Character Creation
The Scarlet Witch and her twin brother Quicksilver debuted as a part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in X-Men #4 (March 1964). They were depicted as reluctant villains, only wanting safety from persecution and uninterested in team leader Magneto's plans for global domination.
The Scarlet Witch is depicted as calm and submissive, like many female comic book characters of the time. Her costume was 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. She was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Lee and Kirby also produced the Avengers comic book, composed of Marvel's most prominent solo heroes at the time. Save for Captain America, Lee and Kirby eventually had all the Avengers leave to focus on their individual careers, replacing them with former villains from other comics who did not have a series of their own: the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver from X-Men, and Hawkeye from Iron Man's adventures in Tales of Suspense. The team was known as "Cap's Kooky Quartet".
Although common in later years, such a wide-scale change in the roster of a superhero group was completely unprecedented (usually, superhero teams only exchanged one or two members at a time rather than almost the entire roster at once). Lee and the following Avengers writer, Roy Thomas, hinted that other Avengers were romantically interested in the Scarlet Witch. The twins later leave the team after a crossover with the X-Men.
Some years later, Thomas brought Wanda and Pietro back into the team and started a long-running romantic relationship between the Scarlet Witch and the android hero Vision, thinking it would help with the series' character development.
He elected those characters because they were only published in the Avengers comic book and did not star in solo adventures, so relationship drama in the series would not interfere with stories in other publications.
Their first kiss took place during the Kree–Skrull War arc. Thomas also added Hawkeye into a love triangle with both characters, eventually having the archer realize that Vision and Wanda were truly in love.
A fan of Golden Age heroes, Roy Thomas often found ways to integrate the older characters into modern-day stories. In Giant-Size Avengers #1 (August 1974), Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are revealed to be the children of Golden Age superheroes Whizzer (Robert Frank) and Miss America (Madeline Joyce).
Steve Englehart succeeded Thomas as the writer of Avengers. He gave Wanda a more assertive personality and removed the highly-protective Quicksilver from the team.
In 1974, Englehart expanded Wanda's powers by having her learn witchcraft from Agatha Harkness. The Vision and the Scarlet Witch married in Giant-Size Avengers #4 (June 1975), the end of the Celestial Madonna story arc.
In 1979, Wanda learns Bob Frank and Madeline Joyce are not her and Pietro's parents. Wanda then stars in the 4-issue limited series The Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1982–83), by writer Bill Mantlo and penciler Rick Leonardi.
In this limited series, Magneto was retconned to be Wanda and Pietro's father. Englehart returned to the characters with penciler Richard Howell for a second limited series, in which the Scarlet Witch gets pregnant by magical means and delivers twin sons, William and Thomas.
Englehart took over as writer for the spin-off series West Coast Avengers, later adding Vision and Wanda to the team.
John Byrne later replaced Englehart on the series (which was renamed Avengers West Coast). He wrote and illustrated the controversial "Vision Quest" storyline, where the Vision is dismantled and turned into an emotionless being who later even refuses the chance to regain his emotions (leading to the annulment of his marriage to the Scarlet Witch).
Around this same time, Wanda is brainwashed twice by different villains, first to become a servant for the parasitic life form That Which Endures[ and then to be a "Bride of Set" during the crossover Atlantis Attacks.
Although her mind is restored both times, the repeated trauma renders her catatonic. At this time, the Vision decides he cannot help Wanda or the Avengers West Coast and returns to the NYC team.
Byrne's next storyline involved Wanda becoming a villain yet again, now displaying greater and more focused power than before, and rejoining Magneto.
Writers Roy and Dann Thomas took over Avengers West Coast. They revealed that Wanda's new personality, attacks on the Avengers and increase in power were all due to manipulations by the time villain Immortus, who had been seen watching the Avengers during some of Byrne's issues. The storyline disclosed Wanda is a "nexus being", a person who greatly affects timelines.
By influencing Wanda to tap into her nexus energies, Immortus caused her increase in power and the creation of the children. Immortus wishes to use her to warp reality, but Wanda comes to her senses and gives up her nexus energies.
Roy and Dann Thomas then revealed that a side effect of this caused Wanda to remember her children and temporarily lose her powers. The website Women in Refrigerators interviewed Englehart about these changes, who said he did not like them.
Multiple stories after the Immortus storyline featured Wanda remembering and mourning her children, and even judging teammate Spider-Woman for bringing her child along on an Avengers assignment.
Roy Thomas later wrote the short story "A Study in Scarlet", with art by Al Bigley and Mike DeCarlo, published in Avengers West Coast Annual #7 (1992). The short story featured Wanda reflecting on how she was glad Agatha's memory-blocking spell only lasted a short time, as she appreciates having had the chance to mourn her children properly.
She then accidentally creates a window into another timeline where she sees a version of events where she, Vision, and the children remained together. This brings her comfort and helps her feel she can cope with the loss better.
Following the Immortus storyline, Wanda is a more serious-minded character, wishing to atone for turning against the Avengers twice in a short amount of time and endangering reality. When she regains her powers, her hexes are initially more difficult to control and only on the power level she had when she first joined the Avengers.
To compensate, she practices the magic Harkness taught her. In 1994, Avengers West Coast ended, and several of its team members reformed as an independent group led by Wanda in the series Force Works. The new title ran for only a couple of years. In 1994, a Scarlet Witch four-issue limited series was written by Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett, and pencilled by John Higgins.
Marvel Comics was nearing bankruptcy in 1996. The Avengers and other titles were relaunched in a new continuity and line of books called Heroes Reborn, outsourced to the studios of Image Comics artists.
Rob Liefeld worked with the relaunched Avengers title and included the Scarlet Witch in the team, making her a sorceress with no mutant abilities (the Heroes Reborn reality did not make any reference to any people born with mutant powers). After Marvel renegotiated the terms of the deal, Liefeld was replaced with writer Walter Simonson and penciler Michael Ryan. The project was a success, boosting the sales of the titles and bringing Marvel Comics out of bankruptcy.
The project ended after a year, and the Avengers were returned to the mainstream Marvel reality. The Avengers series relaunched again, now under Kurt Busiek and George Pérez. Pérez designed a new, complicated design for Wanda, increasing the volume of curls in her hair and giving her a costume with Romani influences. Pérez commented he preferred this more challenging design but accepted other artists would find it irksome.
Later when he became the artist on Avengers, Alan Davis asked to change the design because it didn't work well with his simpler, less detailed style. During Busiek's stories, Wanda once again becomes a powerful sorceress by tapping into the energy of "chaos magic". Busiek clarifies her true mutant power is to tap into magical energy fields and manipulate them, just as Magneto taps into and manipulates electromagnetic fields.
Marvel decided to relaunch the Avengers series again, with a new roster, headquarters, atmosphere, and creative direction.
To promote the change and gain reader interest, the inciting event was depicted in the 2004 story Avengers Disassembled written by Brian Michael Bendis and with art by David Finch.
In the story, a remark by the Wasp causes Wanda to remember her children (how and when Wanda once again lost the memories of her children is not explained). She suddenly relives the trauma of their loss and feels betrayed by the Avengers, both for allowing Harkness to cloud her memories and for being unable to save her children from Mephisto.
Emotionally overwhelmed and simultaneously experiencing a drastic increase in power, Wanda kills Agatha Harkness and causes the Avengers to suffer their "worst day" by altering the minds of She-Hulk and Iron Man, and causing simulations of the villain Ultron and the alien Kree to attack.
This leads to the apparent deaths of different characters and the destruction of Avengers Mansion. Wanda is discovered to be the culprit and stopped, after which she falls into a coma.
The Avengers disband, then reform in New Avengers. To explain her sudden increase in power, the sorcerer Dr. Strange says Wanda's actual mutant power is to reshape reality, adding that her talk of tapping into "chaos magic" is a lie because such a force does not exist. This contradicted earlier comics where Dr. Strange himself uses chaos magic and "catastrophe magic", and later Marvel stories confirm chaos magic is a real force that sorcerers can access.
Wanda was seen again in the limited series House of M, creating an alternate version of Earth. When Earth's heroes defeat her, she causes "M-Day", removing the powers of most mutants on Earth. She then appeared in the Young Avengers follow-up series, Avengers: The Children's Crusade (2010-2012), which retconned Avengers Disassembled by revealing Wanda's extreme actions and enhanced power levels during recent stories were the result of tapping into an enormous source of energy that then corrupted her, similar to when she was possessed by Chthon, brainwashed by That Which Endures, and corrupted by Immortus.
This was now the explanation as to how she was able to warp reality and why she would no longer be that powerful, and partially exonerated her from her actions against the Avengers and during M-Day. Wanda was again portrayed as someone who wanted to atone for her past, accepting partial responsibility rather than completely blaming outside influences, allying herself with Doctor Doom.
Avengers: The Children's Crusade also now referred to the children of William and Thomas not as "pieces" of Mephisto's essence but as "lost souls" who had been taken away by Mephisto, indicating they actually had been alive and explaining how they could be reincarnated as the teenage heroes Speed and Wiccan.
Fictional character biography
The Scarlet Witch (real name Wanda Maximoff) is a human with the ability to alter probability. For a time, she was believed to be the daughter of the mutant Magneto and his late Roma wife Magda. Wanda is also the fraternal twin sister of Pietro (Quicksilver). Wanda and her brother are both Romani and Jewish. Shortly after Magda became pregnant, she witnessed her husband use his magnetic powers and realized that he was a mutant.
Being terrified of mutants, Magda did not tell him about her pregnancy and fled from their home at the first opportunity. Magda eventually found refuge with a benevolent cow-like humanoid named Bova, who lived on Mount Wundagore in Transia. The twins were born on Mt. Wundagore, and due to the mountain's mystical energy, it gave Wanda the ability to use magic in addition to her other powers.
Shortly after the birth, Magda was driven mad with fear that Magneto might come for her and discover the twins. Despite Bova's attempts to reassure her, she fled the mountain during a blizzard in order to protect the twins and apparently died of exposure soon afterward.
The motherless twins became the responsibility of Bova. A short time later, Bova helped a World War II heroine named Miss America give birth to a child fathered by her superhero husband, the Whizzer, but unfortunately, both child and mother died from radiation poisoning soon afterward.
After Whizzer arrived, Bova only told him that Miss America had died, and gave him Pietro and Wanda to care for, claiming they were his children. Whizzer initially took the twins with him, but once he discovered they were not his own, he immediately returned them to Bova on Mt. Wundagore.
Bova then found another set of foster parents for Wanda and Pietro named Django and Marya Maximoff, who had just lost two children of their own. Django and Marya were Roma, and unfortunately suffered from prejudice and persecution in Transia.
Django worked as a doll-maker, but it was hard for him to find customers due to him being Roma. Django eventually had to steal food to keep his family from starving. When Wanda grew older, she received unwanted advances by a boy her age and was forced to use her powers to keep him away from her. The villagers, however, accused Wanda of seducing the boy and attacked the Maximoffs, setting fire to the family’s wagon.
Marya was still inside and burned to death. They clubbed Django unconscious, but Wanda and Pietro were able to escape. Wanda and Pietro now believed that they were the only members of their family left. The two twins grew up together taking care of themselves, and Pietro grew very protective of Wanda.
Character Evolution: Silver Age
Scarlet Witch has been through some major changes in her comic book career. Wanda began her career as a mutant on the side of evil, being a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But just over a year later in May 1965, she joined the Avengers and became a hero in Avengers #16.
The line between good and evil with her blurred, not because of ideals, but because the slightest misuse of her powers was a cause for concern for many.
Bronze Age and Modern Age
For many years, Wanda was a core member of the Avengers and West Coast Avengers teams. But the Avengers Disassembled, House of M and Decimation storylines radically altered her powers and her place in the Marvel Universe.
Her powers had initially been portrayed as a simple ability to manipulate probability and generate hexes on her opponents. But following a breakdown caused by the realization that she had lost her children, Wanda manifested an ability to alter all of reality and caused the deaths of several characters as she lashed out at her former friends.
The Children's Crusade storyline, involving the Young Avengers in a quest to find and confront the now amnesiac Wanda who may once again alter her place in the Marvel Universe for good.
Major Story Arcs
Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
Eventually, Wanda and Pietro used their powers in public again, resulting in their being attacked by a superstitious mob. Magneto arrived and saved their lives, and in return, they agreed to join his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Wanda became known as the Scarlet Witch, and Pietro, due to his power of super-speed, took the name Quicksilver. They were the first members of the Brotherhood, but neither Magneto nor the twins were actually aware that Magneto was their real father.
Wanda was now a beautiful young woman and two male members of the Brotherhood, Toad, and Mastermind, often tried to seduce her, but Magneto always protected her from them.
However, Magneto would also inflict pain on Wanda whenever she gave a thought of leaving the Brotherhood. Magneto recruited more powerful beings to aid the Brotherhood, such as Namor, after Wanda failed her objectives during certain missions.
Namor eventually quit the Brotherhood after witnessing Wanda being abused by Magneto for her disloyalty. After Magneto was taken from Earth by the cosmic entity called the Stranger, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants effectively disbanded. The American superhero Iron Man then asked Wanda and Pietro to join his team of heroes, the Avengers.
The Avengers
The twins briefly went back to Europe to consider the offer, but soon returned to America and joined the Avengers. They wanted to redeem themselves for their past actions when they were members of the Brotherhood. Captain America trained them as Avengers, and Hawkeye became Wanda’s closest friend on the team. During her stay with the Avengers, Wanda became attracted to the android Avenger known as the Vision and the two began dating romantically.
Both Pietro and Hawkeye were very vocal in their disagreement with the relationship. Pietro felt dating an android was beneath Wanda, and Hawkeye also disapproved because he had developed his own feelings for Wanda. Eventually, Hawkeye got over his jealousy and gave Wanda and Vision his blessing. Pietro, on the other hand, denounced his sister’s love. Later, during an argument with Hawkeye, a telepath named Moondragon erased Pietro’s hate for the Vision.
Learning Her Powers & Marriage
Also during her time with the Avengers, Wanda was tutored by a true witch named Agatha Harkness. Harkness helped her to understand and employ her powers more efficiently. She disciplined Wanda’s magical ability and taught her to control her mutant hex power.
Wanda's romance with the Vision culminated in the two getting married. This important event in her life caused her to wonder who her real father was. For a time, she believed that the Whizzer was her biological father. Wanda eventually learned that Magneto was her real father, which made her even angrier at Magneto because of his abusive behavior during her time in the Brotherhood. Later, after Agatha Harkness died, Wanda became infused with magic powers that made her pregnant with twins, whom she named Thomas and William. Wanda and Vision decided to retire as Avengers in order to raise their children.
West Coast Avengers
Vision and Wanda eventually came out of retirement and joined a depleted West Coast Avengers. The Vision was kidnapped by other countries that were still angered with his attempt to take over the world years earlier. Vision's memories were eventually wiped clean, leaving him completely robotic and logic-driven and with no emotional attachment to anything, including Wanda. She decided to find a way to restore the Vision's memories and personality.
Wanda sought out Wonder Man, who was considered the Vision’s 'brother,' since the android's personality and memories had originally been created from Wonder Man's own. But since they shared the same psychic template, Wonder Man also loved Wanda and had always been jealous of the Vision. He wanted Wanda to marry him instead. Wonder Man was counseled by Wasp (who could not have children of her own and questioned the existence of Wanda’s children), who convinced him to not allow anyone to use his memories to restore the Vision’s.
Fading Children
Wanda’s children began to fade in and out of existence. It was eventually revealed that Agatha Harkness was still alive, and had used mystical energies containing parts of Mephisto’s soul, turning them into Wanda’s children in order to hide them.
One of Mephisto’s minions kidnapped Wanda’s children and reabsorbed them back into Mephisto. The Avengers attempted to rescue the children but failed. Agatha erased a grief-stricken Wanda’s memories of her twins and helped the Avengers escape from Mephisto’s realm.
Everyone’s life went on, with Vision still having no memories and showing little concern for Wanda on the battlefield. Vision eventually decided to leave the West Coast team to join the East Coast roster. Wanda begged Vision to stay by her side, but he told her that the East Coast needed him more than she did.
This led to Wanda having a nervous breakdown and helping found a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, along with Magneto (who had returned to Earth) and Quicksilver. Pietro soon revealed that he only joined Magneto to take back his fragile sister. The West Coast Avengers tried to save Wanda, but she was then kidnapped by Immortus. Immortus revealed that he had manipulated Wanda’s relationship with Vision in order to destroy the android, and this process made Wanda emotionally fragile.
Force Works & Return to the Avengers
During the process, Wanda’s mutant power connected her to multiple parallel universes. She was then rescued by the West Coast Avengers and rejoined the team. Wanda stayed with the West Coast Avengers for quite some time. Hawkeye helped her deal with the loss of her husband and her twins.
Wanda would eventually become leader of the West Coast Avengers, but soon left to become a founding member of a new team called Force Works. The ill-fated team did not last long however, when Wonder Man died on the first mission as a member of Force Works. The group disbanded, and Wanda rejoined the Avengers.
Around this time, Vision began to regain his past memories and emotions for Wanda and the couple tried to reconcile. They were interrupted when they had to battle Onslaught and died alongside other heroes. They were put in an alternate universe, but were returned to their proper universe by Franklin Richards.
Return to Earth-616
After returning to their own Earth, Wanda, along with her fellow Avengers and the Fantastic Four, soon tried to settle down once more after the events of the last few months. It was however not much later that Wanda was kidnapped by the sorceress Morgan Le Fey.
She was able to escape and resurrected Wonder Man to ghost form in the process. Le Fey battled Vision and wounded him badly. Vision tells Wanda not to visit him because of his current status and her fragile mind. Wanda revisited Agatha Harkness where she learns that her mutant powers were still evolving. She is able to now channel Chaos Magic which is considered very dangerous by professional magicians.
Wanda also learns that she can resurrect the dead now. After she was rejected by Vision so much, she decided to revive Wonder Man and pursue a relationship with him. They began having an obvious affair right in front of Vision who had his entire memories restored.
However, their relationship would go nowhere after Wonder Man reveals that he does not want to get married and have children. Wanda dumped Wonder Man right after that. Soon Wanda and Vision would reconcile and try to rebuild their relationship. Wanda began using her Chaos Magic more often and it started to consume her with chaos energy.
Avengers Disassembled
When the Wasp began a romantic relationship with Hawkeye, she would constantly talk to Wanda about the developments of their romance. One day after Wasp had a few drinks, she revealed to Wanda that she once had children that were hidden to her.
This triggered something deep inside Wanda’s mind. She sought out her former teacher, Agatha Harkness to learn the truth, and murdered Agatha for the betrayal. She went on to exact her revenge on her fellow Avengers. She hit each of them unexpectedly.
At this point, Wanda was believed not to be in her right mind, driven mad by her immense power and the memory of the children she lost. It is highly likely that what she did to the other Avengers was unknown even to her, and their destruction was created on a subconscious level.
First, the corpse of Jack Of Hearts was animated and blew up the Avengers Mansion, killing Scott Lang. It is not fully known whether this was actually Scott Lang's body, if his mind was in the body at the time of the attack, or if it was simply a construct generated by Wanda's magic which was meant to resemble the former Avenger.
Next, during a U.N. meeting where Iron Man was speaking, the unmasked Tony Stark became overwhelmed with the sensation of drunkenness despite his long-term sobriety. He called out the Latverian ambassador, talking about how the entire country should be wiped off the map, and threatening to kill the politician where he stood.
Before Hank Pym was able to lecture Tony, Wanda's Avengers communicator signaled a code white, signaling that they were needed at the Mansion. As Stark flew off, the United States Chief of Staff called him and informed him that he was being forced to resign from his position within the government.
Back at the mansion, SHIELD had arrived at the scene to lend assistance and investigate. The Vision flew in on an Avengers Quinjet, crashing into the side of the building. An apologetic Vision emerged from the rubble and ejected several metal orbs which grew into Ultron robots.
The army of Ultron robots attacked the Avengers, sending She-Hulk into a blind rage. After the Ultron robots were defeated, She-Hulk ripped the body of the Vision in half, utterly destroying him. Iron Man arrived just in time to incapacitate her, but not before she had severely injured both Wasp and Lionheart.
At this point, Wanda had either killed or taken several of her teammates out of action, most likely still not even realizing that she was behind the attacks. The remaining Avengers had little time to try to figure out what was happening or who was attacking them before returning to the Mansion.
When they returned, they found Nick Fury as well as many past members who were close enough to assemble, and a few friends of the team. Fury was trying to get the superheroes who had arrived to leave so that they wouldn't mess up his investigation when a group of Kree warriors (generated by Wanda's magic) flew in to attack. During the attack on the Avengers, Hawkeye sacrificed himself to bring down the Kree warship.
After the destruction of the ship, the remaining Kree fled and Doctor Strange arrived to inform them that the attacks on the Avengers were magic-based. He declared Wanda to be insane due to her possession of reality-altering abilities that were beyond her comprehension or control. He was aghast that she had been allowed to live her life without checks and balances, saying anyone who had such a powerful control over probability would have lost their grasp on reality. He scolded the Avengers for not consulting with him about Wanda’s past. He also reveals that there is no such thing as “Chaos Magic.”
Strange led the Avengers to Wanda who had begun creating a fake reality around her composed of those she cared for. The arrival of the Avengers threatened this peace and the existence of the children that she had once again willed into being.
Wanda summoned new constructs of heroes and villains to battle the group of superheroes and created demons to battle Strange. She was no match for Strange's power, and she was immobilized by him. It was then that Magneto, hearing of his daughter's mental break, arrived to rescue her. Magneto took Wanda back to Genosha in hopes of healing her broken mind.
House of M
While in Genosha, Magneto asked Professor X to help Wanda but he refuses to do so. Instead, Xavier put Wanda in a coma. She was trying to restore her husband’s life and undo the harm she has caused. Xavier then calls a meeting with the Avengers and the X-Men to decide whether they should allow Wanda to live or not. A horrified Pietro immediately came to Wanda and told her of this.
He convinced her, while she was in this fragile mental state, to distort probability to create a new reality, called House of M. In this new reality, the mutant/human ratio was reversed, and Magneto was the supreme ruler (hence, House of M). Wanda was also not a mutant in this reality and she had children.
However, Layla Miller used her powers to restore the memories of a few mutants, who created an assault force to try and re-establish the correct reality. This militia assumed it was Magneto who convinced Wanda to create the House of M. They attacked the House of M with a full army and in the process, Layla was able to restore Magneto’s memories. Wanda confessed it was Pietro that convinced her to warp reality.
No More Mutants
Infuriated, Magneto yelled at his son for using his name in this and nearly killed Pietro. Wanda then revived Pietro, angered that Magneto placed mutants over his own children. To remedy the problem, Wanda conjured all her powers and uttered the 3 most impacting words in all of the Marvel Universe: "No more mutants". This sent reality to where it was before with only a select few remembering what had happened, and 99% of the mutant population losing their powers. From that time onward, the events were referred to as M-Day.
Decimation
It is later revealed, that not only does Wanda not remember House of M or have her powers, she does not have any recollection of who she was, and has created a new life for herself. She currently resides in an unknown village in Europe. Later, Hawkeye was able to track Wanda down to a city near Wundagore Mountain.
Hawkeye saves Wanda from thieves but Wanda reveals that she has no memories of her past and believes that she has lived in the village her entire life. She thanks Hawkeye and calls him her hero. The two grow close.
After that Hawkeye tried to enter Aunt Agatha's room, but when he tried to grab the doorknob, it disappeared as if by magic. Hawkeye looked at Wanda but she, seemingly, was still asleep. Beast has also tried to get Wanda to undo the damage she caused the mutant race. Instead, she tells him a story about the fisherman and the mermaid, after informing Beast his watch was a fake.
He asks her questions about magic in the hopes it would trigger her memories, but she simply states she is waiting for her Aunt Agatha (who many suspect to be Agatha Harkness) and does not believe in magic.
Beast dreams of having a conversation with Wanda, who tells him "Sand is sand" and that he shouldn't mourn the passing of what passes, that she didn't invent death. When he tells her she delivered a death sentence, she reminds him that she spoke her mind and brought about change, not death. No more mutants, no more pain. However, when he brings up the valid point of asking about the mutants who were happy with their gifts, Wanda points out that he's still dreaming.
The Children's Crusade
The Young Avengers Wiccan and Speed convinced that the Scarlet Witch is their biological mother, go in search of the real Wanda. Along the way, they encounter both Magneto and Quicksilver, who are quickly drawn into a fight as Pietro attempts to kill his father Magneto. Wiccan transports the Young Avengers, Magneto, and Quicksilver to Transia to begin their search. In the midst of a fight, Wanda suddenly reappears, only to be 'killed' by Quicksilver, who had hurled some wooden stakes at Magneto but hit Wanda instead.
This 'Wanda' is revealed to be a Doombot, suggesting to the gathered group that Wanda is being held captive by Dr. Doom. After teleporting solo into Castle Doom, Wiccan encounters Wanda inside her private quarters. Hoping for a nice reunion with his mother, Wiccan attempts to tell her that he is her son. Unfortunately, Wanda has no knowledge of him or anything about her past life. She tells him she is set to marry Doom in a day.
Before Wiccan can do anything, Doom bursts into the room and knocks him out with a blast from his suit. Doom reveals to Wiccan (after healing him and removing his powers) that he didn't find Wanda, instead, Wanda found him. She has lost her powers and has no recollection of her past. He also claimed that he loves her.
On her wedding day, Wanda frees Wiccan from his chains and tells him that Victor wasn't acting in his usual way when he saw Wiccan and she asks Wiccan to tell her everything.
Wiccan tells her about Scarlet Witch up till the event when he meets Speed. He cuts off in his mid-sentence: "and I realized (that Speed and I are your lost twin sons)-" when he sees that the Avengers, as well as the Young Avengers and Magneto, have arrived in battle Doom and Wanda. Wolverine sees Wanda and attacks her and is about to kill her when he gets hit by a laser beam from Iron Lad.
While the rest of the Avengers and Young Avengers reunite with Iron Lad, Doom slips away to where Wanda and Wiccan are at and attempts to kill Billy.
Wanda begs him to stop and says she doesn't believe Wiccan's story but wonders why Doom is so concerned she might have. Magneto burst through the wall and attacks Doom, while Billy slips away with Wanda saying they have to get her somewhere safe. Iron Lad appears and says he can help by transporting all the Young Avengers and Wanda to his safe haven in the Timestream. Iron Lad says that to try and help Wanda regain her memory, they should go back to the day it started when Wanda resurrected Jack of Hearts and murdered her teammates. Everyone is worried about them (especially Cassie) changing the past but Iron Lad assures them that with his technology, they can inhabit the past without affecting it. He transports them all to the Avengers Mansion, the day of Wanda's breakdown, but she still doesn't recognize or recall anything.
Cassie sees her deceased father, Scott Lang, and runs to him. To everyone's surprise, she is able to touch him and he can see her. Suddenly Jack of Hearts appears and the Young Avengers (with Scott in tow) run from him. Wanda stays behind and walks up to Jack, and he pleads with her about why she's making him do this. As Speed, grabs Wanda to escape, Jack exploded. They appear in the present with Scott Lang, but in this reality, he is still dead, as he stands in front of his own memorial statue.
They ask Iron Lad how that is possible and how he brought them and Scott there without changing the past. He replied that he didn't and then Wanda appears behind them saying that she did it. They turn to see Wanda, in her Scarlet Witch costume, telling them that Billy was right, she is the Scarlet Witch and she remembers everything.
Feeling guilty about her past misdeeds, Wanda attempts to commit suicide. Billy is able to talk her out of it by revealing that he believes himself and Speed to be her reincarnated children. He then requests that she use her powers to reveal whether or not he and Thomas are her children, to which she agrees.
She realizes that they are in fact her children and her, Billy, and Thomas tearfully embrace each other. Beast suggests that Wanda absolve herself of her crimes by attempting to reverse the effects of M-Day. She is successfully able to restore the powers of the mutant known as Rictor, just as a team of X-Men shows up to confront her. As the X-Men try to take Wanda into their custody, both Magneto and the Avengers defend her which leads to a battle between both teams.
During the battle, Emma Frost uses her telepathy to influence the thoughts of both Wiccan and Speed until Wanda interferes and causes each member of both teams to fall asleep before teleporting herself and the Young Avengers to Doctor Doom's castle. There Doctor Doom and Wanda convince the Young Avengers into using a spell to separate Wanda from her powers. Combining the powers of Wanda, Wiccan and Doctor Doom they began their spell until it was interrupted by Patriot, who fired an explosive arrow at Wanda which interrupted the spell before it could be completed and thereby giving Doctor Doom all the powers that they were trying to harness.
Avengers vs. X-Men
During Avengers vs. X-Men, Wanda finds herself on the side of the Avengers, her powers being the only thing capable of hurting the Phoenix Five. As the Phoenix avatars grew stronger, however, Wanda's hex bolts became less and less effective. Tony Stark deduced that it would require the efforts of both Wanda and Hope Summers to stop the Phoenix.
Although she had fought with Hope at first, they successfully defeated Cyclops after he became the Dark Phoenix and rid the world of the Phoenix Force for now. The aftermath of this fight resulted in the re-emergence of the mutant race with several new powers manifesting at the very moment of the Phoenix dispersal.
Powers & Abilities
The Scarlet Witch possesses the mutant power of affecting probability fields. By a combination of gestures and mental concentration, she creates a hex-sphere, a finite pocket of reality-disrupting quasi-psionic force, which upon reaching its intended target, causes the disturbance in the molecular-level probability field surrounding the target. Thus, unlikely phenomena will occur.
Among the many phenomena she is able to cause are: the sudden melting of gun barrels, the spontaneous combustion of any flammable object, the rapid rust or decay of various organic and inorganic materials, the poltergeist-like deflection of an object in flight, the sudden evacuation of air from a given volume, the disruption of energy transmissions and fields, and so on. These phenomena occur practically instantaneously after the completion of her hex. Her range of hex-casting is limited by her line of sight. She cannot watch a live television broadcast and cause a hex-phenomenon to occur at its point of origin.
Scarlet Witch's hex-casting ability had a 20% unreliable factor and she is limited in the range of sight, although she has been able to overcome the latter limitation on occasion via extreme concentration and sorcerous enchantment.
Wanda is also a living focal point for the Earth's magic. Her sorcerous training with Agatha Harkness is separate from her mutant ability of probability (science). But the mixture of the two makes her considerably more powerful than just using her probability powers. She has a special affinity for the natural elements and materials that true witches utilize in their spells: the four alchemical elements, wood, organic substances, etc.
The reliability factor of her hex-casting ability is also limited by her physical condition: when well-rested, in good health and mentally and emotionally alert, Scarlet Witch can cast numerous hex-spheres in rapid succession and attain desirable results for almost an hour. However, certain events in House of M, have shown that her limits may have been removed altogether. And her powers actually evolved, giving her the mutant ability to alter reality on a vast scale by way of magic.
⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽
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A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.
Secret Identity: Wanda Maximoff
Publisher: Marvel
First Appearance: The X-Men #4 (March 1964)
Created by: Stan Lee (writer)
Jack Kirby (artist)
