Who is Monica Rambeau?
If you are keeping up with WandaVision, you’ll know that we have been officially introduced to Monica Rambeau (Teyonnah Paris). In the series, Monica is an agent of S.W.O.R.D who gets literally sucked into Wanda’s illusion. In the newest episode, we get some backstory on Monica that gives us a good amount of callbacks to the comics and some great foreshadowing for her future in the MCU.
Monica Rambeau was created by Roger Stern and John Romita Jr. and introduced in 1982 in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 where she went by the name Captain Marvel. Monica receives her powers from an explosion and gains the ability to manipulate energy, alter her appearance, run at the speed of light, fly, and become invisible. She also acquired hyper-cosmic awareness with eidtic memory. Later, Monica went on to join the Avengers where she earned her own comic series, and received multiple other aliases. One of those aliases is Photon, which was teased in this newest episode of WandaVision.
Monica is also the daughter of Maria Rambeau, founder of the MCU’s version of S.W.O.R.D. The last time we saw Maria was in 2019’s Captain Marvel where she fought alongside Carol on her mission to save the universe from the Kree and steal back the tesseract. We find out at the beginning of this episode that Maria lost her battle with cancer, dying during the time her daughter was “blipped” by Thanos’s snap. When Monica returns to S.W.O.R.D after literally getting her life back, we see she walks past a plaque of her Mother’s that reads, “Maria ‘Photon’ Rambeau”, leading the audience to believe that this is the moniker that Monica will dawn once she gains her powers in the MCU.
I am theorizing that what we see in this scene is not only the control that Wanda has over her reality in the show, but we witness the origin of Monica’s powers. If you watch this clip you will see that Monica’s body almost absorbs Wanda’s magic. This could lead to her ability to control energy and even alter her appearance, similar what she had to accomplish already while trapped inside of Wanda’s sitcom. With her new powers she’ll have no excuse not to help the other Avengers, and it’s already been announced that she will appear in Captain Marvel 2 alongside Brie Larson. Similar to how “Carol ‘Avenger’ Danvers” inspired the name for Nick Fury’s Avengers Initiative, Monica will accept her mother’s nickname as her superhero identity. This will be a great callback and it would make the most sense since Monica would want to feel close to her mother again as she carries the guilt of not being there for her passing.
Teyonnah Paris has done a great job so far portraying Monica Rambeau. I am really enjoying her character in WandaVision and I am really excited to see more of her in the MCU. It’s been tough having to wait for Friday every week to see where this story is headed, but remaining patient is fortunately a skill most Marvel fans possess.
WandaVision airs every Friday on Disney+