Marvel is home to some of the most iconic superheroes ever put on screen, from the God of Thunder to a genius who builds one of the world's most advanced suits from cave scraps. The studio has delivered plenty of highlights over the years, and the Avengers' team-ups alone have produced some of the highest-grossing box-office days in history. But few entries have reshaped the MCU quite like WandaVision did, and its long-awaited follow-up, VisionQuest, is finally on the way.

A grieving witch, a rebuilt android, and five years in the making, VisionQuest is about to close the book on one of the MCU's most quietly devastating love stories. But to feel the full weight of it, there is some homework to do first.

The 2015 Marvel release, Avengers: Age of Ultron, had a very peculiar villain. There weren't any extraterrestrial beings invited by Loki or a power-hungry monster with an appetite for the Infinity Stones that wanted to do a very different kind of finger-snap dance. The villain was a creation of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner that came to see humanity itself as the cause of destruction.

That makes Age of Ultron essential viewing for a different reason: it is the first appearance of Vision in the MCU, and it lays the groundwork for the twisted relationship between Ultron and Vision that the upcoming series is built around.

Captain America: Civil War marked the splitting up of Earth's mightiest heroes, as clashing ideologies over the Sokovia Accords pushed the team apart. The movie is neither an Avengers film nor one centered on Vision, but it is home to the moments that quietly established Wanda and Vision's bond, from their shared origin in the Mind Stone to the now-iconic scene of Vision cooking Wanda paprikash while gently keeping her confined to the compound.

That closeness makes the fallout hit harder: when the Accords divide the team, Vision sides with Tony while Wanda joins Cap, and the two end up on opposing sides of the airport battle before Wanda is captured and later escapes with Cap's crew. That same tension, drawn together, then pulled apart by circumstance, is the emotional thread VisionQuest picks back up, making this an essential watch before diving in.

That is not to say that the upcoming VisionQuest will feature any Wanda-Vision moments, although Vision will be all aware of Wanda's fate and their history.

Avengers: Infinity War, thanks to its genuinely massive scale, has earned a reputation as less a movie and more an experience. For Vision, that scale came with real emotional weight, the film set up everything that would later unfold across the WandaVision trilogy. Its opening scenes find Vision and Wanda stealing a quiet moment together in Scotland, finally exploring the relationship they could not pursue openly in Civil W**.

That tenderness is short-lived: to keep Thanos from claiming the Mind Stone, Wanda is forced to destroy it herself, k****** Vision, only for Thanos to reverse time with the Time Stone and rip the stone out anyway, k****** him a second time. It is a gutting turn that makes Wanda's grief and Vision's absence the emotional core of everything that follows and hence an essential watch before VisionQuest hits the screens.

While every entry above helps build the emotional weight VisionQuest is likely to carry, WandaVision stands in a league of its own; it is not just useful context, it is the show's direct origin to the point that if there were no WandaVision, there would be no VisionQuest. Despite the title sounding akin to a ship name, WandaVision remains a mysterious, highly complex storyline in the MCU. One of its biggest draws is the mystery surrounding Vision's fate.

A quick trip down memory lane explains why: in Avengers: Endgame, everyone dusted by Thanos is restored, though not everyone survives what comes after (RIP, Tony Stark). Vision, however, is not among the ones who come back at all. That is because he died before the snap, not because of it, so there was no dust for him to return from in the first place.

The loss of Vision, combined with Wanda's mind-boggling cosmic powers, makes way for a pseudo-reality for Wanda where Vision exists and they have their two sons, Billy and Tommy, the former of which appears in Agatha All Along after being reincarnated as William Kaplan, and the latter is set to be an important part of the VisionQuest storyline.

After freeing the town of Westview from her hex, Wanda loses her two kids. While they did not die in the true sense, their loss drives her to hunt down every timeline, searching for one where her sons exist in blood and flesh, a desperate search that foreshadows how Tommy and Billy's story actually continues.

While the blueprint of the storyline seems maternal, evoking sympathy for Wanda, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness actually casts her as the villain, this time corrupted not just by grief, but by the Darkhold itself, the same cursed text that's haunted the WandaVision trilogy from the start. The movie appears to mark the end of the magical mastermind in what is arguably one of Marvel's most impactful demises; Wanda is seemingly crushed as Mount Wundagore collapses.

But no body is ever shown, and Kevin Feige has since hinted that her story is not finished. Furthermore, Paul Bettany has also refused to give a straight answer to whether Wanda's character will return in VisionQuest, labeling it a matter of secrecy, as revealed by Entertainment Tonight.

Agatha All Along picks up years after WandaVision, following a powerless Agatha Harkness as a mysterious teen frees her from a memory-erasing spell and drags her down the Witches' Road in search of answers. That teen is eventually revealed to be Billy Maximoff, Wanda's son, alive as Wiccan, his soul having survived by settling into the body of William Kaplan, a Westview teen who died the night WandaVision ended.

That reveal sets up the finale's biggest payoff, and the reason this show is essential before VisionQuest: after sacrificing herself to save Billy from Death and returning as a ghost, Agatha helps him look for his brother's soul, which is believed to have lived on the same way as Billy's. If that connection holds, VisionQuest would be picking up Tommy's story from that exact handoff, following him as he uncovers his true identity as a Maximoff. Either way, Agatha All Along does not just tease Tommy's return, it is the show that lays the groundwork for how he's even alive to come back at all.

Six movies and shows, one grieving android, two resurrected souls, and a witch whose death Marvel still won't confirm, that is the homework list before VisionQuest. The good news is the show premieres on Disney+ on October 14, ready to pick up every loose thread this list just tied together.

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Which listing are you most excited to watch before VisionQuest? Let us know in the comments.