WandaVision: What Is S.W.O.R.D. In The Marvel Comics?

If you kept a close eye on your screen through WandaVision's first and second episodes, you would have noticed some suspicious details that tie into one another.

No, no — not that whatever Mr. Hart was choking on looked like a chocolate-covered strawberry, or that the actress who plays Mrs. Forman from That '70s Show hasn't aged in the last 20 years.

We're talking about the fact that, in a handful of instances across WandaVision episodes 1 and 2, a very specific piece of iconography poked its head up: a hilted blade in a circle.

Certified Marvel nerds will have recognized this emblem: It's the logo for S.W.O.R.D., the cloak-and-dagger sister organization to S.H.I.E.L.D.

As WandaVision carried on into its third episode, S.W.O.R.D.'s presence continued to loom large — though it was unclear how exactly the organization was involved in Wanda and Vision's strange suburban world.

In WandaVision episode 4, the curtain didn't just get pulled back — it was practically torn to shreds.

The episode reveals that Monica Rambeau, who had been masquerading inside Westview as Wanda and Vision's neighbor Geraldine, works as a S.W.O.R.D. agent.

She was one of the billions of people who were erased in "the Blip" that happened in Avengers: Infinity War, and her first mission back at S.W.O.R.D. is to partner with Agent Jimmy Woo to investigate Westview, New Jersey ... the site of a missing persons case.

S.W.O.R.D. swiftly moves into action by constructing an observation base outside Westview, tasking astrophysicist Dr. Darcy Lewis and Jimmy with monitoring the going-ons of the town and sending Monica in as an agent of infiltration. Despite Darcy and Jimmy's best efforts, they can't get in contact with Wanda via radio.

Things go from confusing to alarming when Monica, presumably trying to get Wanda to realize she's living in a fake reality, brings up the fact that Wanda's twin brother Pietro died at the hands of Ultron. Wanda sends Monica flying out of Westview, and when she opens her eyes, surrounded by S.W.O.R.D. agents, Monica tells them that this is all Wanda's doing.

While S.W.O.R.D. might not boast the decades' worth of brand recognition that you get from Nick Fury's favorite nine-to-five, the organization is a natural fit for film and television. In fact, S.W.O.R.D.'s comic book origins are rooted in the same source that brought the Avengers together on the big screen for the first time. Even more excitingly, their addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe could foreshadow the reintroduction of one of Marvel's most beloved IPs — but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The story of Marvel's S.W.O.R.D. organization goes back to 2004 — several years before Joss Whedon wrote and directed The Avengers. At the time, Whedon was the lead writer on Astonishing X-Men, a reimagining of the mutant team that shifted them away from the black leather paramilitary vibe they'd been rocking during the Grant Morrison years and back to the world of more colorful superheroics. Spandex was back in style, Whedon's trademark quips riddled the page, and the occupants of the Xavier School were back to their favorite pastime: getting harassed by aliens.

That's where S.W.O.R.D. came in. Originally standing for "Sentient World Observation and Response Department" (that'll be important in a minute), the organization was, in practice, S.H.I.E.L.D. in space. The multi-species organization operated out of a weaponized satellite orbiting planet Earth, and did pretty much what it says on the bottle: They observed sentient worlds and, when necessary, responded to them. Basically, any threat to Earth that you couldn't reach with a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier fell under S.W.O.R.D.'s purview.

So, there are a couple of reasons that S.W.O.R.D.'s inclusion in WandaVision should be making nerds' hearts race. The first is Marvel Studios' recent reveal that "S.W.O.R.D." stands for something distinctly different in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The second is the laundry list of specific characters generally associated with the organization -- specifically, the X-Men.

Having debuted in an X-Men title and worked alongside Marvel's Merry Mutants so frequently, S.W.O.R.D. is inexorably linked to the team.

In the Marvel comics, a half-alien, half-mutant named Abigail Brand is the person who runs S.W.O.R.D., and the organization has included familiar names like Beast, Cable, and Magneto.

All of this could tie pretty neatly into that name change we mentioned earlier. Prior to the series' release on Disney+, some fans noticed that a WandaVision-themed digital trading card set included an interesting detail: apparently, the "W" in "S.W.O.R.D." stands for "Weapon" in the MCU -- not "World." Watch the video to learn What S.W.O.R.D. Is In The Marvel Comics!

#Marvel #WandaVision

Read Full Article: https://www.looper.com/313332/wandavision-what-is-s-w-o-r-d-in-the-marvel-comics/