WandaVision: Does Westview Have a Marvel Connection?
WandaVision takes place in the fictional town of Westview, which has both Marvel and real world significance. Here's what we found...
This article contains some WandaVision spoilers.
WandaVision primarily takes place inside an idealized, idyllic, sitcom-themed unreality. One that we’re still not sure is actually happening in any form, or that is strictly a product of the Scarlet Witch‘s reality-altering powers. In any case, the town that most of the show takes place in is called “Westview,” which doesn’t have any explicit Marvel counterpart to speak of, but that still calls to mind the setting of a number of Wanda and Vision’s comic book adventures.
Where is Westview in the Marvel Universe?
The best we can tell, Westview is a fictional MCU town in New Jersey. In episode 2, their mysterious neighbor Herb (who may or may not be a Marvel villain in disguise) made a reference to someone else attending a yard sale in Hackensack. Unless this person is a serious thrifter with a penchant for yard sales, people usually don’t usually drive out of state to hit yard sales, so we have to assume that Westview is likely roughly in the same northern New Jersey area as Hackensack.
There’s evidence for that…
Is Westview a Real Place?
Funny enough, there is a real Westview in New Jersey…sort of. West View (note the space) is an “unincorporated community” (so basically a neighborhood) in Bergen County, not far from the southern border of New York State.
Now here’s where we can get back to the Marvel connections of it all.
Marvel’s Westview
In the Marvel comics of the 1980s, after Vision and Scarlet Witch married, they moved to Leonia, a real location in northern New Jersey, known as a suburban bedroom community for people who wanted to raise their families in the suburbs but easily commute to New York City for work. Wanda and Vision still had to get to Avengers mansion from time to time, after all.
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Leonia is also part of NJ’s Bergen County…and happens to be a 10 minute drive from the aforementioned real West View. So while the Westview Marvel is presenting us in WandaVision isn’t strictly a real place (and at least some of the exteriors are shot on an oft-used backlot for sitcoms in Burbank, CA) there are enough geographic clues to indicate that it’s in the neighborhood of not only one that shares its name, but the other actual town that the fictional characters lived in their comic book adventures.
Oh, and one last piece of evidence? The real West View is only a 7 minute drive from Hackensack, an easy enough jaunt for a Marvel Westview resident looking for bargains at a yard sale.
What Else do We Know About Westview?
Yes, I know. You’re bored already. Stick with me another minute.
It seems likely that Westview itself does actually exist within the MCU, despite whatever ways that Wanda might be using her powers to alter it. The evidence comes from set photos that appear to depict the mysterious non-sitcom area where SWORD agents are monitoring what’s going on (essentially…”watching WandaVision” just like the rest of us). A police car in the “real” world bears the name Eastview, so that would seem to be a town unaffected by whatever’s going on inside that bizarre bubble that seems to have been created around Westview.
There’s also the possibility that there’s a subtle nod to The Wizard of Oz here, with Wanda as the witch (hopefully not wicked) of “the west” with Westview. Unless, of course, the wicked one is the mysterious Agnes, who we have our own suspicions about. And then there’s the whole twin theme that could play with Eastview and Westview, and the fact that Wanda delivers twins in episode 3.
Got any WandaVision or Westview clues of your own? Let us know in the comments!