“But a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts.”
Vision, to Ultron, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Updated July 2026 - This article has been substantially expanded following new VisionQuest announcements and the Wanda Maximoff speculation coming out of San Diego Comic-Con 2026.
When people think about Wanda Maximoff and Vision as a couple, they usually think about WandaVision.
That makes sense. The Disney+ series gave their relationship room to breathe in a way the Avengers movies never could. It showed a version of their domestic life, their grief, and then the increasingly desperate lengths Wanda would go to avoid losing Vision again.
But their connection did not begin with a quiet conversation in Captain America: Civil War or their hidden life together before Infinity War.
It began before Vision was even alive.
I am looking forward to revisiting this several year old piece with VisionQuest officially releasing on October 14, 2026. The return of James Spader’s Ultron has me literally giddy. According to Marvel, this is to be the conclusion of the Disney+ trilogy that started with WandaVision and grew through Agatha All Along.
Wanda Meets Vision Before Vision “Is”
In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff initially join forces with Ultron. They share his hatred of Tony Stark and believe he is offering them an opportunity to punish him and the Avengers.
That alliance collapses once Wanda looks inside the vibranium artificial body Ultron is creating for himself.
That body eventually becomes Vision, but at this point it is still the unfinished vessel for Ultron, containing the Mind Stone. Wanda reaches toward it and realizes that she can sense something Ultron doesn’t.
“I can read him,” she says. “He is dreaming.”
It is brief, but that moment establishes something pretty important. Wanda can sense a mind, or perhaps the beginning pieces of one, pieces of the Mind Stone, JARVIS, Tony, Bruce Banner, all inside the body before Vision fully exists.
Is she reading Ultron as he uploads himself? Is she connecting through the Mind Stone? Or, is she somehow sensing part of what will eventually become Vision?
The movie never stops to explain it. But the fact that Wanda can reach into that body before Vision opens his eyes makes their eventual connection feel much less accidental.
This also allows her to discover Ultron’s true intentions. She sees that he does not simply want to defeat the Avengers or punish Tony Stark. In order to protect the world, he intends to destroy humanity.
That revelation causes Wanda and Pietro to turn against him.
In other words, Wanda’s first contact with Vision does more than foreshadow their eventual relationship. It changes the direction of everything.
The Mind Stone Connects Them
The Mind Stone is the most obvious link between Wanda and Vision.
HYDRA used Loki’s scepter while experimenting on Wanda and Pietro. Whether they knew it or not, that scepter possessed the Mind Stone. Through those experiments, Wanda’s abilities were – if not awakened – amplified several times over.
Ultron later removes the stone from the scepter to place it in the synthetic body created for him. When the Avengers recover that body, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and ultimately Thor complete the process that brings Vision to life.
Both Wanda and Vision are therefore changed by the same Infinity Stone.
That does not mean the Mind Stone magically forces them to fall in love. Their relationship develops through their shared experiences, their choices, and the comfort they find in each other.
The stone connects them in a way they can’t connect to anyone else, in a way that no else could understand.
Vision is a synthetic being trying to understand humanity. Wanda is a human being whose powers separate her from humanity. Both are feared for what they can do, and both spend much of their MCU story wondering whether they are dangerous simply because they exist.
The Mind Stone brings them together, but that shared isolation helps them understand one another.
Ultron’s decision to use the Mind Stone also makes sense. His own consciousness originated in part from Tony and Bruce’s experiments with the intelligence they discovered inside the scepter.
Vision Sees Wanda Differently
The foundation of that connection established in Age of Ultron continues in Civil War.
Wanda is struggling with the consequences of her actions in Lagos. The public sees her as a threat, and even some of the Avengers treat her as a problem that needs to be contained.
Vision understands the fear surrounding her, but he never treats Wanda like a monster. At the same time, he does not condescend either. He manages to balance honesty and compassion.
Their conversations are sometimes awkward, partly because Vision is still learning how people work. Even so, he offers her patience and empathy at a time when she desperately needs both.
That makes their relationship feel less abrupt than it might on a casual rewatch. The movies do not spend much time developing the romance onscreen, but the pieces are there.
Why This Scene Matters After WandaVision
WandaVision gives additional meaning and context to Wanda’s first encounter with Vision.
The series shows that Wanda already had a connection to the Mind Stone before the events of Age of Ultron. It also explores how Vision became the person with whom she felt safest—and why losing him caused so much damage.
Looking back, the unfinished body in Ultron’s laboratory represents several things at once:
- It is a weapon of destruction to Ultron
- It is the suit of armor around the world to Tony and the Avengers
- But to Wanda, it is the first sign of someone who will eventually understand her better than anyone else.
She does not know his name. He has not spoken to her. He has not even opened his eyes.
But somehow, she can already hear him dreaming.
A Beautiful and Tragic Problem
Wanda and Vision’s MCU story is beautiful because it never lasts for long.
They find each other, lose each other, and attempt to rebuild what was taken from them. The Mind Stone may have created the original connection, but it did not make the choices that came afterward.
They chose to trust each other. They chose to find comfort in someone else who felt alone.
And that makes Wanda’s first contact with Vision in Age of Ultron more than a piece of retroactive foreshadowing. It is the beginning of one of the MCU’s most unusual—and most tragic—relationships.
Is Wanda Maximoff Really Dead?
Wanda’s story may not be over.
At the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Wanda destroys the copies of the Darkhold and brings Mount Wundagore down around herself. The movie presents the moment as a noble sacrifice, but it never shows her body. (And as we know, if there’s not a body shown, anything is possible!) A burst of red energy can also be seen as the mountain collapses. That burst seems unrelated to the energy she used to collapse the mountain. It’s an ambiguous enough moment to have lots of fans speculating and thoughtfully stroking their chins.
Outside of VisionQuest, is Elizabeth Olsen returning as the Scarlet Witch? Could she be in Avengers: Doomsday? Wanda is not included in Marvel’s officially announced cast, and Olsen has publicly said that she has not been told she is appearing in either Doomsday or Secret Wars. Marvel has also kept major appearances secret before, however, so her absence from the cast list has not stopped the rumors.
San Diego Comic Con Speculation
The speculation intensified after Marvel displayed a mysterious “Latverian Witch” connected to Doomsday at San Diego Comic-Con 2026. The colors of the robes changed several times – purple, green, orange and red. Because Latveria is Doctor Doom’s homeland, and because Wanda and Doom have a complicated history in Marvel Comics, I – and many others – wonder if the costume could point toward Wanda’s return (along with maybe Agatha or Sylvie? Clea, Doom’s mother, other witches from Agatha’s coven? Aubrey Plaza as Death?) or a storyline inspired by Avengers: The Children’s Crusade. Or, perhaps hinting at something further down the road in Secret Wars?
Whether Wanda survived the collapse of Mt. Wundagore, somehow returns through the multiverse, or truly is absent, the MCU has – wisely – deliberately left room for the Scarlet Witch to reappear. Given her multitude of connections to Vision, the Mind Stone, Doctor Doom, the collapsing multiverse, and many more teased storylines (Ghost Rider could mean Midnight Sons, Mephisto … so many choices!) it would be surprising if Multiverse of Madness truly represented the last pages of her MCU story.