WandaVision theory: did Infinity Stone radiation create Westview?

WandaVision suggests that Westview's witchcraft is a kind of radiation. That is not the first time radiation has been used to explain the madness of the MCU. Our big question here is how radiation from the Infinity Stones has affected the MCU, and what side effects it might still be setting up.

WandaVision (2021), the Disney+ series starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, is like many MCU titles in trying to ground its universe in science. We thought we were done with the Infinity Stones after Avengers: Endgame. But the radiation those stones emitted remains.

Bruce Banner said the Infinity Stone radiation was mostly gamma

In Avengers: Endgame, Bruce Banner says the radiation from the stones is "mostly gamma." He compares it to his own origins with gamma radiation, essentially saying he was made for this. That happened right as Banner snapped everyone back. As we learned in WandaVision, that moment traumatized a ton of hospital patients and workers, so not all good things came from it.

Banner's choice of words is interesting. He said mostly gamma, not 100 percent gamma. That would suggest there are other types of radiation emitted by those stones, and that is where WandaVision comes in.

What gamma radiation does in the real world

Gamma radiation is no fun. Compared with alpha and beta radiation, it is the most powerful. It is caused by weightless photons emitting from unstable atomic nuclei. Because those photons are an electromagnetic wave, they can pass through most materials, and they are usually stopped by a couple of feet of concrete.

If they contact human tissue directly, they destabilize your DNA. It's ugly. Watch Chernobyl on HBO and you'll see what we're talking about. It is so dangerous that even when the radioactive source is removed, the irradiated materials it came into contact with continue to emit their own radiation, as photons keep beaming out of those destabilized atoms.

Applying that logic to the MCU, even though the Infinity Stones may have been reduced to atoms in the present day of the timeline, their effect lingers.

WandaVision's CMBR ties Westview to the Big Bang and the Infinity Stones

Episode four of WandaVision made a point of describing the Westview anomaly as CMBR, cosmic microwave background radiation. CMBR is a real thing. It is a very faint electromagnetic radiation that exists everywhere, which is why it is called background radiation. It is considered proof that the Big Bang happened, which is why the show calls it a relic of the Big Bang. It is faint, it is always there, and it is what causes static on a TV screen.

Citing the Big Bang in episode four is a very big deal, because it suggests a historical connection to the Infinity Stones. In Avengers: Infinity War, Wong explained that the six stones were produced by the Big Bang itself, at the dawn of the universe, as six elemental crystals hurtling across the newborn universe.

WandaVision is also revisiting Wanda's origins with the Mind Stone, with a scene of the stone floating in front of her, so more answers seem to be coming there. By doing this, the MCU appears to be linking all of its anomalous freak occurrences to these six stones that appeared during the Big Bang.

The Mind Stone activated Wanda and Pietro Maximoff and helped create Vision

The Mind Stone activated the powers of the Maximoff twins, Wanda and Pietro. Is it the full source of their powers? No. They might have had an X gene, and might have been born with that mutant gene, but the Mind Stone is what woke it up. It is part of the formula: Infinity Stone radiation activated this gene in their DNA.

This happened shortly before the Mind Stone helped create Vision. It is one of the five components of Vision. What the Mind Stone brings is not necessarily the brain, because the operating system comes from JARVIS. But it fuses everything together, giving him a cosmic insight JARVIS didn't have. That introspective, philosophical personality, and that whole debate with Ultron at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, sounds to us like the Mind Stone talking.

Most important for WandaVision is the idea that the Mind Stone seems to be the link between Wanda and Vision. Both of them are superpowered by the same stone, and that might represent their shared heart or shared soul. The fact that it is playing such a big role in the show tells us that their connection comes from that Infinity Stone, which is a sad thing. If the gem gets destroyed, the connection gets destroyed, like those best friend lockets where each person keeps half.

The Space Stone gave Carol Danvers her powers and may be linked to the Bifrost

The Space Stone is what gave Carol Danvers her powers. In Captain Marvel, the lightspeed engine had radiation derived from the Space Stone, and when it erupted it washed over Carol, cooking her flesh but not her flight suit.

There are a number of inconsistencies with the Tesseract in that film. It can be contained by a Happy Days lunch box, yet it slips through the hull of an airplane in the first Captain America film. Science is a tricky thing.

The Space Stone was also instrumental in teleporting Red Skull to Vormir. Many people believe that since it has properties similar to the Bifrost, the Asgardian Bifrost may have had its technology derived from the Space Stone. Both look like a big beam of light that transports you to the heavens. We know Odin had ancient possession of the Tesseract before he was depicted bringing it to Norway, and in the children's book in the first Thor film, he walked across the rainbow bridge to do it. Is there some kind of historical connection there? We'll see.

The Power Stone and the Snap in Avengers: Infinity War

The Power Stone destroyed Ronan the Accuser in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film and nearly destroyed the Guardians. It made flesh look cooked, much like the Space Stone did to Carol.

The most famous use of Infinity Stone radiation is Thanos snapping his fingers, after Thor didn't aim for the head, dusting half of all life. That list of names keeps growing in fascinating ways. In the final minutes of Avengers: Infinity War, we saw Wanda Maximoff, Peter Parker, Doctor Strange, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, Peter Quill, Groot, Drax, Mantis and T'Challa dusted, followed by Nick Fury and Maria Hill.

We also found out about Shuri, and we know about Erik Selvig and Jane Foster, whom we saw in the post credits. Then there's the Wasp, Hank Pym, Hope van Dyne and Janet van Dyne. From the context of the Spider-Man films we could tell MJ, Ned and Flash were dusted, and we think Aunt May too. We have been told through the script that Jane Foster and Wong were included in the snap victims, and we have been led to believe Sharon Carter and Secretary Ross were dusted as well. Hawkeye's family was shown at the beginning of Endgame. As of WandaVision, Monica Rambeau was dusted too, causing her to miss her mother's death, which is very sad.

How Thanos, Hulk and Tony Stark used the stones in Avengers: Endgame

Shortly after the Snap, Thanos used the six stones again to atomize the stones themselves. That released a shockwave of radiation that Rocket Raccoon's sensors picked up. It showed us that this shockwave spilled across the universe, which makes us wonder whether it does other things.

Hulk brought back everyone who had been dusted, but that radiation badly injured his arm. It also freaked out Monica Rambeau and millions of people around the world, and at Midtown High it created a blood feud between the basketball team and the marching band.

Finally, Tony Stark used the six stones combined to wipe out Thanos and his forces. That killed Thanos, Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, all remaining Outriders and Leviathans. That radiation also fatally injured Tony Stark himself. Those are the uses of the radiation we know about. But if this radiation persists, there are other possible side effects that are not yet confirmed but appear to be on the horizon.

The Westview anomaly and a possible Monica Rambeau Spectrum origin

The first is the Westview anomaly in WandaVision. Darcy Lewis confirmed that the energy field is composed of CMBR dating back to the Big Bang, and that the radiation is probably coming from Wanda's own sorcery, which was derived from a cosmic Infinity Stone.

At the halfway point of the season, we didn't yet know where that would lead. It seems that in the right set of circumstances, other anomalies like this could start happening. In this case it is a perfect storm: Wanda Maximoff, heartbroken over losing Vision, trying to access her own inner witchcraft. Combine that with other people whose powers are derived from Infinity Stones, and with that radiation lingering all over the universe, and similar things could follow.

Then there is Monica Rambeau. The conviction in our discussion was a pretty certain one: this looks like a Spectrum origin story. When Monica was ejected from Westview, Wanda's red glow continued to snake around and cover her body. Was that a Carol Danvers style Infinity Stone radiation moment, a level up for Monica?

Could WandaVision bring mutants into the MCU?

The side effect most people ask about is mutants. If Wanda's energy field keeps growing, could it warp the anatomies of others across the universe, or rewrite reality to bring mutants into existence, like a reverse House of M? A very Marvel Studios thing to do is take something from the comics and reverse it. That is enough of a nod to the comics without being completely loyal to them, and it frees the studio to do whatever it wants with the characters.

The thinking in our discussion was that it is going to have to be something like that: a big event that creates a lot of mutants. That would explain why Wolverine didn't help defeat Thanos, unless he did in some other universe. Bringing mutants in from another universe was raised as the other appealing theory.

There is also a possibility tied to Chris Evans. If he plays a younger version of Captain America in more films, it would probably be set in the alternate timeline where he lived out his life. That could revive rejected concepts from the first Captain America film, which would have put James Howlett in a World War II POW camp, possibly with Magneto there too. Then there is the less exciting option: mutants were always there and the camera simply wasn't pointed at them, with Logan on some other side mission during World War II.

Missing astronauts could point to the Fantastic Four

Another possible radioactive side effect is the Fantastic Four. In episode four of WandaVision, Hayward said half of his astronaut pilots disappeared in the Blip, and many of the others lost their nerve to return. It sounds like maybe not all of them reported back.

If astronauts went missing in space at the time of the Snap, that is a very big deal. Where did they go, and how did they come back safely? It sounds like it could be the origin story of the Fantastic Four and Victor von Doom. Maybe through that passage they crossed through the Negative Zone. One theory raised in our discussion is that the Quantum Realm will be retconned as the Negative Zone. Either way, when you hear about missing astronauts in the Marvel world, the Fantastic Four come to mind.

Cancer as a side effect: Maria Rambeau, Jane Foster and the Celestials

A bummer of a possible side effect is the one tied to all radiation: cancer. Monica's mother Maria was being treated for cancer at the time of the Snap. Despite her tests coming back clear, her doctor said the cancer returned a few years later. Cancer often does come back, but could lingering radioactive gamma rays around the universe be what gave Maria Rambeau her cancer when it returned?

Cancer was also set to come up with Jane Foster. It was confirmed that Thor: Love and Thunder was going to feature the Jane Foster cancer patient story arc. Where did that cancer come from? Are there going to be many stories of MCU characters getting cancer, and are they all going to be connected? We hope not.

This isn't the only other time it has happened. Meredith Quill died of brain cancer that Ego gave her. There might be a link between the Infinity Stones and the Celestials. Peter Quill was able to wield an Infinity Stone, which was a big mystery at the end of the first Guardians of the Galaxy, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 revealed it was because he is the son of a Celestial. So do the Celestials have a cosmic, Infinity Stone radioactive coating? Is that what allowed Ego to beam cancer across galaxies into someone's head, and is it all coming from the same stone radiation?

As we wave our Geiger counter over the MCU, WandaVision is very clearly reconnecting with the traumatic events of Avengers: Endgame, specifically the trauma of the Avengers reversing the Snap. It tells us the MCU considers Endgame a crucial watershed moment that it isn't done with, one it is going to use to set up all kinds of bizarre side effects.