'WandaVision': Did Marvel Merchandise Just Confirm Something Major About Monica Rambeau?
Yesterday, we wrote about how a plot detail from Marvel's upcoming series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was seemingly confirmed by a T-shirt. And now today, it appears that a new piece of WandaVision merchandise might hint at the future of one of that show's characters.
Warning: potential spoilers ahead.
In the pages of Marvel Comics, the character of Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) gains superpowers and has operated under a number of different superhero identities over the years: for a long time she was known as Captain Marvel, and some other names include Pulsar, Spectrum, and Photon (the latter of which was the military callsign of her mother, Captain Marvel character Maria Rambeau). Fans have long suspected that Monica would gain superpowers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well, and in last week's episode of WandaVision, we saw that Monica's X-rays came back blank after she was tested following her ejection from Wanda's "hex." The show quickly moved on to the next scene, but fans latched onto that mysterious sequence as potential proof that Monica may have gained powers either inside Westview or as she was being ejected through that hexagonal outer force field.
Well, a new WandaVision sweater on sale at the Disney store could hint at which persona she might adopt. The sweater has a S.W.O.R.D. logo emblazoned on it, but it's the black and white color scheme that caught the eye of some fans. ScreenRant suggests that the black and white design could be hinting at Monica's superhero identity of Spectrum, whose costume was also black and white. That sweater image looks an awful lot like what Monica is wearing in this WandaVision character poster; now that it's also a piece of merch, it feels less like a possible Marvel feint to the fans and more like a real costume that's actually going to appear in the show.
In the comics, Spectrum is able to phase through solid matter and certain energy fields depending on their wavelength – a power set that has precedent in the MCU. The character of Ghost, as seen in Ant-Man in the Wasp, was imbued with the same type of ability, and she eventually learned to harness and weaponize that power. So it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility to see that skillset materialize for Monica.
Elsewhere in the comics, Spectrum came "to the realization that she had transcended humanity with her power-up, having become an immortal being of light," and later sacrificed her powers in order to help save Vision, whose body was malfunctioning. This happened during a fight with Nyx, the Greek goddess of the night, a character who I would be will not be appearing on WandaVision. But I was fascinated by this excerpt of Spectrum's wiki page:
The end of this adventure took the heroes to the entry point to the House of Ideas, a plane of existence and the core of all of reality. Monica burned out most of her power helping Vision reach inside the House of Ideas, becoming the only hero capable to follow Nyx inside and stop her. Due to this exertion, Monica returned to her previous power levels, becoming human again.
It seems doubtful that WandaVision would introduce a version of the House of Ideas in this show (that may be biting off a bit more than one show can chew), but if the studio wanted to give Monica powers as a nod to the comics but is not interested in her being a new superhero on the board for the long term, I can envision a scenario in which she gets powers briefly and then has to sacrifice them in order to save either Wanda, Vision, or both from whatever is really happening inside of Westview. That could leave her as a normal human by the end of the series, likely stepping into a higher leadership role at S.W.O.R.D.
It's just a theory for now, but we'll see if any of this plays out as new episodes of WandaVision are released every Friday on Disney+.