If you kept a close eye on your screen through WandaVision's first and second episodes,
you would have noticed some suspicious details that tie into one another.
No, no — not that whatever Mr. Hart was choking on looked like a chocolate-covered strawberry,
or that the actress who plays Mrs. Forman from That '70s Show hasn't aged in the last 20 years.
We're talking about the fact that, in a handful of instances across WandaVision episodes 1 and 2,
a very specific piece of iconography poked its head up: a hilted blade in a circle.
Certified Marvel nerds will have recognized this emblem: It's the logo for S.W.O.R.D.,
the cloak-and-dagger sister organization to S.H.I.E.L.D.
As WandaVision carried on into its third episode,
S.W.O.R.D.'s presence continued to loom large — though it was unclear
how exactly the organization was involved in Wanda and Vision's strange suburban world.
In WandaVision episode 4,
the curtain didn't just get pulled back — it was practically torn to shreds.
The episode reveals that Monica Rambeau, who had been masquerading inside
Westview as Wanda and Vision's neighbor Geraldine, works as a S.W.O.R.D. agent.
"I actually don't know what I'm doing here." "I'm starting to feel that way myself."
She was one of the billions of people who were erased in "the Blip" that happened in Avengers:
Infinity War, and her first mission back at S.W.O.R.D. is to partner with Agent Jimmy Woo
to investigate Westview, New Jersey ... the site of a missing persons case.
S.W.O.R.D. swiftly moves into action by constructing an observation base outside Westview,
tasking astrophysicist Dr. Darcy Lewis and Jimmy with monitoring
the going-ons of the town and sending Monica in as an agent of infiltration.
Despite Darcy and Jimmy's best efforts, they can't get in contact with Wanda via radio.
Things go from confusing to alarming when Monica, presumably trying to get Wanda to
realize she's living in a fake reality, brings up the fact that Wanda's twin brother Pietro died at
the hands of Ultron. Wanda sends Monica flying out of Westview, and when she opens her eyes,
surrounded by S.W.O.R.D. agents, Monica tells them that this is all Wanda's doing.
While S.W.O.R.D. might not boast the decades' worth of brand recognition that you get from
Nick Fury's favorite nine-to-five, the organization is a natural fit for film
and television. In fact, S.W.O.R.D.'s comic book origins are rooted in the same source
that brought the Avengers together on the big screen for the first time. Even more excitingly,
their addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe could foreshadow the reintroduction
of one of Marvel's most beloved IPs — but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
The story of Marvel's S.W.O.R.D. organization goes back to 2004 — several years before Joss Whedon
wrote and directed The Avengers. At the time, Whedon was the lead writer on Astonishing X-Men,
a reimagining of the mutant team that shifted them away from the black leather paramilitary
vibe they'd been rocking during the Grant Morrison years and back to the world of more
colorful superheroics. Spandex was back in style, Whedon's trademark quips riddled the page, and the
occupants of the Xavier School were back to their favorite pastime: getting harassed by aliens.
That's where S.W.O.R.D. came in. Originally standing for "Sentient World Observation and
Response Department" (that'll be important in a minute), the organization was, in practice,
S.H.I.E.L.D. in space. The multi-species organization operated out of a weaponized
satellite orbiting planet Earth, and did pretty much what it says on the bottle:
They observed sentient worlds and, when necessary, responded to them. Basically, any threat to Earth
that you couldn't reach with a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier fell under S.W.O.R.D.'s purview.
So, there are a couple of reasons that S.W.O.R.D.'s inclusion in WandaVision
should be making nerds' hearts race. The first is Marvel Studios' recent reveal that
"S.W.O.R.D." stands for something distinctly different in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The second is the laundry list of specific
characters generally associated with the organization -- specifically, the X-Men.
Having debuted in an X-Men title and worked alongside Marvel's Merry Mutants so frequently,
S.W.O.R.D. is inexorably linked to the team.
In the Marvel comics, a half-alien, half-mutant named Abigail Brand is the person who runs
S.W.O.R.D., and the organization has included familiar names like Beast, Cable, and Magneto.
All of this could tie pretty neatly into that name change we mentioned
earlier. Prior to the series' release on Disney+, some fans noticed that a
WandaVision-themed digital trading card set included an interesting detail: apparently,
the "W" in "S.W.O.R.D." stands for "Weapon" in the MCU -- not "World."
WandaVision episode 4 confirmed this name change,
when text on the screen tells viewers they're now watching action taking
place at the headquarters of the Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Department.
This implies that the group's wheelhouse is now one of two things:
either those cartoon bullets from Who Framed Roger Rabbit,
or folks with inherent abilities that make them a perceived threat. Gosh, that sounds like mutants.
Longtime fans will know that Wanda Maximoff and her brother Pietro had their origin stories — how
do we put this? — lovingly enhanced in order to bring them into the MCU.
"We have enhanced in the field."
Originally, the Maximoff twins were a pair of mutants. While everything
in the Marvel universe with an "X"-adjacent story was legally out of bounds for Disney,
which owns Marvel, the siblings' association with the Avengers made them fair game,
albeit with all that mutation business scrubbed off.
Now that the House of Mouse has acquired nearly all Fox properties,
mutants are back on the menu. Could a government department dedicated to dealing with living
weapons add up to the long-awaited introduction of the X-Men to the MCU?
We don't Wanda speak out of turn -- but maybe.
"What the s---? That's the coolest thing ever."
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