7 Problems With WandaVision That Nobody Wants To Admit

As well as the witch Agatha Harkness, WandaVision had a more down to earth antagonist in the form of intelligence agency S.W.O.R.D and its director Tyler Hayward.

While initially seeming to be a somewhat abrasive ally, it soon become clear that he had far more sinister aims when it came to Wanda and the Blip. Namely, he had been planning all along to revive the original Vision, killed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, and use him as a weapon.

The main issue here is that the S.W.O.R.D featured in WandaVision is just S.H.I.E.L.D in all but name, and Hayward is just another government figure who thinks he knows better than the superpowered protagonists and gives in to authoritarian tendencies. Meanwhile, in the comics, S.W.O.R.D is much more distinct from its earthbound counterpart, being led by the half-alien mutant Abigail Brand and operating out of The Peak, a striking space station orbiting the Earth.

Its operations and membership, often comprised of other mutants like Cable and Beast, have given rise to several exciting plotlines. But here it's not such a stretch to conclude that the creators of WandaVision wanted to used S.H.I.E.L.D but couldn't, thanks to its destruction in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. So S.W.O.R.D was brought in to act as a substitute.

It's a shame that S.W.O.R.D has been reduced to being a faceless agency lacking any distinctive personality of its own. Hopefully, it will eventually be given as much room to define itself as a unique organisation as it was in the comics.