When Evan Peters made his first appearance in the MCU, fans were, understandably, shocked. Previously, the Fox X-Men universe and the Disney MCU were kept infamously separate. When it was announced that they had reached a deal where Disney and Marvel regained the rights to the X-Men, viewers were just waiting for the first sign that the X-Men would arrive in the MCU. Evan Peters’ appearance as Quicksilver seemed to be just that clue.
However, the WandaVision finale played audiences for fools, saying that he was not Pietro Maximoff, but merely Ralph Bohner. All that work and build-up and effort were thrown away for nothing in a plot point that will only age badly as time goes on. There are many other characters that Pietro could have been rather than Ralph, and all of them would have been far better options than the mistake and mess that canon made.
10 Somebody From Wanda Maximoff’s Past
WandaVision put a great deal of effort into exploring Wanda Maximoff’s future, as well as her past. She needs to move on, but in order to do so, she needs to come to terms with letting go. Her grief has overwhelmed her, and the show takes the time to dive into her past and further explore her childhood.
In taking the time to do this, they could have introduced somebody she knew before, and this person could have ended up being the mysterious Ralph, getting used against her in Westview. Even this would have been better than Ralph Bohner, some random guy who amounts to no more than a lame joke.
9 Mystique Infiltrating Westview For Magneto
Of all the famous shapeshifters in Marvel, Mystique is perhaps the best-known. Her mutation in the comics and on the silver screen is literally the ability to completely change her appearance to look like anybody at all. She has done this many times, and could easily shift her shape into one that resembled Quicksilver.
As she knew Quicksilver in the Fox X-Men universe, she could have been a plant from that universe into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, perhaps placed there by Magneto. He is one of Mystique’s frequent accomplices, as well as Wanda’s father. Mystique disguising herself as “Ralph” and then being found out and used by Agatha would have been far more interesting than Ralph Bohner.
8 One Of The First Mutants In The MCU
After Monica Rambeau fought her way through the Hex barrier Wanda constructed between Westview and reality, she was altered on a molecular level, multiple times. As a result, she gained superpowered abilities beyond humans’ typical abilities. Some fans believed that this would happen to all of the residents of Westview, as it seemed that simply being in the Hex was altering these people.
As a result, this could have made Ralph one of the very first mutated super-humans in the MCU — AKA, one of the universe’s first mutants. He was not, but he would have been a lot better if he had been.
7 Johnny Storm Before Becoming One Of The Fantastic Four
Before it was announced that Fake Pietro, or Fietro, was the infamous “Ralph” that Agnes had continuously referred to, the man could have been anybody, by any name. In fact, he could have even been somebody that would appear later in the MCU, giving him a motivation to fight evil and magic in the world.
Actually, if Ralph was anybody, he could have been someone like Reed Richards or even Johnny Storm. His personality isn’t too far off from a Johnny Storm-like personality, and if it was revealed that Johnny had been trapped here and mutated slightly, it would have introduced the concept of the Fantastic Four into the MCU a little early. This is a stretch, but it still would have been better than the terrible idea of Ralph Bohner.
6 Doctor Strange Using An Illusion To Keep Tabs On Wanda
Fans noted how strange it was that, following Avengers: Endgame, Doctor Strange would likely want to keep tabs on magical threats in the world, and yet he makes no appearance in WandaVision. Agatha refers to Doctor Strange in passing, commenting that Wanda is more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme, but that man never actually shows up.
Despite the fact that Doctor Strange is likely not all that far away from Westview, New Jersey, he never even checks up on Wanda’s alternate reality. Rather than having Doctor Strange being a non-presence in the show, Ralph could have been an illusion that Doctor Strange was using to keep tabs on Wanda and Agatha throughout WandaVision without being noticed.
5 A Projection From Professor X
Because Wanda Maximoff is so involved in the lives of the X-Men in the comics, fans kept wondering if there would be some way that WandaVision would introduce these characters to the MCU. While Mystique never showed up, Magneto could have made his own alternate universe appearance.
His abilities don’t exactly lend themselves to timeline-hopping, but he has one very powerful ally who could make this a reality: Professor X. If an all-powerful Professor X and his team of mutants, including players like Shadowcat, got involved, they could project themselves directly into Wanda’s reality and infiltrate the society to see what was going on.
4 Nightmare Playing A Trick On Wanda & Agatha
One of the villains that fans believed would make an appearance in WandaVision was Nightmare. The illusion-creator from the comics has a gift for making people dream terrible things and stay trapped for ongoing lengths of time in a nightmare-scape.
As a result, fans began speculating that Nightmare might have somehow been involved in WandaVision. If it had been revealed that Fake Pietro had actually been Nightmare in disguise, manipulating Wanda, it still would have been a better twist than Pietro simply being Ralph.
3 Mephisto In A Secret Disguise
As soon as fans could start theorizing about WandaVision, they were wondering when Mephisto might show up. In fact, some fans believed so firmly that Mephisto would be making an appearance that if he would show up was already a foregone conclusion; audiences had already jumped to how he would arrive.
In the end, Mephisto never appeared in WandaVision. However, if he had been in disguise as Fake Pietro, this still would have been better than Pietro being Ralph. Introducing a manipulative Mephisto would have been a better step than this monumental misstep.
2 A Reanimated & Disguised Pietro Maximoff
At one point in the shockingly frank conversations that Fake Pietro had with his fake sister, Wanda Maximoff, he mentioned that real corpses couldn’t be reanimated. Wanda saw him dead as her own true brother had been, but this still wasn’t his body.
Agatha mentioned to Wanda that Pietro’s real body was riddled with bullets elsewhere in the world, and couldn’t be used. Still, some reanimation magic would have been interesting, and bringing Pietro back to life would have solved the incredible mess Avengers: Age of Ultron made by killing him off instantly.
1 Quicksilver From The X-Men Universe
If Fake Pietro was going to be anybody, he should have been Quicksilver from the Fox X-Men universe. There, his name was Peter Maximoff, but he was still the same character. He didn’t have a Scarlet Witch in his universe, and the MCU had lost their Quicksilver, so combining the two universes to give each other their new siblings made sense.
This also would have been an interesting opportunity to present the two in a new story where they didn’t actually grow up together. If Fake Pietro had actually been Quicksilver from the X-Men universe, things would have gone well. WandaVision would have succeeded. Instead, they fumbled in a major way, and they can never truly recover from this ultimate low point.