Hero Profile: Scarlet Witch

Day Two of the Avengers 2 final countdown. Mutant powers come in a wide array of strangeness. There are some more typical superpowers such as super strength and telepathy, but you also have the really weird like communicating specifically with squirrels, shapeshifting specifically into a wolf, and manipulating probability. Wanda’s powers are definitely on the strange end of things. Warping both probability and reality is rarely in one’s standard superpower set. But we’ll get more into that in a second. Let’s get to it.

Don't get on her bad side.

I’ll be condensing most of Wanda’s childhood background, as it’s more or less identical to her brother Pietro’s. Their mother ran away from Magneto to Mount Wundagore after seeing him use his powers to murder a bunch of townsfolk. She gave birth to the twins but committed suicide shortly thereafter by walking into a blizzard. One thing I didn’t know from reading just Pietro’s background was the fact that an Elder God named Chthon, a powerful deity locked within the heart of Wundagore, had altered Wanda’s power at birth. He gave her a genetic predisposition to “chaos magic” and intended to use the baby as a vessel once she grew to maturity. Dick move Chthon. Their mother’s midwife, a humanoid cow named Bova, tried to pass the babies off to WWII era heroes Whizzer and Miss America, but that plan fell apart when Miss America died in childbirth.

They are instead given to a gypsy couple that had lost their own twins. Things go relatively well until a teenage Wanda killed their adoptive mother in a fire when she accidentally used her powers. Mob formed and the Maximoff’s goose would have been cooked if not for the coincidental arrival of their dear ol’ Father, Magneto. He offers them a spot on the Brotherhood of Mutants, and they join in an attempt to pay off their debt to him. Wanda becomes the Scarlet Witch and Pietro starts going by Quicksilver. They leave the team after Magneto is taken off world by an alien known as the Stranger. They join the second iteration of the Avengers, alongside Captain America and Hawkeye. Their time with the Avenger’s is bumpy, to say the least, and they both leave the team for a while, first to rejoin Magneto, and then to just take some time off. Quicksilver returns to the Avengers to get help saving his sister from an interdimensional warlord named Arkon. They save Wanda and both officially rejoin the team.

Around this time, Wanda falls for the Vision, the newest recruit to the Avengers and an Android. They start seeing each other, despite objections by Pietro and Hawkeye. The former because he felt his sister dating a can opener is just too weird, and the latter because he was in love with Wanda. They get over it, eventually, and Wanda marries the Vision with the team’s full blessing. Around this time Wanda begins training with Agatha Harkness, an actual witch, to get better control of her powers. She and Pietro also meet their maybe daddy, Whizzer aka Robert Frank, and are later kidnapped by their other maybe daddy Django Maximoff. While in Wundagore Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but the Elder God is quickly excised with the help of the Avengers. The twins also learn both of their maybe daddy’s are in fact not.

Not a fan of the big hair look,
Just saying.

They meet their actual father a short time later, as Magneto had been trying to track down Magda, instead found Bova, whom told him everything. After learning their former mentor was their father, both twins decide to take some time off to be with their families. While on leave, Wanda gets pregnant and gives birth to twins, Thomas and William. “Wait,” you may be asking, “How does that work? The Vision is an Android.” One word, Magic. Solves all kinds of reproductive issues. Shortly thereafter they move to the west coast and join that branch of the Avengers. This leads to several personal issues. One, the Vision is dismantled and rebuilt as an emotionless machine. Two, even though the hero Wonder Man could have given the Vision a new recording of his brain patterns to restore him, he does not because he has a crush on Wanda. To that I say, “Asshole, if you love her you’d fix her husband.” And three, the most damaging of all, it’s discovered her twins are magical constructs made from the shattered soul of the archdemon Mephisto, who later reclaims them. Agatha Harkness blocks Wanda’s memories of her boys so she can fight Mephisto without reservation.

The next few years for Wanda are filled with death, resurrections, reality warping, and bouncing between The Vision and Wonder Man each time one of them dies. It happens more often than you’d think. She also has her powers greatly enhanced by the sorceress Morgan Le Fey, giving her access to full chaos magic. Wanda eventually grows very depressed at the deaths of her sons, and seeks out Doctor Doom of all people to see if she can restore the boys to life. Together, the two powerful magic users summon a cosmic entity that merges with Wanda. The being latches onto her feelings of grief, terror, and pain, forcing her to attack the Avengers with all their combined might. The being apparently convinced her the team was to blame for the deaths of her children. She kills Hawkeye, the Vision, and Scott Lang (Ant-Man 2) before being stopped by Dr. Strange. Because of the danger her powers possess, the Avengers and the X-Men serious contemplate killing her, for the safety of the world. Pietro overhears, and races to protect his sister. He convinces her to rewrite reality, creating a Mutant controlled world ruled by Magneto and his “House of M,” consisting of Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and their half-sister Polaris. Wanda also successfully remakes her boys. Things are good (for the House of M) for a while until Wolverine and a few other heroes regain their memories of the previous timeline. They gather the other heroes and fight the House of M. Magneto murders Quicksilver for his hand in distorting reality, and that’s the last straw for Wanda. She resurrects Pietro and restores the timeline, but strips the powers of 90% of Mutant kind, including Pietro and Magneto, to punish her father. She retires to Wundagore to live in seclusion.

Took a few years, but she's finally reunited with
her boys.

A few years later two members of the Young Avengers, Wiccan and Speed, learn that they may in fact be the reincarnations of Scarlet Witch’s children. Which isn’t too shocking, given how both boys bear a striking resemblance to each other (biologically there is no relation) and the original Magic and Speed twins. Thomas, aka Speed, is literally just a smaller look alike of his uncle. They join up with Granddad Magneto, Uncle Quicksilver and the Young Avengers to track down Wanda. They find her in Latveria, engaged to Doctor Doom. She also has no memory of them or her past life. A huge brawl breaks out between the Young Avengers, the normal Avengers, Magneto and Doom. They’re saved by the Young Avenger’s time traveling founder, Iron Lad, and Wanda’s memories are restored. Remembering all the things that went wrong in her life, Wanda attempts suicide via magically constructed doomsday weapons, but is saved by Wiccan, who informs her that Magneto and Pietro are alive and that he and Speed are her sons reborn. Wanda’s elation at being reunited with her family and learning she can restore powers to Mutant’s on a small scale is ended when the X-Men show up demanding justice. Then the Avenger’s fly in and it’s this whole thing.  Wanda, Wiccan, and the Young Avengers escape and return to Doctor Doom to get his help at restoring the powers of the world’s Mutants. Being a traitorous despot, Doom instead steals Wanda’s reality warping powers and tries to take over the world. All the while professing that he’ll make the world perfect and united, as he tends to do when given God like power. Unfortunately for that plan, the team up of the X-Men, Avengers, Young Avengers, and most importantly Scarlet Witch and Wiccan prove too much for him. They take back the power, but Wanda elects to stay in solitude.

She returns to help the Avengers stop the Phoenix Force empowered X-Mend, the Phoenix Five. After Cyclops becomes the new Dark Phoenix, Wanda links her powers with the Mutant Messiah, Hope Summers. The two use their combined cosmic might to pretty much literally rip the Phoenix Force from Scott. Hope claims the Phoenix Force, and she and Wanda destroy poetically with three words, “No More Phoenix.” This also restores power to Mutants worldwide. Destroying her own race to saving it, yep, sounds like she went full circle too, doesn’t it?

Eventual Queen of Genosha. Somehow more terrifying
than her predecessor.

The Scarlet Witch’s powers are weird, as they seem to keep changing. Initially she could only manipulate probability, using ‘hexes,’ balls of light or bolts of energy that make whomever is hit get struck by a serious case of bad luck. She needs to do hand gestures and concentrate to get a desired effect, which is mostly spontaneous combustion. Later stories expand her powers into the realm of chaos magic, a dangerous and powerful form of magic. She’s given power on par with Doctor’s Strange and Doom. She can rewrite reality, but the strain of doing so is very damaging to her mental health. Her powers are now described as “Mutant Magic,” somehow a genetic predisposition to the primordial energies of the universe. Or something like that, it’s a little hard to muddle out.

Wanda is the lesser used of the Maximoff twins, despite the fact the pair usually appear as a team. Not sure why Pietro gets more attention.

She appeared in X-Men: The Animated Series in the episode “Family Ties.” In it, she and brother Pietro are kidnapped along with several X-Men and Magneto by the High Evolutionary. The High Evolutionary explains that he’s going to use their powers, somehow, to increase the speed at which he can perform experiments and increase the rate of success. He also reveals their ties to Magneto, hence the episodes name. After beating the snot out of the High Evolutionary and Magneto attempting to form some connection to his kids, they leave in a huff. And that’s the last we see of her. Weird right?

She appears in the second season of X-Men: Evolution. In this version Magneto has her placed in a mental hospital due to her powers being largely uncontrollable. Years later she’s freed by Mystique in an attempt to get revenge on Magneto. Pietro and Wanda are less than thrilled to see each other, Pietro because of the destructive nature of Wanda’s powers, and Wanda because Pietro got to be free while she rotted in the mental hospital. She’s given training from Agatha Harkness, and is used as the Brotherhood secret weapon against the X-Men. She obsessively tries to destroy her dad for leaving her. This is all eventually stopped when Magneto uses the Mutant telepath Master Mind to alter her memories, turning Magneto from the absentee father and personal boogey man into a love parent. She’s the one Brotherhood Mutant to agree to help the X-Men stop Apocalypse and opts to battle her Horseman altered Father. Unfortunately for her, losing the Dad hate makes it impossible for her to overcome the master of magnetism. Thankfully Pietro and the rest come in to add support at the last second. Much like Rogue, this version of the character is heavily redesigned into a Goth punk style. She’s also much, much angrier than most other versions.

Wanda's back and scarier than ever.

She appears as Magneto’s right hand in Wolverine and the X-Men. She tries to be the voice of reason for much of the show, and tries to get her twin back in. She tries to stop Magneto when they both learn that it’s his machinations with the Sentinels that helps lead the road to ruin, but he ignores her pleas. At the end of the series she takes over as ruler of Genosha and banishes Magneto. She offers Pietro to return, but he declines, electing to follow their father. As I mentioned in my post with Magneto, this version shows Magneto being a rather doting father on his two girls, Wanda and Lorna, but rather overly harsh with Pietro. It’s a very unique take on the House of M’s interfamily relations, especially since Lorna is rarely recognized as a child of Magneto.

She’s a playable character in X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse. She has a rather funny side story where Colossus unintentionally flirts with her at a mission briefing that leads to Magneto believing that metal giant might be considering joining the family. Check it out.

She is set to appear in Avengers: Age of Ultron portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen. This is kind of weird when one considers that she and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, playing Quicksilver, played husband and wife in the Godzilla movie of last year. Just saying. From what I’ve gathered from the trailers, she and Quicksilver will at first use their powers against the Avengers but join them at the climax. They’re probably either Inhumans, or mutated humans, given that Marvel can’t use X-Men related stuff. Makes me wonder how they got the rights to use them in the first place.

Scarlet Witch is a rather interesting character. She has all the power she needs, but is still watched over by overly protective brother Pietro. She can potentially destroy all of creation, but Pietro still feels the need to run interference. Weird, right? Of the Maximoff twins she’s the more compassionate of the two, and arguably has had to deal with the worst crap. What with all the deaths that surround her, and the moral pain I’m sure she felt at damning Mutant kind. She keeps bouncing back, though, which is commendable. She’s the reality warping, probability manipulating Scarlet Witch. Next time, Wanda’s synthetic on again off again husband The Vision.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Witch
 http://marvel.wikia.com/Wanda_Maximoff_%28Earth-92131%29
 http://marvel.wikia.com/File:Wadna_Maximoff_%28Earth-616%29,_William_Kaplan_%28Earth-616%29,_and_Thomas_Shepherd_%28Earth-616%29_01.jpg
 http://x-men.wikia.com/wiki/File:728900-scarlet_witch4_super.jpg
 http://x-menevolution.wikia.com/wiki/Scarlet_Witch