For fans of both football and Marvel, an unexpected treat dropped from the MCU heavens and landed in the form of a Super Bowl teaser trailer for three upcoming Disney+ TV shows. That’s right True Believers, we’re talking about actual footage from The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, and Loki hitting the airwaves last night. All three TV series feature movie stars from their respective franchises and blockbuster budgets, but on the small screen for you to enjoy from the comfort of your home. You can check out the big game spot below:
Holy moly, there is a lot to digest in such a short amount of time! First off, we’re hit with an image of Captain America’s iconic shield imbedded in a tree. Then Sam Wilson’s hands reach into frame and take hold of the red, white and blue frisbee. In a wider shot Sam flings the shield just as if he were Steve Rogers, in a location reminiscent of Monica Rambeau’s house from Captain Marvel. What the what!?
Next, we take in a modified version of the Marvel Studios logo. A piece of fanfare that’s typically red now fades to blue, signifying the Disney+ distribution. We get more shots from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier featuring Bucky, Falcon, U.S. Agent, and even Baron Zemo! Bucky points a loaded gun at Zemo, but then empties the bullets.
Could this mean some kind of alliance between the former enemies? Or even a hint toward Zemo’s team of reformed super villains known as The Thunderbolts? We hope so!
The highlight of the short teaser comes next in the form of WandaVision footage, which looks delightfully bizarre. Vision, who was definitely killed in Avengers: Infinity War, is inexplicably back alive and living in some kind of TV sitcom simulation with his wife, the Scarlet Witch! The video speeds through shots radiating vibes from 1950-60s shows like I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show to a 1970s Brady Bunch color palette to a 1980s-90s style courtesy sitcoms like Full House and Roseanne. Not to mention, we get a glimpse of the Scarlet Witch in her classic comicbook costume!
Inspiration for WandaVision looks to be coming from a number of different comicbook storylines including Steve Englehart’s The Vision and Scarlet Witch, Brian Michael Bendis’ House of M, and Tom King’s The Vision. The biggest tease is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of Wanda and Vision standing over two baby cribs. In the comics the Scarlet Witch famously conjures up twin boys for herself and Vision to raise, who eventually grow up to become Wiccan and Speed of the Young Avengers. Interesting…
Finally, one of the last shots of the Super Bowl sizzle is an image of Loki, seemingly shackled in a prison cell and wearing a brown jumpsuit. The Asgardian troublemaker mysteriously declares, “I’m gonna burn this place to the ground.” The Loki series just recently started filming so it’s understandable there would be the least amount of footage for the god of mischief’s title.
What’s interesting about the shot though is the logo on Loki’s clothes, which seems to spell out TVA. Based on the time traveling description we previously got of Loki’s plot, and some very obscure Marvel comicbook lore, we’re betting TVA stands for the TIME VARIANCE AUTHORITY. This deep album cut of an organization basically consists of the time cops of the Marvel Universe. They police the time-stream, making sure no unruly time travelers risk rupturing the space-time continuum. So, Loki may have been incarcerated by some big-time sticklers.
The Time Variance Authority first appeared in Thor #372 from 1986 and was created by Walt Simonson and Sal Buscema. With all the time traveling antics of Avengers: Endgame, it makes a lot of sense that Marvel would be introducing some kind of organization to keep the divergent timelines straight. With all this time travel tomfoolery afoot, fans are speculating that we’re well on our way to seeing Marvel’s biggest time traveling terror of them all, Kang the Conqueror, who also happens to be a member of the Young Avengers! Is this all somehow connected? It sure seems so!