I’ve seen this concern pop up a lot during WandaVision discussions and I think I have a pretty solid explanation. How did Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau know about Wanda and Captain Marvel fighting Thanos from Avengers: Endgame? How does Dr. Darcy Lewis know so much about the Vision’s history, from him originating as Jarvis to his two deaths at the end of Avengers: Infinity War?

It’s simple: Captain America told them.

I don’t mean directly. Captain America didn’t sit down Jimmy, Monica and Darcy to explain the finer details.

I’m saying that the Avengers, as an organization, with Captain America in a major leadership position, likely believed in full transparency when it came to both team members and major events. Couple that with real world of examples of both major news media operations and just people on the internet who go really in depth into this stuff. There’s going to be a lot of coverage of major superhero events, and the superheroes themselves are not operating in secret. The Avengers are specifically separate from S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America was not a big fan of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secrecy to begin with.

So I think it’s perfectly reasonable that ordinary people are going to know both minor and major details about superhero events.

Join me after the jump for some scenes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies that help prove my point! I’m not just pulling my argument out of thing air here!

Let’s start at the very beginning. In Iron Man, after reporter Christine Everhart hooks up with Tony, she wanders through his mansion and stumbles upon Jarvis. Pepper Potts confronts her immediately thereafter and says, “That’s Jarvis, he runs the house.”

So Jarvis is not some big secret project of Tony Stark’s. Pepper has no problem telling a reporter to her face that Tony has this AI that “runs the house”. And considering how much the celebrity news media loved to gossip and talk about Tony Stark, I think it’s safe to say the existence of Jarvis as Tony’s personal AI was somewhat known.

Again, think about how closely the media scrutinizes everything Elon Musk does or says. That’s definitely how the media in the MCU treats Tony Stark. So people know about Jarvis.

Let’s now jump to the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming, when Tony brings Peter to the Avengers compound in Upstate New York to announce that he’s going to be the newest member of the Avengers. Peter turns him down, but we see that Tony had a whole room full of reporters standing by for the big press conference.

Announcing a new member of the Avengers is a big media event. And Pepper Potts is clearly working at the Avengers compound in some type of reporter-wrangling capacity. That’s even more proof that this happens often, if Pepper has that type of job.

The compound itself is a big deal. The Avengers are not S.H.I.E.L.D. They are not secretive. They are not hiding. They’ve got a whole compound with a whole staff right out in the open. So I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch that a similar press conference was held when a new team of Avengers was put together at the end of Age of Ultron.

I think it’s entirely reasonable to think the Avengers put together some press briefing materials for each of these new members. And I think it’s entirely reasonable to explain that Tony’s AI Jarvis has become Vision. I also think it reasonable for them to be transparent in that Ultron created the body for evil, but the Avengers intercepted it and put Jarvis inside instead. And now Vision is a hero for good. That’s good news.

So that explains how Dr. Darcy knows details about the Vision. How do civilians know about the big villain fights from Infinity War and Endgame?

Again, because of transparency.

Take the support group scene from after the five year jump in Endgame. Steve Rogers is hosting a support group and he specifically says, “Otherwise, Thanos should have killed all of us.” He very casually name drops “Thanos” and what Thanos did.

So five years later, Steve Rogers is casually talking about what Thanos did to a group of civilians. What did he say immediately after Infinity War happened? I think he came completely clean with the public. Do you think Captain America would participate in any sort of cover up? He’s just not that kind of guy. The people of the world are worried and scared, and Steve Rogers knows exactly what happened. I think he’s telling people, I think he’s telling everything.

There would definitely still be news media after Infinity War. The Avengers are going to give interviews. And I can believe Wakanda probably had some cameras watching the fight, right? And Wakanda is now open to the world and sharing information.

We also don’t know how much time passes between the big fight in Endgame and Cap taking his trip back in time to return the Infinity Stones. We know that roughly three weeks have passed between Endgame and the start of WandaVision. I think three weeks is more than enough time for Cap and the Avengers to get back on the horn and tell everybody what happened.

As for specific details of the fights, I think that stuff would be known as well. Think about any crime drama on TV. Didn’t CSI teach us that the cops are very intricate with every little detail of a crime scene? And that’s just run-of-the-mill crimes. This is a fight between superheroes and an invading alien army for the fate of the universe. These fights are going to be picked apart piece by piece, recreated and understood down to the finest detail. And with Captain America and other witnesses providing first-hand accounts, these recreations don’t need to be based on hearsay and conjecture.

So yeah, I think it’s perfectly reasonable, with a transparency-mind Avengers, that civilians are going to know both character history and world event details.

Don’t just assume that all of these details are going to be covered up and hidden from the public. That makes the world a scarier place, and the MCU seems to be a pretty cool place.

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