The hunt for the Grim Reaper has brought Wanda Maximoff and Vision face-to-face with the villain’s eldritch patron, Gargantos! The time has come for the grand finale of The Vision & The Scarlet Witch. Issue #5 finds Steve Orlando, Jacopo Camagni, Ruth Redmond, VC’s Travis Lanham, and Alanna Smith teamed together for this last installment. There’s a lot to love in this book, but the ending seems to delete one co-lead and turn the whole journey into a bonus entry from Orlando’s previous Scarlet Witch solo.
As for the beginning of the issue, the cold open picks up right where #4 left off. The Reaper hoped to trap our heroes in Graverealm through a series of tests and traumas, but Wanda and Vizh instead overcame. His soul-harvesting nether-realm ruined, Grim Reaper now knows he cannot cover his debt to Gargantos and will soon be devoured. One could argue that the punishment fits the crime, but the sorceress-synthezoid duo aren’t satisfied with this outcome. Instead, Scarlet Witch and Vision want to bring the Reaper back to Earth to answer for all the people he lured to their deaths in Graverealm. Naturally, battle ensues shortly after.
Vision and Wanda are not eager to trade blows with Gargantos per se, but facing him in the Outer Dark means they can let loose in a way they couldn’t if any of the Great Old Ones came to Earth. Dead planetoids are repelled as the Scarlet Witch uses gravity shields. The power of a White Dwarf star condensed into a single beam from the Vision stuns Gargantos like a flash grenade. Their two-pronged attack allows Vision to rescue the Grim Reaper from the clutches of digestion, and Wanda uses this moment as a distraction, hacking off one of Gargantos’ mighty limbs with her Hex Pike. It’s a fun fight, and I appreciate the careful balance at play in the scene. To maintain our suspension of disbelief, Gargantos has to feel like a credible final boss without annihilating any chance of the heroes’ victory. In the same way, Vision and the Scarlet Witch have to be legible as having a fighting chance, but not come across as so powerful that the Reaper’s patron never posed a threat. Orlando manages this balance smartly through the setting, the evolving powers of Vision’s White Form, and by having even greater predators of the Outer Dark seize the chance to finish off Gargantos.
The plot shifts following the fight with Gargantos. Unceremoniously, the grand creatures that ended the conflict recede. Remanded to her custody, Wanda pockets the Grim Reaper until his fate is settled on Earth. Unexpectedly, Vision and the Scarlet Witch find themselves alone together in a space they can shape to their liking with more time than they could ever want. What follows is the answer to the question that’s been on our minds since the series was announced: “Are Wanda and Vision getting back together?” Their victory high becomes the breaking point of the romantic tension that has lingered throughout these five issues as the two kiss.
This is what I wanna see from Red Band books, Marvel!
Credit: Marvel Comics
One kiss leads to many more. A leftover planetoid is remade into a paradise for two, and our heroes build a life together filled with laughter, wonder, and a healthy dose of passionate sex. Despite the scenery, it’s a far more normal life than either have ever had as the Vision and the Scarlet Witch. Their seclusion isn’t just an idyllic fantasy either. They fight, they grow old, but they never give up on one another. At the end of this life well-lived, both Wanda and Vizh return to Earth where no time has passed and the two are restored to the ages they left as. The final pages read like we’ve just watched Futurama‘s bittersweet “Meanwhile”, when a more accurate comparison is The Magicians‘ ill-fated “A Life in the Day”. This is because Vision, as we have known him throughout this series, ceases to exist, and we are told that his return would only bear fatal consequences.
No, your eyes are not deceiving you. After spending five issues reflecting on what the Vision and the Scarlet Witch mean to one another, spanning their history, romance, parenthood and separation, Vision’s half of that journey is erased. The synthezoid claims that the emotional volatility and expanded powers that came with his re-manifested White Form are too much for him to handle. If only he knew someone with experience having extreme powers alongside strong emotions who could help him adjust to this development. Instead he asks Wanda to return him to normal mode. She’s willing to help, but warns him that his typical model is not equipped to process what he’s experienced as White Vision, and that even the memory of this period would likely kill him. Vision still wishes to undergo this procedure, though he compromises with Wanda to do so at the very end of their time together in the Outer Dark. And so all of Vision’s revelations, personal growth, new form, and evolved powers are wiped from the board. From his perspective, he went to check on Wanda in issue #1, and then went to sleep for three days until Viv returned home.
Camagni and Redmond handle the issue’s art, with Dauterman illustrating the cover. Dauterman kills it on the cover, as he has for years on Scarlet Witch-led titles. Inside, Camagni and Redmond are putting on a showstopper. Battle with an eldritch entity more vast than planets, a steamy waterfall sex scene, and tender moments of domesticity is a tall order for a single issue, and this ink and color duo complete the task quite well. Head-scratching plot elements aside, the art alone is worth the price of admission.
The Vision & The Scarlet Witch #5 is an odd bird. Simultaneously it wraps up the limited series while also morphing issues #1-5 into an unofficial Scarlet Witch #11-15. The action and art are great, but the character management of Vision is sure to leave fans confused at best, and infuriated at worst. Leaving him as it started, the book is unconcerned with what lays ahead for Vision. On the other hand, the final panel takes care to promise more soon for the Scarlet Witch. She has no newly announced titles at the moment, but a new Sorcerer Supreme is about to be appointed…
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