Good Grief
By TIM DAVID HARVEY
(WARNING: Contains MAJOR spoilers for both 'WandaVision' and 'Wonder Woman 1984')
Beyond capes for our fear, superheroes have longed saved us in solace. No matter how many Spielberg's or Scorsese's try to dismiss and diminish this great genre in the movies...they probably read a coral of comics as kids. From Peter Parker's alter-ego Spider-Man showing bullied kids that they could rise above the abuse like the webs weaved above the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan and become heroes themselves in a flash. Or the real world reflection of the war and peace protest of civil rights in Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. with the X-Men's Magneto (no, he's not in 'WandaVision' sorry. Despite which ever fan was infecting your YouTube look away now real with 'Fietro' fake made trailers) and Professor X. We can all be heroes, from Captain Marvel to the Black Panther and his rich kingdom of Wakanda...forever like Chadwick. Even billionaires Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark showed us the compelling comparisons of an embarrassment of riches, but the struggles of loneliness in bed with the bottle or something beautiful.
Twin titans Marvel and DC have duplicated these definitions like their definitive characters crossing over in their collective visions over the decades of their age too. Like Batman and Iron Man both being expensive suits for playboy philanthropists whose power is being rich. Or superheroes that could foot-race beat Superman in a Quicksilver 100 years dash Flash. Whether Ezra Miller, Aaron Taylor-Johnson...or Evan Peters (whoever the hell he really is). Heck, even the wartime to modern day ages of the stars and stripes of Captain America and Wonder Woman all the way to 1985 like George Orwell feature a war hero who seemingly dies in the skies only to be resurrected decades later without a scratch or wrinkle on his 100 year self like he was taken off ice. Oh and Steve Rogers and Steve TREVOR are both played by a guy called Chris. The difference? We couldn't even tell you in all that handsomeness. But that's the point...no, not that they're GQ tailor made Esquire, but the stories of their fellow in-house comic empires share similar strands.
2020 was the worst year on record. With the coronavirus pandemic like an apocalypse keeping us on house arrest prison in our own homes, taking many lives and livelihoods. We all needed a hero...or at the very least something good to watch on TV. And from a Disney Plus to HBO taking it to the Max with Warner Bros, Marvel and DC gave us both with 'WandaVision' and 'Wonder Woman 1984' in this age of the power of woman. Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff, AKA the Scarlet Witch and Gal Gadot's Diana Prince AKA Wonder Woman. Both dealing with loneliness and isolation from the Pedro Pascal in Gordon Gekko slick lizard suit form 'Wall Street' 80's, to every white-picket age of great American sitcoms from the black and white 50's to all your fourth wall modern families gathered around the table, or on the sofa like 'The Simpsons' with a remote. But don't adjust your sets...this isn't a couch gag. It's a therapists chair for our darkest desires and strains of our minds switching like channels between our own made-up realities in escapism, to what's real right in front of us. Whichever way we choose to accept. They didn't even intend to be this real world influential either in all their epic escapism. Both were made before the planets pandemic. Coincidence or in the stars meant?
Wanda and the Wonder of Prince have more to worry about then running out of things to watch on Netflix however. They have both lost the love of their lives. Diana, Trevor played by 'Star Trek's' Captain Kirk himself, Chris Pine and Maximoff her Vision. The android hybrid of Ultron and Tony Stark's mind and Iron Man J.A.R.V.I.S. played by the 'Legion' of Paul Bettany. Trevor sacrificed himself so Diana had more time, whilst Wanda was forced to kill Vis to save the world, but then had to watch him die twice as Thanos turned back time with the stones he had collected and did it once more himself. Heavy! So to deal with all this punctuated pain what did these heroes do in perplexion? They brought them right back...again. Prince wishing on a stone for her Captain Steve back because as Pascal's character (a far cry from 'The Mandalorian') says, "life is good, but it could be better", as Trevor played invasion of the body snatchers with a local man with a silver Casio. Whilst Wanda after initially being believed to have swiped Vision's spare parts from the labs of a S.W.O.R.D. facility actually manifested another Vision with all his memory made our of blood, wires, bone and her love into this reality. Albeit one where she kept a whole mind controlled town hostage, locked down under a quarantined bubble that seemingly looked as safe as sitcom suburbia, but inspired something a little more insidious.
So both superhero icons in their storied lore dealt with their heartbreak in the same, but also somewhat contrasting ways. Both mourned something they lost moons ago by bringing it back to whatever reality they still believe existed as they tried to hold on to what their heart kept locked away. Both lost something they couldn't afford to be without and trying to force their way and lives against nature and the order of things came at a great cost to not only themselves and their confused and curious lost loves, but the world's built and in turn destroyed around them. So in this lesson of love and life both had to let them go once again, like we all do when time and time again we think about the lost ones we love forever in memory. Wanda had to open the doors to her world to set her people free which meant saying goodbye to her whole family. And in a sacrifice just as stirring and maybe the most epic and emotional moment in DC movie history that showed like Bettany and Olsen just how compelling the Gadot and Pine chemistry, Wonder Woman renounced her wish to have Steve back as he disappeared into the background, so she could run and save the world again. From Pine's pining, "I'll always love you Diana" to Vision's not a dry eye in the suburban house, "goodbye, my love" the emotions we are left with our both potent and palpable and cathartic and consoling. We've all lost and given up so much over this last year and some cape crusades aren't going to do much to help that. But bringing it all home and sitting next to us so we're not alone they do offer us something in their tender touching moments. Something we all need right now more than a hero...they give us a hand. A friend. Like Vision said, "but what is grief, if not love persevering?" Reminding us of what we had and have. Turning pain into power, grief can be good for us if we use it to heal. Now it's time we save each other.
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