Wanda Maximoff has a long, weird history in the world of Marvel Comics — and now that
she's finally getting some real attention in the MCU, there's no better time to bone
up on her story. This is the untold truth of the Scarlet Witch.
Wanda and Pietro Maximoff's first origin story painted them as nameless, wandering orphans
rescued by the mutant Magneto, who soon becomes their surrogate father. Things get complicated,
however, when Captain America's old war buddy, Robert Frank, also known as Whizzer, comes
into the mix.
It turns out that Robert and his wife Madeleine had once been exposed to huge amounts of radiation
— as a result, their first child, Nuklo, was born a radioactive mutant. When Maddy
got pregnant again, they visited a super-scientist called the High Evolutionary for help. Maddy
and her child died during the birth, but the Evolutionary did manage to deliver Wanda and
Pietro into Robert's arms. However, Robert was too grief-stricken to raise them, and
fled. Since he's a speedster and Maddy was a powerful redhead, it makes sense that they'd
be Wanda and Pietro's real parents, right?
Wrong. A Romani puppeteer named Django Maximoff subsequently claims fatherhood of the twins,
and to prove his love he imprisons their spirits in magical puppets. Obviously.
"You didn't see that coming?"
In the end, Django does sacrifice his life for the twins — but it's then revealed that
their real mother was a woman named Magda, and that their real father is Magneto. Eventually,
even Magneto is revealed as a fake, and currently the twins' real mother is said to be Natalya
Maximoff, the sister of Django, who was just one in a long line of Scarlet Witches. But
as for their real father? Well, for now, nobody really knows.
During her earliest appearance in the Marvel universe, Wanda feels like she owes Magneto
her life for saving her from a mutant-hating mob — and this is why she agrees to serve
him. Her dutiful brother has no love for Magneto, however, and only joins with the evil mutant
to protect her. Nonetheless, this begins their tenure in perhaps the most dysfunctional supervillain
team of all time: the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
In their first battle against the X-Men, Magneto goes big, setting up a bomb capable of destroying
an entire country. However, Quicksilver disarms it, not wanting innocents to die. During their
second battle on Asteroid M, Wanda hexes a control panel to stop Magneto from blasting
the X-Men out the airlock. During their next fight, Wanda defies Magnetos orders to save
her brother from accidentally being hit by a deadly magnetic weapon. As a result, Magneto
abandons them both — though he does pick them up later. The last straw comes when Pietro
is almost killed during yet another battle against the X-Men, causing Wanda and Pietro
to leave the Brotherhood for good. Soon after, they apply to join the Avengers, and are welcomed
onto the team by Captain America.
Early on in Wanda's time with the Avengers, the synthezoid known as the Vision joins the
team. Wanda always has liked the strong, silent type, and, against all odds, the two slowly
begin to fall in love.
Not everyone is pleased with this development, however. Quicksilver views the Vision as an
abomination unworthy of his sister's love. Hawkeye, having just broken up with Black
Widow, pursues Wanda with oafish intensity, even though she isn't interested. Unbeknownst
to them all, however, the being known as Immortus is subtly pushing the pair together. Immortus
fears that Wanda could potentially have incredibly powerful and dangerous children, and believes
that, if she is with a synthezoid like Vision, she will never give birth. After one of the
Avengers' many battles, Vision reaches out to Wanda, offering to be there for her as
she looks for Pietro, who has gone missing — marking the true beginning of their long
and complex love affair.
"I do. Do you?"
"Yes, I do."
One of the Avengers' greatest foes is Ultron, a murderous robot with something of an Oedipus
complex. In one storyline from the 1970s, Ultron uses the brain patterns of his sort-of
mother, Janet Pym, to create his bride, Jocasta. And just to make things weirder, he also uses
mind control to force his so-called "father," Hank Pym, to help him.
When Ultron subsequently attacks the Avengers, he has to deal with one hero he hasn't met
before: the Scarlet Witch — and she turns out to be a pretty tough opponent. As it happens,
Ultron constructed himself out of adamantium, a nigh on unbreakable metal. But to do this,
he had to use an internal "molecular rearranger," which is the only thing that can alter adamantium
while it's being set. During their confrontation, Scarlet Witch hits him with a hex that momentarily
causes the device to malfunction — but Captain America gets in the way before she can finish
him off, and Ultron nearly kills them both.
Jocasta is eventually called to her "husband," and the Avengers follow her to a convent,
of all places. A trap is set for Wanda, but she survives, and causes the molecular rearranger
to malfunction so badly that the energy in Ultron's armor combusts and explodes. Luckily,
Thor manages to absorb it in time.
But Ultron isn't done with Wanda just yet — it's soon revealed that Ultron used hypnosis
to force Tony Stark to reconstruct him in the event of his destruction. As part of this
plan, he also has Stark kidnap Wanda. Luckily, as ever, things turn out pretty much okay.
Following the dissolution of the West Coast Avengers in the 1990s, Iron Man recruits U.S.
Agent, Spider-Woman, Wonder Man, and the Scarlet Witch to form a new, edgier team — one that
will take a more proactive approach to superheroics. Based in an ultra high-tech compound called
The Works, Stark is particularly keen to get Wanda on board, because she can interact with
the Chaos Computer, using her probability powers to predict problems before they actually
arise.
However, things fall apart quickly for the team known as Force Works. Wonder Man is disintegrated
by the Kree on their first mission, and while the Scarlet Witch is made team leader by Stark,
he frequently undermines her as he becomes more and more unstable.
As it turns out, Stark is being driven insane by Immortus, who is disguised as his past
self, Kang the Conqueror. Under the supervillain's control, Stark ends up killing several people
and injuring others, in addition to introducing the evil Cybermancer to the team. In the end,
other than a few adventures here and there, Wanda never gets to prove herself as a true
team leader. Force Works is then dissolved after Iron Man's untimely demise.
When the Vision and the Scarlet Witch are captured by the witches of New Salem and about
to be sacrificed, the Vision escapes and quickly defeats their leader, Vertigo. Wanda channels
her powerful magic to defeat the witches, and, surrounded by the Vision's love, makes
"a little wish." Thanks to her probability-altering powers, she becomes pregnant. In time, her
beloved twin sons, William and Thomas, are born.
For a while, all seems well — until the twins start disappearing whenever Wanda isn't
near them. Turns out, they may be lost soul-shards of the actor-turned-demon Master Pandemonium.
He takes the boys away and grotesquely joins them with his flesh, replacing his lost arms
with their bodies. Which, obviously, goes down pretty badly. But even this origin isn't
quite true, which is made clear when Mephisto pops up and claims that the boys are really
parts of his soul, lost when he was temporarily destroyed by Franklin Richards. Agatha Harkness
then casts a spell to make Wanda forget about her children — a decision that has devastating
consequences for the entire Marvel universe.
Later, a group of young heroes forms the team known as the Young Avengers. They include
Billy "Wiccan" Kaplan, an Avengers fanboy who has supernatural abilities. Looking for
new members, they bust Tommy "Speed" Shepherd out of prison — who happens to look a heck
of a lot like Billy. Later, when they run into the Scarlet Witch, it's revealed that
Wiccan and Speed are, in fact, reincarnations of Wanda's children's souls.
When the Wasp makes a flippant comment about Wanda's lost children, she realizes her memories
have been erased, suffers a nervous breakdown and kills several Avengers — including the
Vision. Hoping to end her rampage, Doctor Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto and shows
her a memory too terrible for her to comprehend. As a result, Wanda goes catatonic. Magneto
then takes her to his country of Genosha, hoping Professor X will be able to help her.
Unfortunately, he can't — and to make matters worse, by this point, the X-Men and Avengers
have begun to debate whether or not they should kill her.
This doesn't sit well with Quicksilver, who begs Magneto for help, and then takes matters
into his own hands, convincing his sister to make a new world — one where they can
be truly happy.
Suddenly, everyone is living in a world where mutants are the dominant species, Magneto
and his family are international superstars, Wanda is supposedly human, and every hero
has everything they've always wished for. Peter Parker is married to Gwen Stacy, and
Uncle Ben is still alive. Kitty Pryde is a teacher. Wolverine is head of S.H.I.E.L.D.
— and remembers everything from his previous life.
Over time, the heroes slowly regain their memories and, believing he's responsible for
this, take the battle to Magneto. During the battle, a fragile Wanda falls apart and infamously
declares, "No more mutants." As a result, roughly 90 percent of the world's mutant population
suddenly lose their powers, with many dying in the process. Later, this event becomes
known as M-Day.
Beyond Wanda's long marriage to the Vision, there's been no shortage of men with a romantic
interest in her. Sometimes, she feels the same way — but when she doesn't, she's usually
more than happy to put them in their place.
So who exactly has had their eye on Wanda? Well, there's the mutant Angel, who jokes
that he's ready to fill out an Evil Mutant application the first time they encounter
each other. Wanda and Namor the Sub-Mariner share a mutual attraction when they first
meet, but Namor realizes that he is still heartbroken over Sue Storm.
Later, when Wanda joins the Avengers, Hawkeye hits on her for years, but to no avail. Extradimensional
warrior Arkon also nurses an unrequited interest in her. Wanda is even interested in Captain
America at one point in time, which he reciprocates, but nothing ever really comes of it.
Things get a little weirder when it comes to Simon Williams, also known as Wonder Man.
This is because Ultron used Simon's brain to create the Vision, Wanda's most significant
love interest. At one point, Wanda is actually able to bring Simon back to life because of
the love between them, after which the two start up their own relationship.
Strangest of all, however, Wanda briefly falls in love with Doctor Doom. They're even engaged
for a while… until Doom steals all her powers, that is.
In the beginning, Wanda believes herself to be a mutant, and her powers to be "hexes,"
which bring bad luck to her opponents. Case in point: In one of her first battles against
the X-Men, she points to a roof above Angel, and it subsequently falls on him.
Of course, it is later revealed that Wanda is not a mutant at all. Instead, the High
Evolutionary experimented on her in a way that wound up making her capable of manipulating
magic for her own ends. The demon Chthon [kuh-THON] later gave her power over chaos magic too,
and she is also a Nexus Being, making her uniquely attuned to certain types of magical
power.
"There's nothing more horrifying… than a miracle."
The upshot of all this experimentation and magical mayhem? Wanda is pretty much unbeatable.
Most of the time, her powers are limited to causing walls to collapse or blasting her
foes with energy. If she's imbued with enough power, however, she's more than capable of
completely remaking the universe.
As well as this, Wanda has shown the ability to heal, manipulate time, read minds, absorb
massive amounts of energy, fly, and even occasionally raise the dead. Basically, she can do anything
a story might require — which means the sky's the limit for the powers of the Scarlet
Witch.
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