I've been speculating about that, too. For the five years after Thanos destroyed the stones, all those originally empowered by them showed no lessening of those powers. Vision was already dead, but Wanda, Carol, Tony*, and now Monica** are all channeling
something. I also can't help but notice the vines in the mid-credits scene have the glowing purple effect things empowered by the Power Stone exhibited in GotG.
[*
In Iron Man 2, the "new element" Tony synthesized from his dad's study of the Tesseract means his arc reactors since 2012 have been basically powered by the Space Stone.]
[**
Presuming the Hex is, in fact being generated by Wanda, directly or via some other manipulation.]
So... Since the Infinity Stones are concentrated loci of essential interrelated aspects of the nature of existence, their realms are still present in the universe. Nature abhors a vacuum. Might new loci form -- or be formed -- to fill their absence? One of the things from the comics, after the whole Infinity Gauntlet mess, was the set was broken up and each given to a guardian for safekeeping, collectively known as the Infinity Watch. And Adam Warlock is still coming into play at
some point, per the post-credits scene in GotGv2. I can't help but feel we're not done with the Infinity Stones just yet.
Well, he
is producing a Star Wars movie for them, written by the writer of the upcoming Loki series. I wouldn't want to saddle him with too much work, but if he proves good at it, maybe he can sit down with Jon and Dave and do some proper universe-building over there, too...
Moving on...
Agatha Harkness has been both good and bad in the comics. Most of her bad turns have been when she's been compelled to do someone else's bidding, either by direct control or in exchange for something she needs. Most relevantly, she's involved in making Wanda's twins able to exist out in the world beyond her pocket reality. She was acting, apparently, as a representative of Mephisto, who was amping Wanda's pain and grief and feeding off of her powers. When Wanda used the connection he'd made to pull a couple shards of his essence to make her children, Agatha saw that as potentially a way to get her dead son back. Note in "A Very Special Episode", when the twins exhort Wanda to bring Sparky back to life, Agatha seems caught off-guard in asking Wanda if she can indeed do that.
I am hoping Westview had a secret coven of witches that Wanda, for whatever reason, sought help from with Vision, but Mephisto manipulated things to cause... well... the show. I like the theory that Dottie might be Clea... But in the comics, she's from the Dark Dimension, and related to Dormammu. While that would add even more connection for Doctor Strange's involvement, it would have to be explained at some point how she comes to be here.
I am one who feels Monica's "aerospace engineer" pal is Reed. Secret Invasion being a more recent storyline, all the way back to the '60s, in the first issue with the Skrulls, when they had been defeated they revealed that they wanted to live peacefully on Earth... So Reed had them turn into cows and hypnotized them to forget they were Skrulls. Never mind the '60s-ness of that, the connection between Reed and the Skrulls is reinforced over and over again over the decades. It's obvious Fury knows about them, hence the post-credits scene of him on their ship looking for his shoes. So their presence is not unknown to government assets (however good Fury is at compartmentalizing, he has to tell
someone, for purely logistical purposes, if nothing else). But I will be disappointed if the team who delivered that rover and suit to Monica weren't Skrulls working with Reed and Nick. S.W.O.R.D. being an obvious parallel/successor to S.H.I.E.L.D., and Fury knowing Maria Rambeau since the '90s, who "built [the agency] from the ground up", I would be more surprised if he
wasn't involved.
Ever since we saw her as a kid in Captain Marvel, I've been wondering how Monica would end up getting her powers, and I like this version. I was grinning as soon as I saw her ditch the space-suit, too, because, well...
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Considering all the heroing sobriquets she's gone by, given how she was seeing the Hex once back inside, I'm hoping they
do go with Spectrum for this version.
Man, I still can't imagine Wanda, reincorporating in Wakanda after Bruce un-snapped everyone, no time to grieve, Vision's body nowhere to be seen, everyone confused, only to have Wong show up and say "We need you to come stop Thanos", but it's past-Thanos with no idea of what she's been through at future-his hands -- twice -- and once it's finally all over and they've memorialized Tony and she goes to try to get some closure, only to find the government's been spending the last five years dismantling her boyfriend to try to reverse-engineer him... Yeah, I'm impressed there was still a facility for Monica to report back to.
Regarding Pietros and the Fox stuff... There's some stuff I'm still unclear on. How is everyone seeing Vision and Pietro? I mean
everyone. We've had two flickers of Wanda lapsing -- once when she saw Vision as his dead (but intact) form, and once when alternate-Pietro had AoU Pietro's dead eyes and bullet wounds. Is that an objective reality peeking through? Or an illusion sent in by whoever is behind all this to rattle Wanda and keep her off-balance? I have seen argument that Pietro, Agatha, and/or the twins can pierce the veil. The twins seem to know Vision's dead, without anyone having mentioned it to them. There's debate over Pietro's final line when he shows up, "Who's the popsicle?", as referring to undisguised Vision's brightly-colored and hairless appearance... or that it's his cold, dead form standing there that he sees.
Speaking of Pietro... Anyone else notice, in the Halloween episode, Herb was getting the calls of pranks right
before each prank happened?
Lastly, for right now, X-Men. I'm glad they're keeping Ryan as Deadpool. I am clinging to a desperate hope that Hugh will stay on as at least the face/voice of Logan. I wouldn't object to McEvoy staying on as Charles, in a contemporary version (a la Iron Man and the rest, not being 1960s origins any more), but the Fox X-Men universe as a thing needs to be jettisoned. I mean... Is Emma Frost in her 30s in 1962? Or a teenager in 1979? Is Jubilee a teenager in 1983? Or the early 2000s? Not counting all the things they took from Ultimate X-Men, in development at Marvel at the same time the film was being written... Stuff like Scott being the younger Summers brother, rather than elder. Personally, I think that needs to be 'fixed'. Psylocke in the film versions is Asian, something I thought was stupid in the comics when it happened, and I have remained opposed to ever since. Represenation is fine. But having
very English telepath Elizabeth Braddock swap bodies with indeterminate-East-Asian Hand assassin Kwannon just so Jim Lee could draw her as Asian in a skintight one-piece was... dumb. If I were granted one wish out of bringing mutants into the MCU, it would be to one day see Elizabeth Braddock in her full Psylocke armor (she's squishy, not a tank):
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(...But "realistic", MCU style...)
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