10 Things You Didn’t Know About Scarlet Witch
Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlet Witch, is another of Marvel Comics' most well known characters. First appearing in The X-Men #4 back in 1964, Scarlet Witch has gone on to become an extremely powerful character. She began as a reluctant villain who would later go on to become part of the Avengers and very much a hero.
Although her backstory changed a few times throughout her comic book run, her powers and abilities to alter realtiy and control Chaos Magic generally remained the same. She was also the twin sister of Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver). On the other hand, her parentage would differ depending on the storyline. Most fans agreed that Magneto was her father, even though some storylines stated that he was not. Recently, the character received her own television series WandaVision, which drew some plot elements from her comic book history.
Elizabeth Olsen brought Scarlet Witch to life on the big screen in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and continued to portray her throughout the rest of her appearances in the Infinity Saga. She had received a lot of praise for her portrayal of the character, and fans could not wait to see her return in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. We still have some time to go until this get's released so while we wait, let us look at 10 things you (probably) did not know about Scarlet Witch.
Number 10: She Is A Legitimate Witch
Many fans, particularly newer fans who have not read a lot of the comics featuring her, had stated over the years that she was not really a witch. Wanda was widely known as a mutant whose gene mutations allow her to use metaphysical powers resembling a witch. However, this was not the only reason for Wanda's magic. She was ordained with magical powers as a baby in the Wundagore mountains, and received actual real magical training form the witch Agatha Harkness. Therefore, she is a real bona fide witch.
Number 9 - Wanda Gets "Groovy"
How many of you remember the original Evil Dead films? For those who don't - google it, but for those who do, did you know Wanda had worked with its hero?
Back in 2007, a five-issue comic book limited series was released called Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness. During this crossover event, Ash Williams (the main protagonist of the Evil Dead films), found himself in the Marvel Zombies world. Scarlet Witch showed up to lend a helping hand with her magic. However she got bit and turned into a zombie by the zombie Punisher.
Number 8 - A Cow Helped Her Mother Give Birth To Her
Yes, you read that correctly, it is the world of comic books after all. Bova Ayrshire was an evolved cow created by rogue scientist High Evolutionary as one of his New Men (animals given humanoid form an intelligence). She was created to serve as a nursemaid and caretaker to other New Men. A pregnant Magda Lehnsherr arrived at the Evolutionary's citadel one day, fleeing from her husband. Bova ended up being her midwife when she went into labour, helping to bring Wanda and Pietro into the world.
Number 7 - Change In Backstory For MCU
When it was announced that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver would be making an appearance in Age of Ultron, a lot of fans were left scratching their heads. In the film world, Disney owned the rights to The Avengers and 20th Century Fox owned the rights to the X-Men. With Scarlet Witch being a mutant in the comics, fans thought mutants were going to turn up in the MCU. Sadly this was not to the case. Instead of being a mutant, both Wanda and Pietro of the MCU were given their powers through experimentation with the Mind Stone, one of the Infinity Stones that Thanos sought, completely changing their origin story.
Now that Disney owns Fox, the X-Men rights become Disney's, bringing them all under the same banner. The Disney+ series WandaVision had already begun to retcon her backstory by explaining that she did always have magic. The Mind Stone merely enhanced her powers. Now that she had also received a more comic accurate costume, she could still be confirmed to be a mutant after all.
Number 6 - She Was Married To Doctor Doom
Wanda has had her fair share of crazy storylines, but following the end of a particularly devastating one, in which she would lose the children she willed into existing (we'll cover this in more detail next), she went off the grid and turned up in a very unusual place. During the events of Avengers: The Children's Crusade #1-9, Wanda' son, Wiccan (who is brought back into existence), and his Young Avengers team went looking for his mother and found her shacked up with none other than Doctor Doom, happily married and living in his castle in Latveria. Wanda appeared to have lost her memory. Throughout the story, despite Doom being one of Marvel's big bads, he did seem to genuinely love her.
Number 5 - Immaculate Conception
Like all people in life, Wanda found herself in love, but it was not exactly straight forward. Instead of falling for a normal human or one of her fellow mutants, she fell for the android Vision. Again, strange things do happen in comics. Over time, Wanda began to long for children, and when your spouse is an android, it was not exactly easy. With natural conception out of the question, Wanda ended up achieving her goal by unknowingly using the disassembled soul of Mephisto to magically make herself pregnant. Sadly, when Mephisto's soul was reassembled, she would lose them. This leads us on to Number 4...
Number 4 - Created An Entire Existence
Wanda's power levels throughout her comic book history have been, on occasion, god-like. She was easily one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe, which allow her to create an entire new reality at one point.
After the loss of the twins she magically brought into existence, Wanda suffered a severe mental breakdown. She used her power to create a completely alternate reality in order to try and recreate them and keep them safe. The House of M storyline was one of Marvel's most famous. It is definitely worth a read as it involved a lot of changes to our favorite characters as well. Elements of The House of M were later adapted for the television series WandaVision.
Number 3 - Destructive Words
Scarlet Witch was really at the pinnacle of her power during the events of the aforementioned House of M storyline. Following her brother's demise at the hands of their father, Magneto, Wanda brought him back to life, began to yell at Magneto, saying "We're freaks, Mutants... You chose this over us and you ruined us...Daddy!". She then uttered three words, "No more mutants," and everything turned white.
These three words would have a drastic effect. Following the blinding flash, the world seemingly went back to normal. However, her words had resonated and caused millions of mutants to lose their powers, including Magneto, and Charles Xavier. This lead to the latter's disappearance for some time and highlighted just how powerful Wanda could actually be.
Number 2 - Killed Some of The Avengers, By Accident!
For this fact, we again return to the House of M storyline (you know you want to read it now). We covered her creating a new reality and decreasing the mutant population by about 90%, but another contender for "worst thing Wanda did" is when she killed some of her fellow Avengers. Wanda 's powers continued to grow exponentially and she began to lose control of her reality-warping abilities, leading her to unwittingly kill several of heroes, including Vision, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man.
Number 1 - Who's The Daddy?
Finishing our list off, we have the question of Wanda's paternity. We mentioned that there were a few changes in her origin story. It was once a widely known fact that both she and Pietro were the offspring of the mutant Magneto. However this too was changed.
They were also believed to be the children of Golden Age superhero The Whizzer. He was a hero with super speed like Quicksilver so it was believable. Later on, Marya and Django Maximoff were said to be the twins' parents. Other storylines would then say the Maximoffs adopted the twins when they were still very young. Nothing ever stayed the same in comic books for very long, so no one really know who their real parents were.
Well there you have it, 10 things you didn't know about Scarlet Witch to help satisfy the emptiness left by WandaVision, at least until her next MCU appearance. Did you know them all or do you know any more?
WandaVision is currently available to stream on Disney+ and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is set for release March 2022.
Until next time!