a long absence, while her loss remained recent. The Avengers’ victory did not give her back the life she wanted.

Westview was where Wanda tried to prevent another goodbye

WandaVision grew out of that difference between the end of a war and the end of grief. Wanda went to S.W.O.R.D. to recover Vision’s body and bury him, but found his remains dismantled, treated as technology that could be put to use. Hayward later presented a manipulated account of the visit to suggest that she had stolen the body. She had not. That distinction is fundamental to understanding who is returning now.

In Westview, Wanda arrived at the plot where the two had intended to build a house and grow old together. There, confronted with a future that could no longer happen, her chaos magic created another reality. The sitcoms she had known since childhood provided the language for this domestic life in which problems could be resolved before the credits, her husband would be home and the family would stay together.

The Vision in WandaVision was created within that fantasy. He was not the reanimated corpse, but an existence produced by Wanda’s magic, connected to her memory of her partner and to the Mind Stone. Billy and Tommy were also born in that space, the Hex, growing rapidly and manifesting powers: Billy had mental and magical abilities, while Tommy inherited, in a sense, the speed that recalled Pietro.

Happiness, however, depended on imprisoning an entire town. The residents were forced to play characters in Wanda’s story, unable to choose how to live. Vision began to notice their suffering and question her, because understanding someone’s pain does not require agreeing with everything that person does to avoid it. It was precisely this tension that made the series so good: the fantasy sheltered Wanda while harming those required to sustain it.

And it is worth clearing up a confusion Marvel deliberately encouraged: Evan Peters’ “Pietro” was Ralph Bohner, a resident controlled by Agatha. His presence did not confirm that Quicksilver from the X-Men films had crossed the multiverse. Agatha All Along revisited Ralph and the consequences of what he experienced in Westview.

Agatha did not create the problem, but recognized its scale

Agnes, the seemingly troublesome neighbor, was Agatha Harkness, an ancient witch interested in discovering how Wanda had managed to produce such powerful magic. She manipulated situations within Westview, but did not create that reality. Her astonishment came precisely from finding someone capable of doing all of this without fully understanding her own power.

It was Agatha who identified Wanda as the Scarlet Witch. WandaVision also revised the explanation that her powers had emerged solely from Hydra’s experiments: a magical ability had existed beforehand, amplified by the Mind Stone. In the final confrontation, Wanda learned by observing her rival, used runes to neutralize her and imprisoned her in the identity of Agnes.

Then she made the decision she had been postponing: she dismantled the Hex. She freed the residents, but had to say goodbye to Vision and the children who depended on that reality. The post-credits scene showed that the farewell had not ended her desire to find them again. In isolation, she studied the Darkhold and heard Billy and Tommy’s voices calling for help.

Which Vision survived?

While Wanda created her husband through magic, S.W.O.R.D. rebuilt the original body. Hayward managed to activate it using Wanda’s energy that remained in a drone sent into the Hex. This android, White Vision, was given the mission of eliminating Wanda and the other version of himself.

Their encounter produced one of the series’ best discussions, about the Ship of Theseus. If every part of an object is replaced, is it still the same object? And if the original parts are used to reconstruct it somewhere else? One Vision had the original body, but was disconnected from the emotional experience that had defined him. The other had the intimacy with Wanda, but could not exist outside the world she had created.

The Westview Vision unlocked the memories preserved within White Vision’s structure. White Vision recognized his identity and departed, but did not return to Wanda, did not take part in the farewell and did not demonstrate that recovering information meant automatically recovering love. He is the character who leads VisionQuest, while the Vision created within the Hex disappeared when she ended the spell.

The question, therefore, goes beyond whether he remembers his wife. Can he remember a life without feeling that it belongs to him? Can he recognize the love he once had without experiencing it again? WandaVision left that problem open, and it is there that the new series finds room to continue.

Doctor Strange took Wanda from loss to violence

In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the Darkhold had already corrupted Wanda. Her goal became recovering her children, and America Chavez, who could travel between universes, became the means of achieving that happiness. Wanda intended to take her power even if it cost the girl her life.

The multiverse offered a dangerous promise: in other realities, Billy and Tommy existed with another Wanda. Using dreamwalking, she projected her consciousness into that variant’s body to try to take her place. She was not simply recovering the boys from Westview. She wanted to become the mother of children who already had a mother, and violence seemed justifiable because it would be committed in the name of love.

On Earth-838, she confronted the Illuminati, including variants of Professor Xavier, Reed Richards, Captain Carter and other heroes. But it was the boys’ fear, rather than a more powerful adversary, that made her recognize what she had become. To those children, she was the threat, not the mother coming to save them.

Wanda destroyed the temple at Wundagore and the copies of the Darkhold across the multiverse, remaining beneath the collapsing structure. The film presented that act as her sacrifice, and Agatha All Along treats her as dead. We can discuss the possibilities of a return, naturally, but a new story still needs to establish it. White Vision did not participate in that search, and the children found in other universes are not the same ones Agatha brings back.

Billy returned, but the life he found already belonged to someone

The teenager played by Joe Locke in Agatha All Along helps free Agatha from the spell and accompanies her onto the Witches’ Road. His identity is hidden by a sigil placed by Lilia Calderu, which prevents witches from understanding who he is. The revelation connects everything to Westview: he is Billy Maximoff in William Kaplan’s body.

William was a teenager from Eastview who suffered a car accident as the Hex was disappearing. When he died, Billy’s consciousness found a way to continue existing in that body. The Kaplan parents received someone who looked like their son, but whose memory and identity had changed. William and Billy were not originally the same person, and this Billy did not come from an alternate reality.

The series therefore follows another existence that survived the end of the family Wanda created. Billy had to investigate what had happened to him before seeking out Agatha to find Tommy, manifesting throughout the story the powers associated with his heroic identity, Wiccan. His desire was not to immediately rebuild the house in Westview, but to locate the brother he could still sense existed.

The son repeated his mother’s ability to turn a wish into reality

The Witches’ Road brought the major twist of Agatha All Along: it had not originally existed as the legend promised. The song began with Agatha and her son Nicholas Scratch, and the witch later used it to lure women and steal their powers. Billy believed in that place so strongly that he made it real, without understanding that he was doing so.

The connection to Wanda is clear. Both produced worlds from personal references and desires, and other people paid for those creations. Sharon, Alice and Lilia died during the journey, while Jennifer survived and recovered her magic. The discovery forced Billy to realize that his search also had consequences for those accompanying him.

Rio Vidal, played by Aubrey Plaza, revealed herself to be Death. Billy had escaped her by entering another body, and Rio wanted to restore the balance. Agatha ended up dying to spare him, but returned as a ghost. Her body died; her presence continued. The series also clarified that Nicholas had not been traded for the Darkhold: Rio had granted Agatha some time with her son before taking him. Another mother marked by loss, although that did not erase the choices she made afterward.

Tommy is the connection still waiting to be completed

With Agatha’s help, Billy found Tommy’s consciousness and placed it in the body of a boy who was drowning. The scene included his fear that he was killing someone to save his brother, but did not establish that Billy caused the drowning. In the end, he and Agatha’s ghost set out to find Tommy: they had made his continued existence possible, but had not yet reunited with him.

The promotion for VisionQuest introduces Ruaridh Mollica as Tommy, bringing Vision’s search for his own identity closer to the story of Wanda’s children. We just need to be careful not to turn release order into an automatic chronology. Being the third series in the trilogy does not mean that all its events begin after the end of Agatha All Along. The new production will have to place these journeys and their possible intersections in context.

That convergence raises a particularly interesting question. Vision may discover a son while still trying to understand who he himself is. And Tommy may find a father whose body is recognizable, but whose experience of that family is not easy to recover. Neither arrives at this encounter exactly as he left Westview.

What about the Avengers, Tony Stark and the multiverse?

Ultron’s return revisits Tony Stark’s technological legacy. VisionQuest explores artificial intelligences within Vision’s mental world, including through human manifestations. J.A.R.V.I.S. contributed to his creation; F.R.I.D.A.Y. later took over duties assisting Tony; and Edwin Jarvis, the Stark family’s human butler played by James D’Arcy, inspired the program’s name. This web of relationships matters because the protagonist carries influences from other beings and needs to decide what to do with them.

There is also the possibility of bringing Wanda’s children closer to the Young Avengers. In the comics, Billy/Wiccan and Tommy/Speed belong to the group, while the MCU has already shown Kamala Khan approaching Kate Bishop to propose a team at the end of The Marvels. It is a possible direction, not confirmation that VisionQuest will bring them together.

Monica Rambeau offers another continuation of WandaVision. Her journeys through the Hex awakened her powers, and The Marvels left her trapped in an alternate reality, facing a version of her mother and Hank McCoy, Beast. Doctor Strange, meanwhile, ended with the problem of incursions, collisions between universes capable of destroying realities, and with Clea calling on him to deal with one. These are important connections for the Avengers’ future, but they do not explain White Vision’s existence: he was rebuilt within the same reality in which we knew him.

It is with this fragmented family that we return to the story. Wanda does not know that her children have found new bodies. Billy is searching for Tommy. Agatha accompanies them in a form that also defies death. And Vision needs to discover whether what he has recovered is enough to become someone capable of love again. WandaVision turned grief into a house that was difficult to leave. I hope VisionQuest can show us how these people might find one another again without having to rebuild the prison they once called happiness.