By Monique
Kat Dennings, Teyonah Parris and Randall Park as Darcy Lewis, Monica Rambeau, and Jimmy Woo in WandaVision. (Photo credit: DIsney)
WandaVision, the first MCU series on Disney+, has captured the hearts and minds of viewers nationwide. But while we all came to see the zany, trippy romp through 20th-century sitcoms, we’ve realized the most unexpected gift WandaVision has given is the team-up between F.B.I. Det. Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) and S.W.O.R.D. Operative Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris).
Ever since Woo and Thor scientist Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) showed up in Episode 4, Twitter has been buzzing with fans wanting the three characters to be the stars of a S.H.I.E.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D. spinoff series. Fans cited the three characters’ chemistry, plus how fun they are to watch together on-screen.
Others also hope that Marvel sees Woo’s popularity with the fandom as the catalyst for creating an Atlas Foundation spinoff. For those unaware, the Atlas Foundation is a centuries-old secret society formed during the Mongol Empire and saturated the market with its various business ventures. Think Amazon and Jeff Bezos or Wal-Mart and the Walton family. The foundation probably used its capitalist front as a lucrative corporation to fund its various unethical experiments. According to marvel.fandom.com:
“The organization has conducted research and committed atrocities in science and magic, developed technologies to further their criminal agenda, and have been involved in money making criminal enterprises. Which have included creating genetically engineered dinosaurs, car-sized or tank-sized arthropods, human aberrations, and man-eating venus flytraps. Raising psychic children and creating rotting walking zombies. Animating and growing armies of clay soldiers. Manufacturing lethal joke products and putting subliminal messages in songs. Committing high seas piracy, using slave labor at mines, and smuggling weapons. Production and sales of lethal weaponry.”
According to Marvel lore, Woo is the heir to the Atlas Foundation’s throne, a fate his parents tried to spare him from by shielding the truth from him. But even though his job as an F.B.I. agent and later a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative would set him on the path of righteousness, he would eventually come up against his destiny. However, true to Woo’s spirit, he used the opportunity to take Atlas’s throne and remake it into Agents of Atlas, a society of covert do-gooders from the Asian diaspora.
Park himself has talked about what he’d want to see from a Marvel series about Atlas, telling The A.V. Club’s Marah Eakin that he’d like to be the central figure that holds the team together–indeed what Woo is for the Agents of Atlas in the comics.
“I’d like to be the head, the leader,” he said. “…Kind of like Professor X where I’m just the mind, and I just kinda sit and chill out a little bit but also dictate what everyone else is to do.
It would be fun to see Woo take the helm of Atlas in a spinoff, but until we get to that point, I’d be just as satisfied with seeing Woo, Rambeau, and Lewis taking on the weird cases S.W.O.R.D. throws their way. As many have said online, it’d be like Marvel’s version of The X-Files. Indeed, I think in this day and age, a lot of us would like something we can relax to and have fun with. A show with these three putting their brains together to solve the fantastic would be hilariously entertaining, especially if Woo keeps practicing his magic tricks.
Director and actor Stephen Ford is among those tweeting about wanting a spinoff featuring Woo, Rambeau, and Lewis. He surprised his followers by announcing he has started writing a pilot, to the delight of WandaVision fans everywhere.
Artist extraordinare BossLogic also gave his spin on a possible poster for the theoretical series.
With so much coalescing around this show idea, perhaps we will get our wish sooner than we think.
Julian 