A WandaVision VFX supervisor details Monica's (Teyonah Parris) Spectrum transformation. Monica Rambeau was first introduced in the MCU as a kid in 2019's Captain Marvel. Parris took over the role as adult Monica in WandaVision, with the show exploring how she responded and reacted to her grief after being snapped by Thanos, losing her mother, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), and accidentally getting sucked into Wanda's Maximoff's (Elizabeth Olsen) Westview.
Monica's life changes forever in episode seven, "Breaking the Fourth Wall," when she chooses to re-enter Westview of her own free will, resulting in a transformation that gives Monica superpowers. As Monica attempts to break back into Westview her body splits into the Monica that was just resurrected from the Snap, the Monica that became Geraldine under the hex's spell, and the current Monica. All the Monicas of the past and present converge into the current Monica, whose eyes glow with her newly attained superpowers. Monica Rambeau was actually the first Black and female Captain Marvel in the comics, where she also went by Spectrum and Photon. The WandaVision sequence was Monica's official superhero power origin transformation in MCU canon.
Julien Hery worked as a VFX supervisor on WandaVision and went into detail via an interview with ComicBook about how the VFX team from Rodeo FX created Monica's epic transformation sequence. Check out part of Hery's breakdown below.
"We were playing with this magnet on a TV screen, so it was like, 'Okay, what can be bigger than a magnet? And when you have a bigger object or a stronger interaction, what could be? So maybe we could do magnetic eruptions, the same thing as you have on the sun, like solar flares and stuff like that...But then it was one of those cases where, okay, maybe that's a bit too much, and you go a bit away from the storytelling point. That needs to be a bit more, not simpler, but focused on the real action, so we kind of strip it down quite a bit to something that is, in my opinion, way better, because you know what we say, like less is more."
Monica's character arc is WandaVision was artfully told, and expertly crafted in the Spectrum transformation sequence. The series was primarily focused on how Wanda dealt with her grief over losing Vision (Paul Bettany.) However, Monica's grief over not being there for her mother when Maria's cancer returned also played a huge role in Monica's WandaVision journey. Monica never chose to gain superpowers, but she earned them through her desire to help Wanda because she felt empathy for the Scarlet Witch's grief, while still trying to process her own.
Although Monica never got her own superhero name in WandaVision her story is far from over. There was a post-credits teaser of Monica being asked to head back to space, and it has been confirmed that Parris will return as Monica in Captain Marvel 2. Monica's transformation into Spectrum or whatever superhero name she ultimately chooses is just the beginning of her superhero story.
Source: ComicBook
