Scarlet Witch

Publication history

Scarlet Witch debuted, together with her brother, Quicksilver, as a part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in X-Men #4 (March 1964). They were depicted as reluctant villains, uninterested in Magneto's ideologies. Scarlet Witch is depicted as calm and submissive, as with most female comic book characters of the time. Her costume was mainly composed of a bathing suit with straps, opera gloves, short boots, a leotard covering her body, a superhero cape, and a wimple, all of which were colored in shades of red.

After several appearances as a villain in issues #5 (May 1964); #6 (July 1964); #7 (September 1964); and #11 (May 1965), Wanda and her brother were added to the cast of the superhero team the Avengers in Avengers #16 (May 1965). Scarlet Witch was a semi-regular member of the team until issue #49 (February 1968), and then returned in issue #75 (April 1970) and was a perennial member of both the main team and several affiliated teams—such as the West Coast Avengers and Force Works—until Avengers #503 (December 2004), the final issue of the first volume. Upon her return to the Avengers she was given a long-running love interest in the form of fellow Avenger the Vision. Writer Roy Thomas recounted:

I felt that a romance of some sort would help the character development in The Avengers, and the Vision was a prime candidate because he appeared only in that mag... as did Wanda, for that matter. So they became a pair, for just such practical considerations.

The two characters were married in Giant-Size Avengers #4 (June 1975).

Thomas's successor on The Avengers, Steve Englehart, considerably expanded Scarlet Witch's powers, adding genuine sorcery to her mutant "hex" power. He later explained, "Having decided she would be a full-fledged player, she then naturally developed a more assertive personality, and I wanted to know more about her rather vaguely defined powers since she'd be using them more. I could certainly have pushed her more toward the mutant end of the spectrum, but the name 'Witch' seemed like it could be more than just a superhero nom de guerre, so I went that way."

The character made occasional guest-appearances in other Marvel titles such as Marvel Team-Up #41–44 (January–April 1976), and Marvel Fanfare #6 (January 1983). Scarlet Witch starred in two limited series with husband and fellow Avenger the Vision: Vision and the Scarlet Witch #1–4 (November 1982 – February 1983), by writer Bill Mantlo and penciller Rick Leonardi, and a second volume of the same title numbered #1–12 (October 1985 – September 1986), written by Englehart and penciled by Richard Howell. Howell later wrote, penciled, inked, lettered, and colored a Scarlet Witch solo story which appeared in Marvel Comics Presents #60–63 (October–November 1990). A solo limited series, titled Scarlet Witch, ran four issues in 1994. A one-shot titled Mystic Arcana Scarlet Witch was published in October 2007 and an Avengers Origins: The Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver one-shot followed in January 2012.

Artist George Pérez designed a new costume with a strong Roma influence for the character in 1998. This design has rarely been used by artists other than Pérez. Alan Davis stated that when he became the artist on The Avengers, he "asked to change the Scarlet Witch just because I didn't feel the design George Pérez created worked with my drawing style. I tend to go for simpler, more open lines and don't do lots of detail in rendering."

The character played a pivotal role in the Avengers Disassembled storyline and related limited series House of M, and appeared in the Young Avengers follow-up series, Avengers: The Children's Crusade.

Don Markstein asserts: "The Scarlet Witch is unique among superheroes, and not just because she's the only one who wears a wimple. Her super power is unlike any other—she can alter probability so as to cause mishaps for her foes. In other words, she 'hexes' them."

Scarlet Witch is a regular character in Uncanny Avengers (2012), beginning with issue #1. The Axis crossover revealed that Magneto was not her father after all, doing away with a relation that has been canon for decades. It also revealed that she was not a mutant, but a common human that received powers with the experiments of the High Evolutionary. This plot twist was published when Marvel and Fox had a legal dispute over the film rights to the character, as Fox has a film license for the X-Men, mutants, and their related characters.

Under the All-New, All-Different Marvel branding, the character received her own ongoing solo series written by James Robinson in late 2015. Robinson explained that he has been influenced by the work of Matt Fraction and David Aja on the Hawkeye title stating:

[Matt Fraction and David Aja] managed to stay true to the character in the Avengers while also taking it in a fresh direction, so it wasn't just that same Avengers character doing solo things, which I don't think ever really works for any sustained period of time for any of those second-tier characters.

Fictional character biography

Magda, the wife of Magneto, escapes from him while pregnant and takes sanctuary at Mount Wundagore in Transia, the home of the High Evolutionary. She gave birth to twins, Wanda and Pietro. The Elder God Chthon altered Wanda at birth and gave her the ability to use magic in addition to her mutant abilities, planning to use her as a vessel when her powers reached maturity. Fearing that Magnus would discover the children, Magda leaves the sanctuary and supposedly dies of exposure to the elements. The twins are attended by Bova, who soon assists the super-heroine Miss America through labor, but the birth results in a stillborn child and Miss America dies in the process. Bova tells the Whizzer (Robert Frank) that the twins are his children, but he flees because of shock from the death of his wife. The High Evolutionary places them instead in the care of the Romani Django and Marya Maximoff, who raise the twins as their own, naming them Pietro and Wanda. After Django Maximoff steals bread from a neighboring town in order to feed his starving family, the townsfolk set fire to the Roma village, killing Marya. Pietro carried Wanda to safety and the two wandered Europe. The events of their childhood were so traumatic that they did not remember them until well into their adult lives. After Wanda used her powers to save a child, they were chased by a mob. They were saved by Magneto, although neither of them are aware of their connection. He recruits them for the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which fought against the X-Men on several occasions. When Magneto is abducted by the cosmic entity Stranger, the Brotherhood dissolves and the twins declare that their debt to Magneto has been paid.

The Avengers

Soon after Magneto's abduction, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch join the Avengers. With Captain America as leader, and former-villain Hawkeye, the four become the second generation of the Avengers and are later dubbed as "Cap's Kooky Quartet".

Wanda is accidentally shot on a mission against Magneto. Quicksilver rejoins Magneto and leaves the Avengers with his wounded sister. After a pair of encounters with the X-Men, the twins left Magneto, but did not rejoin the Avengers immediately. Wanda and Pietro are then kidnapped with several other mutants by the Sentinels, but are subsequently freed by the X-Men.

Quicksilver later returns to the Avengers and advises them that Wanda has been kidnapped and taken to another dimension by the warlord Arkon. After her rescue, both of them rejoin the team. Scarlet Witch then falls in love with android teammate the Vision. Before long, the two develop a romantic relationship. Their relationship has a tumultuous start as both Quicksilver and Hawkeye object—Quicksilver cannot accept the idea that his sister loves a robot while Hawkeye loves Wanda himself. Despite this, the pair eventually marry with the blessing of the entire team.

Scarlet Witch begins to be tutored by a true witch, Agatha Harkness, which allows her even greater control over her hexes. Wanda and Pietro also meet Robert Frank, who believes them to be his children. This is later disproved when Wanda and Pietro are abducted by Django Maximoff and taken to Wundagore. Wanda is temporarily possessed by the demon Chthon, and after defeating it is advised by Bova that neither Frank nor Maximoff is their biological father. Soon after, while trying to track down Magda one last time, Magneto learns that he is the father of the twins. He immediately informs them of their relationship, shortly after the birth of Pietro's daughter Luna. Scarlet Witch and the Vision take a leave of absence from the Avengers, and she conceives the twin boys named Thomas and William. As the Vision is an android, she conceived using magic. Wanda gives birth, and, with the Vision, eventually leaves the East Coast to join the West Coast Avengers.

Their relationship is almost ended when the Vision is dismantled, and then recreated as an emotionless android. Wonder Man, who had a crush on Scarlet Witch, refuses to allow a new recording of his brain patterns to restore the Vision's personality. Another personal setback follows when it is revealed that Wanda's children are in fact missing shards of the soul of the demon Mephisto. Absorbed back into Mephisto, Agatha Harkness temporarily erases Wanda's memories of her children from her mind in order to ensure that she can temporarily disrupt Mephisto's physical form. It is ultimately revealed that Immortus masterminded those events, as he sought to tap into the temporal nexus energy she possessed. The Avengers ultimately rescue Wanda, who regains her memories of her children in the process.

Immortus's actions leave Wanda's hex power drained and highly unreliable, which was fixed by Agatha Harkness and Doctor Strange. Wanda is then nominated as leader of the Avengers West Coast team. When the team is dissolved, Wanda leads a new one called Force Works. The team suffers several setbacks, including the death of Wonder Man on the first mission. When the team splinters after the last mission involving Kang the Conqueror, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye return to the main team.

The Vision and Scarlet Witch reconcile shortly before sacrificing themselves with the other Avengers and the Fantastic Four to stop the mutant villain Onslaught. Due to the intervention of Franklin Richards, Scarlet Witch and her teammates exist in a parallel universe for a year, until returned to the mainstream universe.

Shortly after the heroes return, Scarlet Witch is kidnapped by the sorceress Morgan le Fay, with the intention of using Wanda's powers to warp reality. Wanda temporarily resurrects Wonder Man, and the Vision is damaged in the final battle with Le Fay. Agatha Harkness tells her that she is now able to channel chaos magic, which made her more powerful. Wanda is able to fully resurrect Wonder Man, and the two become lovers. The Vision is eventually repaired and—after Wonder Man breaks-up with Wanda—they resume their relationship. Her ability to channel chaos magic culminates when the villain Scorpio splits the cosmic entity the In-Betweener into his separate order and chaos personas and Wanda has to reassemble the entity.

Reality-warping era

Wanda hears the Wasp mock her ambitions for motherhood, only to find herself missing her memories of ever having had children. Scarlet Witch then seeks out help from Doctor Doom to see if he can restore her children to life. To do so, they summon a mysterious cosmic entity which merges with her. Wanda, under the influence of the entity, launches a campaign of terror against the Avengers, blaming them for the death of her children. The Vision is destroyed, Hawkeye is killed, and Scott Lang is almost killed—but is saved by Wanda's future self, who teleports him to the future. Doctor Strange defeats Wanda, and Magneto leaves with her.

Realizing that the Avengers and the X-Men are seriously contemplating killing his sister due to her unstable powers, Quicksilver convinces Scarlet Witch to use her powers to create a world where everyone has their heart's desire fulfilled. Although the reality warp succeeds, several heroes (Hawkeye, Wolverine, and Layla Miller) regain their memories and gather Earth's heroes to stop the "House of M". When Magneto discovers what Quicksilver did, he murders him. Wanda resurrects him and, enraged with her father, depowers 90% of the mutant population, including Magneto and Quicksilver. She retires to Wundagore, to live a secluded normal life. Both Beast and a resurrected Hawkeye met her during this time.

The Children's Crusade

Wiccan and Speed from the Young Avengers thought themselves to be reincarnations of the lost children of Scarlet Witch, and try to locate her. Magneto, Quicksilver (whose powers had been restored) and the Avengers try to locate her as well. They find her in Latveria, amnesic and engaged to Doctor Doom. Iron Lad rescues the team and Wanda, teleporting them into the past, where Wanda regains her memory. When the group returns to the present, Scarlet Witch tries to commit suicide. Wiccan then tells her that her father and brother are alive, and that he is her reincarnated son. She returns with Dr. Doom, seeking his help to undo the spell that erased mutant powers, but Doom manages to steal the reality-warping power for himself. He becomes omnipotent, but Wanda and Wiccan steal his newfound powers. She does not return to the Avengers, and stays in solitude.

Avengers vs. X-Men

Scarlet Witch returns to the Avengers during the events of Avengers vs. X-Men. Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman offer her a return to the Avengers. Although she is initially reluctant, she accepts and follows them to Avengers Mansion. Despite both heroines pleading her case, the Vision angrily snaps at Wanda, blaming her again for having manipulated and killed him, and telling her to leave. Ms. Marvel and Iron Man rush to Wanda's defense, the Avengers defer their decision to the Vision, who elects to stand by his point, even if obviously pained by the situation. Ms. Marvel carries away a crying Wanda. When the Avengers go to extract Hope Summers from Utopia and are nearly defeated by a Phoenix Force-empowered Cyclops, Scarlet Witch arrives and saves them. Hope agrees to go with Scarlet Witch; when Cyclops tries to stop Wanda from taking Hope and touches her arm, she causes him physical harm.

Though hunted by the Phoenix-powered X-Men, Wanda's return to the team provides the Avengers a much-needed boost as many teammates are captured by the X-Men. Hawkeye is severely injured rescuing Wanda from being teleported away by Magik and White Queen, the former of which sees Wanda as a monster for depowering mutantkind. Wanda's power provides the X-Men with a threat that not even the Phoenix can face down as the Avengers employ magical illusions to trick the X-Men into thinking Wanda is with the various Avengers groups. Further investigation links Wanda's powers to the Phoenix Force. When Cyclops goes Dark Phoenix, Wanda and Hope Summers, who is mimicking Wanda's powers, defeat him and cause the Phoenix Force to leave him. After Hope inherits the Phoenix Force, she and Wanda combine their powers to apparently destroy the Phoenix by saying "No more Phoenix". This results in the repowering of mutants, undoing Wanda's actions on M-Day.

Uncanny Avengers

Following the war, Captain America selects Scarlet Witch to join the Avengers Unity Squad, a new team of Avengers composed of both classic Avengers and X-Men. After that, she asked her close friends Janet Van Dyne and Wonder Man to join and sponsor the new team. In Uncanny Avengers #14, she meets her apparent death at the hands of her teammate Rogue, who had absorbed Wolverine's powers. This death is eventually undone when the surviving Unity Squad are projected back in time, having learned that Rogue was manipulated by the Apocalypse Twins into killing Wanda, allowing the Avengers to band together and defeat an approaching Celestial.

AXIS

When the Red Skull mounts a new attack, Wanda attempts to work with Doctor Strange to cast a spell of moral inversion to draw out the part of Xavier in the Red Skull and put him in control of the body, but this spell backfires when Doctor Doom is forced to take Strange's place, resulting in the moral inversion of all heroes and villains in the vicinity. When Quicksilver and Magneto try to talk the inverted Wanda down, Wanda attacks them with a curse designed to punish her blood, but only Quicksilver reacts and Wanda realizes that Magneto is not their father. Before she can pursue this further, Doom appears with the resurrected Brother Voodoo and the spirit of his brother Daniel, who possesses Wanda so that she and Doom can undo the spell and restore the heroes' and villains' moralities to normal.

Identity crisis

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver take a trip to Counter-Earth. After being tracked down and defeated by Luminous (a female who was created by the genetic material of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver), Wanda and Pietro were brought to the High Evolutionary. He revealed to them that Django and Marya Maximoff were their true parents—implying that the twins are actually the lost Ana and Mateo Maximoff—and that they were not mutants but had been experimented on by the High Evolutionary. After escaping from the High Evolutionary's experimentations, Pietro and Wanda located the Avengers Unity Division (who had travelled to Counter-Earth looking for the twins) and helped the inhabitants of Lowtown (a refuge for the High Evolutionary's rejects) from their creator's assault. After the High Evolutionary is defeated and he escapes into a portal with Luminous, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver return to Earth with the Avengers Unity Division.

All-New, All-Different Marvel

Seeking to find her place after all the revelations of her true past, Wanda finds herself investigating a recent disruption in magic, as well as meeting the spirit of her biological mother, Natalya Maximoff (Django Maximoff's sister), who was apparently the Scarlet Witch before Wanda. When the second superhero Civil War began, Pietro came to ask Wanda for help, but Wanda refused, because she and Pietro disagreed on which side was right—Pietro not liking the idea of profiling people based on what they might do and Wanda feeling that thinking about the future would have prevented many of their more dangerous mistakes in the past. Past precedent made Wanda feel that introducing her powers to a conflict of this nature could make the situation more dangerous (plus she distrusted Tony Stark), and she resented Pietro for trying to tell her what to do as though she was a child, bluntly informing him that his refusal to learn from his mistakes marked him as a sociopath.

She later helps Dr. Strange defeat the Empirikul, a science cult focused on destroying magic in every dimension.

Powers and abilities

Scarlet Witch is able to manipulate probability via her "hexes" (often manifesting physically as "hex spheres" or "hex bolts"). These hexes are relatively short range, limited to her line of sight. Casting a hex requires a gesture and concentration on her part, though the gestures are largely a focus for the concentration. Despite this precision, the hexes are not necessarily guaranteed to work, particularly if Wanda is tired or using her powers excessively. If overextended, Wanda's hexes can backfire, causing probability to work against her wishes or even undo previous hexes. Early in her career, Wanda's hexes were subconscious on her part, and would be automatically triggered whenever she made a particular gesture, regardless of her intent. These hexes would only manifest "bad luck" effects. She later gained enough control over her powers so they only work when she wants them to, and they are not limited to negative effects. She can use her hexes to light flammable objects, contain or remove air from a particular volume, deflect objects, stop the momentum of projectiles, open doors, explode objects, create force fields, deflect magical attacks, etc. The effects are varied but almost always detrimental to opponents, such as causing the artefact the Evil Eye to work against the inter-dimensional warlord Dormammu, forcing the robot Ultron to short circuit, or a gas main underneath the Brotherhood of Mutants to explode. Scarlet Witch also has the potential to wield magic and later learned that she was destined to serve the role of Nexus Being, a living focal point for the Earth dimension's mystical energy.

Writer Kurt Busiek redefined Scarlet Witch's powers, and maintained that it was in fact an ability to manipulate chaos magic, activated due to the demon Chthon changing her mutation at birth into an ability to wield and control magical energy. This was offered as an explanation for her various feats that seemed to go beyond probability alteration, as well as why her hexes almost always have an effect that is favorable to her goals. During Busiek's run as well as the subsequent run by Geoff Johns, she was shown to be capable of large-scale spells given enough concentration and time to shape the chaos magic to a specific goal, including the resurrection of Wonder Man.

In House of M, her power was depicted as sufficient to rewrite her entire universe, and cause multiverse-threatening ripples. In The Children's Crusade it was revealed that this omnipotence was not part of her natural power level, but the result of a cosmic magical source that increased a magic user's powers to god-like levels. By the end of the event she had returned to her previous power level, able to alter probability and work magic, but not able to change reality at will.

She has a degree of resistance to the Phoenix Force and can cause pain to its hosts, such as Cyclops when he tried to stop Hope from going with her. This becomes less effective as the Phoenix Force portions are divided among those who have not yet been defeated. A vs X #12 confirmed that her powers involve chaos magic, and stated that she has "Mutant Magic", and the "primal source of her chaos" magic is cosmic.

Wanda is an expert combatant, trained by Captain America, Hawkeye, and Wonder Man. She is an adept tactician due to her years of experience as an Avenger and her involvement in a variety of combat situations.

In the new Scarlet Witch series (2016), it is confirmed that Wanda was born with the ability to utilize witchcraft and that this has been seen in other women within her family. Wanda believes that The High Evolutionary genetically altered her, making her more receptive to magical energy.

Age of Apocalypse

During the Age of Apocalypse storyline, Scarlet Witch is a member of Magneto's version of the X-Men, dying to defend the X-Men's base on Wundagore Mountain and the students within it from an attack by Nemesis while the rest of the team was busy thwarting Apocalypse's attempts to take control of a nuclear missile stockpile. Her last words being to ask the newly arrived Rogue to take care of her father. To Magneto's horror, it was revealed that Wanda was briefly cloned in order to repeat the "no more mutants" spell and end the war between humans and the Akkaba forces. But the spell does not go well as it was only successful within a radius of 12 feet, so Jean Grey and Sabretooth are both left depowered while Weapon X and his forces remained powered as all Wanda's clones died.

Heroes Reborn

Scarlet Witch is one of the Avengers participating in the defeat of the entity Onslaught, and is subsequently trapped in the Heroes Reborn universe. In this artificial reality, with her mutant heritage non-existent, Wanda was raised by Agatha Harkness, with the Asgardian sorceress the Enchantress falsely claiming to be her mother.

Exiles

The title Exiles features an alternate version from Earth-8823 with the call sign "Witch". The character joins the inter-dimensional superhero team but is killed in action, and is replaced—without the knowledge of her teammates—by yet another alternate version of herself.

Marvel 1602

In Marvel 1602, Sister Wanda and her brother, Petros, are followers of Enrique, High Inquisitor of the Spanish Catholic Church.

Marvel Noir

In the limited series X-Men Noir, Wanda Magnus is a wealthy socialite and the daughter of Chief of Detectives Eric Magnus.

Marvel Zombies

In the Marvel Zombies storyline, an alternate universe version of Scarlet Witch helps Ash find the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. Wanda is eventually attacked, hunted down and infected by zombified vigilante the Punisher. She reappears, still "zombified" in the third instalment in the series, Marvel Zombies 3. She works with the Kingpin, using the Vision—who was still in love with her—to block enemy radio signals as necessary. She (along with the other zombies) was later confronted by Machine Man, and Jocasta, who decided to save the Vision and finally kill the zombie Kingpin. At yet one point, zombie Scarlet Witch is decapitated by Machine Man's temporary chainsaw limb and was ripped apart in the zombie pile where Machine Man and Jocasta are victorious.

MC2

An older version of Scarlet Witch appears in the MC2 title A-Next. Having been placed in a coma during the original Avengers final battle (as part of an attempt to save Iron Man), Scarlet Witch was captured, revived, and brainwashed by Loki as part of his plan to corrupt various heroes into punishing the Avengers. She eventually returned to her normal mindset, and has made sporadic appearances in the MC2 universe since then.

Ultimate Marvel

In the Ultimate Marvel imprint title Ultimates, Scarlet Witch and her brother Quicksilver defect from Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy to the Ultimates in exchange for the release of imprisoned Brotherhood members. The twin siblings share an incestuous relationship.

In the third volume of Ultimates 3, Scarlet Witch is killed by a lovesick Ultron which is later revealed to have been orchestrated by Doctor Doom. She is shown to be alive in Wundagore together with Teddy (Blob's other mutant child), Quicksilver and Mystique. However this is revealed to be an illusion by Apocalypse.

The Ultimate version's powers differ from the mainstream version's in that the character has to "do the math" in order to use her powers—she must calculate the mathematical probability that the effect she intends to create will actually happen; the more complex the effect, the more complex the mathematical formula.

What If?

Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch appear in the What If? story "What If the X-Men Died on Their First Mission?" as allies of Beast following the demise of the X-Men and upon the menace by Count Nefaria and his Ani-Men. Although invited to join the newly formed team upon the success of their mission, both decline in favor of their current commitments, although they promise their aid if they are needed.

Television

Film

Marvel licensed the filming rights of the X-Men and related concepts, such as mutants, to Fox. Fox created a film series based on the franchise. Years later, Marvel started their own film franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, focused in the characters that they had not licensed to other studios, such as the Avengers. The main core of this franchise were the Avengers, both in standalone films and the successful The Avengers film. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were disputed by both studios. Fox would claim the rights over them because they were both mutants and children of Magneto, the villain of most of their films; and Marvel would claim those rights because the editorial history of the characters in comic books is more associated with the Avengers rather than the X-Men. The studios made an agreement, so that both of them would use the characters. It was made on the condition that the plots do not make reference to the other studio's properties: the Fox films can not mention them as members of the Avengers, and the Marvel films can not mention them as mutants or children of Magneto.

The 2014 film X-Men: Days of Future Past, however, did not feature Scarlet Witch. There is a brief image of Quicksilver with a small girl in the film, and a deleted scene of Quicksilver complaining about his sister, but the director Bryan Singer denied that the girl was Scarlet Witch, saying that she was only Quicksilver's little sister, and that it was just a nod for comic book fans.

Elizabeth Olsen plays Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The comic book costume was ignored, in favor of more everyday clothes. She first appeared, as well as Quicksilver, in a mid-credits scene of the 2014 film Captain America: The Winter Soldier as a prisoner of Baron Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann). She became a supporting character in the 2015 film Avengers: Age of Ultron, where the siblings initially conspire with Ultron (James Spader) but later defect to the Avengers. Quicksilver dies in the ensuing conflict while Wanda goes on to become a member of Captain America's New Avengers. She appears in the 2016 film Captain America: Civil War. Both Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson signed multi-picture deals. Olsen is to reprise her role in both Avengers: Infinity War and its untitled sequel.

Video games

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