Scarlet Witch

The Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff) is a fictional character in the Marvel Comics universe, a mutant who fluctuates between being a superheroine and supervillainess. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, she first appeared in X-Men #4 (1964). In her latest incarnation, she has used her reality warping powers to reshape the entire Marvel Universe in the "House of M" storyline.

Character history

Birth

The Scarlet Witch is the twin sister of Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff); the twins are the children of Magneto and his late wife Magda. Magda fled from Magneto before either learned that she was pregnant. The twins were born on Mt. Wundagore of Transia, the prison of the Elder God Chthon. Chthon's residual energies altered Wanda, giving her the ability to use magic, in addition to her mutant power. Magda survived giving birth to the twins but days after left the refuge of the High Evolutionary. She feared that Magneto would locate her and force her to surrender the children to him. She instead fled, and is believed to have chosen to commit suicide by exposing herself to the frozen wasteland surrounding the refuge.

Bova, a genetically-engineered humanoid cow who served as their nursemaid, decided to find foster parents for the apparent orphans. Nearby, World War II superheroine Miss America was giving birth to her own twins. Her husband the Whizzer asked for Bova to assist the birth. Mother and children died due to radiation poisoning deliberately caused by her former enemy Isbisa. Bova only reported the death of the mother, but presented the living set of twins to Whizzer as his own. He was however shocked by the death of his wife and chose to flee as far away from Wundagore Mountain as possible.

Bova returned the children to Wundagore. She later found a suitable pair of foster parents in the Roma couple Django and Marya Maximoff. Their own children Ana and Mateo had recently died and the couple saw little Wanda and Pietro as suitable replacements. They would raise them as their own. Both siblings manifested powers due to mutation in early adolescence. The Roma were however victims of prejudice by the mainstream population of Transia who considered them immoral.

Orphaned

Django was a doll-maker but had increasing difficulty in finding customers as Transians did not allow their children to approach the Roma. He eventually resorted to stealing food in order to save his family from starvation. Pietro took the initiative to also start stealing food. Wanda was also introduced to prejudice when a Transian boy her age attempted to sexually molest her. She used her powers to return to safety but was accused of attempting to seduce the boy. Eventually, angry Transian villagers attacked the Roma and burned their wagons. Marya Maximoff was trapped in their wagon and burned alive. Django was clubbed to unconsciousness, but Pietro and Wanda managed to flee. The twins were now on their own.

Wanda and Pietro considered at this point that they were the only family left to each other. Pietro was in fact especially protective of his sister. However, they were mistaken in their belief. They had lost three different mothers: Magda, Miss America and Marya Maximoff. But their natural father, Magneto, and their adoptive fathers, Whizzer and Django Maximoff, were alive. Eventually, all three would try to contact their children again.

Avengers

In their early adulthood, both Wanda and Pietro were among the first members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, though neither Magneto nor his children were aware at the time that he was their father. After Magneto's abduction by the alien Stranger, the twins were recruited into the Avengers by Captain America. The Scarlet Witch has become one of the team's mainstays since then.

At one point during her career as an Avenger, the Scarlet Witch underwent training in sorcery under the tutelage of a the witch Agatha Harkness. The mental discipline of sorcery aided Wanda's powers of concentration, enabling her to exercise much greater control over her mutant "hexes" than ever before. Also while an Avenger, she met and fell in love with the synthezoid Vision. They eventually were married, and her hex powers allowed the couple to have children. However, it was later revealed that the "children" were not actual children (in a controversial storyline written by John Byrne); rather, they were fragments of the soul of the demon Mephisto, who had previously been discorporated by Franklin Richards. The children were restored to their natural forms as parts of Mephisto; also during this time period, the Vision was disassembled by the government, then subsequently rebuilt without the ability to feel emotions. The emotional damage incurred upon Wanda during this time frame, combined with her powers being enhanced by Immortus, drove her temporarily insane, leading her to a brief alliance with her father, Magneto. However, she recovered, and remained a member of the Avengers, though she and the Vision were separated, working on different branches of the team. In order to keep Wanda's grief from overwhelming her, Agatha Harkness placed a spell on Wanda to erase her conscious memory of her "children", although she later removed this spell (as revealed in an Avengers West Coast Annual ).

After the dissolution of the West Coast branch of the Avengers with which she served, she was a founding member and field leader of the short-lived superhero team Force Works. Wonder Man died during Force Works' first adventure, and it was years before he returned. When he did return, it was Wanda's hexes that drew his energy-based body back together, as a kind of "ionic ghost". She restored him to true life (with the assistance of Agatha Harkness), and the pair openly had an affair for several months. Around this time, an encounter with Morgan le Fey left Wanda's magic powers drastically altered and increased. She was told by Agatha Harkness that this "chaos magic" was her true power, though Doctor Strange later stated (in the Avengers: Disassembled story arc) that Chaos Magic does not exist. The Scarlet Witch has remained a frequent member of the Avengers since the reformation of the team, and she began a slow move towards a reconciliation with the Vision.

Breakdown

'"Avengers Disassembled"

In the recent "Avengers Disassembled" crossover, grief over the loss of the twins again drove the Scarlet Witch insane. She tried to rewrite reality to recreate them, inadvertently causing a series of threats and incidents to inexplicably occur one after the other. The attacks killed Scott Lang, the Vision, and Hawkeye.

When the Avengers later confronted the Scarlet Witch, she had created an illusion where she was having dinner with the Vision and their children. Believing the Avengers were trying to take away her children, she attacked them. In the end, Wanda fell into a coma after battling Doctor Strange. As Captain America carried the unconscious Wanda out of the house, Magneto arrived, and ordered his daughter handed over to him. Captain America complied and before anyone else could stop him, Magneto carried his daughter away back to Genosha.

House of M

In Genosha, Magneto asked Charles Xavier, an extremely powerful telepath, to help Wanda. Xavier agreed, but after several months of trying, he was unsuccessful. Doctor Strange was asked to try to help, but he too had no idea on how to help her. Xavier called for a joint meeting of the Avengers and the X-Men to decide Wanda's fate. While most of the members were against killing her, Wolverine and Emma Frost believed that her mental instability and her extreme powers left her too dangerous to be left alive. The teams ultimately agreed to withhold judgement until they could travel to Genosha to survey how Wanda was doing.

Fearing the worst, Quicksilver rushed to Magneto and told him that the two groups were planning on killing Wanda. When an ashamed Magneto admitted that he didn't know what to do anymore, and that the groups may be right, Quicksilver convinced Wanda that she could undo her wrongs by using her powers to turn the world into a world of peace. Using her powers, Wanda warped reality into the House of M, a world where mutants were the majority, humans the minority, and Magneto the ruler. In this reality, Wanda was believed to be a human, due to an alternate body she created to represent her in public while she cared for her children.

A young mutant named Layla Miller (whom Dr. Strange hinted was actually created by Wanda) was able to use her mutant abilities to restore several of the heroes' memories. They headed over to Genosha to attack Magneto, believing him to be the one responsible for the change. During the battle between Magneto's forces and the others, Layla was able to restore Magneto's memories as well.

Enraged, Magneto confronted Quicksilver, angry that Quicksilver had done all of this in his name. Quicksilver told Magneto that he would have let Wanda die, but Magneto replied that Quicksilver had only used him and Wanda; Magneto then killed Quicksilver.

"No more mutants."

Wanda revived her brother, telling Magneto that Quicksilver had only wanted him to be happy, and that Magneto had ruined them, choosing the mutants over his own children. Saying "No more mutants," Wanda changed the world back to its original form and caused ninety-eight percent of the mutant population to lose their powers, leaving the mutant race on the brink of extinction. Surviving mutants and ex-mutants now refer to this as "M-Day: The worst day in mutant history."

After the fallout, she was seen in a small, unknown European village, happy and apparently oblivious to all the carnage she had caused.

Magical progeny

In the Young Avengers series, the characters Thomas Shepherd (Speed) and Billy Kaplan (Wiccan) look almost exactly alike. Wiccan has abilities similar to the Scarlet Witch, while Tommy has Quicksilver's superspeed. Their names, Thomas and William, are the same names of the Scarlet Witch's twins. The Super Skrull, upon meeting the two, assumed they were her children. Although it is not public knowledge that the Scarlet Witch had any children, the Super Skrull claimed, through Skrull Intelligence, that he knew they existed.

The new Vision used the previous Vision's memory files explain that the Scarlet Witch created her children from two lost souls. When Mephisto claimed those souls as his own, the power that the Scarlet Witch had placed in the souls caused Mephisto to be destroyed when he absorbed them, setting the souls free. Wiccan theorized that when the souls were set free they formed into the people that became Thomas and himself. This has yet to be proven as fact.

Other versions of the Scarlet Witch

Ultimate Scarlet Witch

Wanda Lensherr, the Scarlet Witch, is the daughter of Magneto and the sister of Quicksilver. She has the ability to alter probability fields with her hex-spheres.

Wanda was a passive member of Magneto's team and after her father's apparent death began working with the Brotherhood, participating in the rescue of the X-Men from Weapon X. She helped lead the Brotherhood for a while, all the while keeping in touch with Charles Xavier to promote a more peaceful mutant-human integration.

When Magneto returned, she and her brother fled, although he caught them. Magneto injured Quicksilver, but left Wanda unhurt. Eventually, both Wanda and her brother joined the Ultimates.

Unlike the original mainstream versions of these characters, they have not abandoned their ties to Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants; they still believe in mutant supremacy. Because of their mutant status, they remain a part of the black ops section of the Ultimates. She and her brother are often depicted touching each other very intimately and performing activities that couples usually do (e.g., a gondola ride where Pietro reads romantic poetry to Wanda); that scene and the fact that they often call each other "darling" has led to fan speculation that the two share an incestuous relationship.

In Issue #6 of Ultimates Volume 2, Millar alludes to her relationship with Vision; Hank Pym attempts to redeem himself by bringing two androids, named Ultron and Vision II, to the Ultimates. Wanda takes notice of Vision to which Quicksilver asks "Were you just flirting with that machine?"

Powers and abilities

Initially, the Scarlet Witch had the ability to manipulate probability via her "hexes" (often manifesting physically as "hex spheres" or "hex bolts"). These hexes are relatively short range, and are 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. Early in her career, her hexes were unconscious 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 that her powers only work when she wants them to, and they are not limited to negative effects. Despite this enhanced precision, her hexes are not necessarily guaranteed to work, particularly if she has been straining herself or using her powers excessively. If overextended, her hexes can backfire, causing probability to work against her wishes or to undo previous hexes.

Her hexes have a wide, almost limitless variety of recorded and possible effects, though they often boil down to a kind of Deus Ex Machina superpower. They have been known to alter the molecular composition and physical state of physical objects, negate or distort physical laws, and to cause various forms of energy to spontaneously appear or disappear. She has a natural affinity with natural elements and phenomena, stemming largely from her magical training under Agatha Harkness, and has trained often at using her hexes to deflect projectiles or to cause enemies to stumble or otherwise suffer the effects of "bad luck". Writers often confuse her hex powers with psychokinesis, and have occasionally depicted them as able to generate energy blasts and to grant Wanda the power of flight. Although her hexes can cause objects to suddenly move or change course, they do not have the ability to "hold on" to objects as a telekinetic might. Ultimately, the hexes are not under the Witch's direct control, although she can influence the nature of their effects with great concentration and effort. This makes her one of the few Avengers that Ultron fears; his adamantium shell cannot repel magic. She has displayed the ability to cancel Longshot and Domino's powers of probability and has also once turned Longshot into a cat.

The first major reclassification of Wanda's fairly-indistinct hex powers came during Kurt Busiek's run on Avengers, where her mutant power was claimed by Agatha Harkness to be an ability to manipulate chaos magic, given to her by the demon Chthon (imprisoned within Wundagore Mountain) when she was born. Her hexes were, by extension, simple, indirect manifestations of this magic, destabilising probabilities by inducing chaos. Across Busiek's run, Wanda's powers grew continuously, as she gained the ability to manipulate organic matter and summon Wonder Man back to life. While in the DC Universe, she displayed the ability to access that universe's chaos magic, but had great difficulty in doing so at first, since it was more powerful there and she had no previous experience in wielding it.

The second, current redefinition of Wanda's powers came during the "Avengers Disassembled" crossover event, where they were revealed to be an ability to manipulate reality. Her probability-manipulating hexes have been redefined as the conscious manifestation of this subconscious power. The idea that Wanda possessed this level of power was first suggested by Immortus during his conflict with the Avengers West Coast, although Immortus specifically claimed that Wanda could manipulate the past to influence the present. Her powers were used by Morgan Le Fey to alter reality in Avengers vol. 3 #1-3, although this was only accomplished with magical amplification. It was in "Avengers Disassemled" that the full extent of this power came to light, when it was revealed that Wanda had been subconsciously altering the Marvel Universe to an unknown degree for a number of years, including the reanimation of the deceased Agatha Harkness without consciously realizing it to be the case (which goes some way to retconning away the previous "chaos magic" origin, as it was not truly Agatha who explained it, while Doctor Strange's claim that chaos magic does not exist, is contradicted by but one brief moment when he himself has employed it in the past, in a fill-in issue, during an era where he was using "catastrophe magic"). This retconning has caused much debate and disgust in the comic fandom recently.

This aspect of her power is not under her conscious control, and continues even after Dr. Strange shut down her mind. There doesn't seem to be any limits to her powers as she was easily able to alter the entire 616 reality to create the House of M, and is also altering reality on a multiversal scale without even realizing it!

The source of Wanda's reality manipulation powers is due to the fact that her mutation allows her to tap into magic. This was confirmed in Avengers Disassembled by Dr. Strange, and by Dark Beast in Excalibur, who said that magic is just another way of manipulating forces on a quantum level. It has been suggested that Wanda's powers have been influenced by the demonic magician Chthon: in particular, that Chthon's own magic redefined Wanda's power to have a similar function, although this remains dubious, having been claimed by the faux Harkness.

In X-Men Evolution, Wanda's powers allow her to "Hex" anyone in her path. The "Hex" causes everything to turn against the victim and in Wanda's favor.

It has been indicated in The Ultimates 2 series that the Ultimate Scarlet Witch actually has to "do the math" in order to use her powers--i.e., that she has to calculate the mathematical probability that the effect she intends to create will actually happen; the more unlikely the effect, the more complex the mathematic formula, and the more difficult and time-consuming it will be to make the effect happen.

Wanda has also been trained in hand to hand combat by Captain America.

Appearances in other media

The Scarlet Witch appeared in the 1996 animated television series Iron Man. She was voiced by Jennifer Darling.

The Scarlet Witch appeared in the 1999 animated television series United They Stand. She was voiced by Stavroula Logothettis.

(In both of the above appearances, she was voiced with a thick Eastern European accent.)

The Scarlet Witch also appeared in the 1990s X-Men animated series for a few infrequent episodes. She was played by Tara Strong.

She was also a playable character in Rise of Apocalypse where she was voiced by Jennifer Hale.

Evolution

Committed to an institution by her father Magneto when she was just a child due to his inability to take care of her, Wanda harbored a homicidal hatred for him; he claims it necessary because of her uncontrollable, dangerous powers. Freed from the institution by Mystique, she joined the Brotherhood in return. Wanda was more interested in revenge against her father than in fighting for the Brotherhood's cause. During the days after, she trained with Agatha Harkness and gained control of her powers, which she demonstrated to great effect against the X-Men, handing them their first real loss to the Brotherhood. It was in this episode that she was referred to as the Scarlet Witch for the only time in the series.

Wanda then teamed up with the X-Men for the Day of Reckoning, nearly killing Magneto in revenge with a falling Sentinel. She failed, and nearly fell to her death, but was saved by Nightcrawler. Following this, she and Toad (who'd developed a crush on her) confirmed Magneto's survival.

After the Brotherhood (sans the traitorous Quicksilver) returned home, Wanda left them to search for Magneto, even going to Caliban of the Morlocks for help. She failed to locate him until returning to her teammates, when she found her brother in charge. Wanda managed to find her father, but Magneto used his latest recruit Mastermind to rewrite her memories, removing her hatred of him and causing her to forget having been committed. Toad and Nightcrawler rescued her from Magneto's base, and she returned to the Brotherhood.

When Magneto was "killed" by Apocalypse, Wanda took the news quite hard and blamed the X-Men for not helping her father. After learning that he was in fact alive, having become one of Apocalypse's Four Horsemen, she joined Shadowcat's team in Mexico to confront her father and destroy one of Apocalypse's Pyramids, and was soon joined by the rest of the Brotherhood. After the battle's end, she returned to the Brotherhood once more.

In the future as seen by Charles Xavier while he was under Apocalypse's control, Wanda, along with Avalanche, Toad, Blob, Quicksilver and Pyro, has joined S.H.I.E.L.D. as a member of Freedom Force.

She was voiced by Kelly Sheridan.

External links

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