The Unexpected Villain Who Could Be Behind The Trouble In WandaVision
Contains spoilers for WandaVision episode 6
Though there are only three episodes left of Disney+'s WandaVision, fans are eagerly awaiting the series' theatrical MCU-level ending. After several episodes of a creepy slow burn, the sixth episode heightened the stakes with Wanda's (Elizabeth Olsen) reality-warping Hex expanding in size, threatening to consume everyone from S.W.O.R.D. stationed outside of Westview. It's only the start of the potentially catastrophic consequences of the Hex, and one important question lingers: Who is the real villain here?
There are countless theories about the show's big bad. So far, it seems that Wanda herself is the villain, having trapped everyone in her mind-controlled version of Westview. Yet she doesn't know how she got there in the first place, so it's entirely possible that there's someone holding her puppet strings, even as she visits the same fate on her neighbors.
The presence of the twins Billy and Tommy (Julian Hilliard and Jett Klyne) and some stray dialogue about devils suggest that Mephisto could be involved. However, considering the series is going to directly tie into Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, there's another Marvel villain that could be working behind the curtain: the eldritch god Shuma-Gorath.
In all its tentacled glory, Shuma-Gorath hops between dimensions
In the Marvel comics, Shuma-Gorath is an Old One, an ancient evil from another dimension that has a habit of hopping between planes in search of new worlds to rule (via Comic Vine). With its writhing green tentacles, giant purple eye, and near invincibility, there's no question that Shuma-Gorath would be a surprising addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but who is Shuma-Gorath often pitted against? That's right, Doctor Strange.
The multiverse is exactly where the MCU is headed if the Doctor Strange title is anything to go by, and Shuma-Gorath has a history of meddling across dimensions and appearing in different realities. Plus, like Wanda, Shuma-Gorath can warp reality and control minds. It doesn't even need to be on the same plane of existence as its victims to do so. In fact, Shuma-Gorath often sends other villains, like Nightmare, to do its bidding, so it's possible that WandaVision, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and even the untitled Spider-Man 3 could see several villains ultimately controlled by the eldritch Lord of Chaos.