The latest episode of WandaVision makes a prominent mention of Ellis Avenue, but the origin of its name could come from a part of the MCU’s history.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for WandaVision Episode 6, “New Halloween Spooktacular!”, Now Airing on Disney +.
Episode 6 of WandaVision greatly expands the frontier of the Westview anomaly, as Wanda pushes her to save her husband. But before that point, her boundary was very clearly demarcated, with Wanda telling her children not to go through “Ellis Avenue”, the street that marks the edge of the city. Vision visits that boundary to make his way into the outside world, and it seems Tommy and Billy have previously been told not to cross it. With the street name appearing so prominently in the episode, it’s easy to wonder where the inspiration for “Ellis” came from.
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An easy first guess might be Warren Ellis, a longtime comic book writer who has worked with Marvel on several full-length series, including Ray, Moon knight Y Iron Man. Such tributes may be common in superhero television series, with The CW’s The flash making various references to comic book writers through street names, including “Waid Boulevard” and “Infantino Street”. What makes this less likely is Ellis’s recent controversy over alleged sexual misconduct, which has seen the writer retired from work in season 4 of Castlevania.
But there are many other Ellis Avenue homonyms, and the name is equally likely a reference to Ellis Island. Ellis Island is a small island that sits at the mouth of New York Harbor and has been a long-standing immigration center for new immigrants arriving in the United States. Ellis Avenue fills a similar role in Westview as a geographic boundary, and Wanda is likely aware of this, since she lived in the Avengers compound near New York for several months between the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron Y Captain America: Civil War. She admits in Episode 6 that she doesn’t know how she created Westview, but it’s clear from previous episodes that it is shaped by her subconscious and memory, modeled after popular American sitcoms.
It’s also possible that Ellis Avenue doesn’t even refer to a real-world person or place, but rather is a callback to Matthew Ellis from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. iron Man 3 led the United States government to an unexpected approach, as villain Aldrich Killian attempted to kill the president, Matthew Ellis. This is a huge departure from the real world, as the president when the movie was made was Barack Obama. Fictional presidents are nothing new in the media, but they get even more confusing in the MCU due to multiple different writers’ rooms.
Shane Black and Drew Pearce may have intended for Ellis to replace Barack Obama when they wrote iron Man 3, but that message clearly didn’t get across to the Hulu writers Fugitives. Nico Minoru references “The Obama Administration” in a throwaway phrase from the third episode of the series, and executive producer Jeph Loeb Has confirmed that the series is part of the larger MCU. Yes, both iron Man 3 Y Fugitives are contributing to the same timeline, so it’s safe to assume that Ellis took over as president of the United States in 2012, after Obama served at least one term in office.
Ellis briefly reappeared in Civil war, where he was responsible in part for the creation of the Sokovia Accords, the set of international laws that attempt to regulate superhuman affairs throughout the MCU world. Wanda’s actions in Lagos were the direct cause of the Accords’ creation, so it is not surprising that she named an impassable border in honor of the president responsible for creating them. Either way, Marvel Studios rarely points to something for no reason, which means there’s clearly more to Ellis Avenue than meets the eye.
Written by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman, WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision, Randall Park as Agent Jimmy Woo, Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau and Kathryn Hahn like Agnes. New episodes air Fridays on Disney +.
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