Strange Tales of the WandaVision NEXUS Commercial

by Rebecca Kaplan · February 19, 2021

WandaVision Episode 7 is here and it has viewers asking: What is Nexus? In the casual meaning of the word, it stands for connection, typically a causal connection, or a connected group or series. It can also mean center or focus, like the Central Cafe is the central nexus for the town of Westview. However, in the world of Marvel Comics, the meaning of “nexus” is much more complicated.

If you haven’t watched the episode that aired today, Friday, February 19th, 2021, then stop reading now and please bookmark this article for later! If you had the luxury to stay up all night to catch the seventh episode (like me), then scroll past this picture of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) for more details on the latest episode of WandaVision.

Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda in WandaVision Episode 7 clip

Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff. Photo: Marvel Studios

WandaVision Episode 7 Commercial Break – and the side effects include…

In the aptly titled WandaVision Episode 7 – “Breaking the Fourth Wall” – the interviewer turns to Wanda and asks: “Do you think this is maybe what you deserve?”

Then, the show immediately cuts to the Episode 7 Nexus commercial featuring the same actress (Victoria Blade) from the other live-action commercials in the miniseries as a depressed woman, sitting by herself on a park bench, like the drug company ads of the 2000s. In an excellent moment of pathetic fallacy, dark clouds literally form over the woman’s head as she sits on the bench before the scene cuts away to the same woman in bed, restless and depressed.

Photo: Marvel Studios

The narrator does a great job of mimicking the feel of the drug ads that plagued that era of television, and still haunt late night programming, saying:

Feeling depressed?
Like the world goes on without you?
Like you just want to be left alone?
Ask your doctor about Nexus.
A unique antidepressant that works to anchor you back to your reality.
Or the reality of your choosing.
Side effects include feeling your feelings, confronting your truth, seizing your destiny, and (possibly) more depression.
Nexus, because the world doesn’t revolve around you, or does it?

As we mentioned last week at Marvel Blog, and this possibility is still on the table even after WandaVision Episode 7, but the villain Immortus, A.K.A. Kang the Conqueror, might be the big bad of the series. In fact, in the issue of West Coast Avengers #61 by Roy and Dann Thomas (writers), Paul Ryan (penciller), Danny Bulanadi (inker), Bill Oakley (letterer), and Bob Sharen (colorist) discussed last week, the Nexus Beings are introduced to the Marvel Multiverse for the first time.

Photo: Marvel Comics

In WCA #61, True Believers learned for the first time that the the Scarlet Witch was a Nexus Being: “one who belongs equally to all possible timelines, all realities and divergences, so that through her, all futures can be totally safeguarded.”

What’s A Nexus Being?

In 1994’s Scarlet Witch #1-4, the Scarlet Witch is being haunted by demonic apparitions of her past in her nightmares. After the creatures from her nightmares come to life and attack her West Coast Avengers’ teammates, she contacts her mentor Agatha Harkness to see what’s happening. Agatha tells Wanda that the strange occurrences have to do with her status as a Nexus Being, and that the two witches must meet in an abandoned town called UNITY to learn more about the Scarlet Witch’s magical abilities.

Scarlet Witch #2 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, John Higgins, Mark McKenna, Jim Novak, and Ken Somers. Photo: Marvel Comics

In the crypt of the abandoned church in Unity, Wanda finds an unread book with the recorded history of the Nexus Beings, stating:

One alone exists on each of the mutiverse’s parallel worlds, one being that is the node of each world’s mystic energy. They are as close as sisters, but not two are identical. Each has a power unique to herself…geomancy, sorcery, psychometry…hex power…

Wanda learns that Nexus Beings teeter between madness and reality, but also that they are extremely powerful – hopefully, in visions of things to come in the show, the witch feels her body sing with power and rage, and turns to fight as Nexus Being, Avenger against a hidden threat.

Scarlet Witch #3 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, John Higgins, Mark McKenna, Jim Novak, and Ken Somers. Photo: Marvel Comics

As Wanda continues to read, she learns about a threat hidden in the meaning of those words: another, much darker, predatory Nexus Being, Lore.

Who’s Lore?

As mentioned above, Lore is another Nexus Being like the Scarlet Witch, but an “evil and rapacious” version. In Scarlet Witch #1-4, Lore is out to conquer dimensions by destroying her fellow Nexus Beings, using Master Pandemonium and demonically transmuted Avengers, and feeding on their power.

Scarlet Witch #4 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, John Higgins, Mark McKenna, Jim Novak, and Ken Somers. Photo: Marvel Comics

With the help of Agatha Harkness, Wanda discovers that Lore is the cause of her recent “madness” and nightmares.

Scarlet Witch #4 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, John Higgins, Mark McKenna, Jim Novak, and Ken Somers. Photo: Marvel Comics

Coming from a realm where necromancy is commonplace, Lore uses the Scarlet Witch’s trauma to access her mind – and attempts to possess her physical body too – so she can eventually devour the whole dimension.

Scarlet Witch #4 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, John Higgins, Mark McKenna, Jim Novak, and Ken Somers. Photo: Marvel Comics

Luckily, however, Wanda is able to defeat the other Nexus Being, Lore.

We still don’t know who Dottie (Emma Caulfield Ford) is in the suburb of Westview, as she didn’t have a driver’s license on the identification board outside of the Hex. Is it possible she’s the other Nexus Being, Lore? Is she the one behind Wanda’s eternal case of the Mondays? Or is Agatha really the villain of the series? Let us know what you think in the comments section below!