Born at the
Wundagore base of the
High Evolutionary,
in proximity to the eldritch energies of the Elder God Chthon; Wanda
and her brother Pietro's mother, Magda, fled Wundagore shortly after
their birth. Although not known at the time, Chthon formed a mystic bond
with Wanda, who, it was later learned, was destined to serve the role
of Nexus Being, a living focal point for the Earth dimension's mystical
energy.
Kept in stasis by the Evolutionary for decades, the two infants were later placed in the custody of a Gypsy couple named
Django
and Marya Maximoff. When Wanda and Pietro were teenagers and had
already manifested their mutant powers, their family's encampment was
attacked, leaving Marya dead; Django survived, but was separated from
his children, while the traumatized Wanda and Pietro also fled,
believing their foster father to have died. After several months of
surviving on their own in the woods, the siblings ventured into a nearby
town, where Wanda's powers inadvertently set fire to a house. Set upon
by villagers who believed the pair to be "in league with the Devil",
they were rescued by the timely arrival of
Magneto,
the mutant master of magnetism. Magneto was in fact their father, but
neither he nor the siblings were aware of this at the time. Exploiting
the pair's gratitude, Magneto pressed them into service as part of his
anti-human terrorist unit, the
Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Now known as the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Wanda and Pietro
accompanied Magneto and his fellow mutants in their power-seeking
efforts, clashing with the heroic
X-Men.
After a time, the siblings, disillusioned with Magneto and feeling that
their debt to him had been paid, decided to abandon their terrorist
activities; alongside the archer and ex-criminal
Hawkeye, they joined the
Avengers under the leadership of
Captain America.
As a member of this foursome, the first major reorganization of the
still young super-team, the Scarlet Witch served with distinction
against such foes as
Dr Doom, the
Mole Man,
Kang, and others.
As the team expanded, the Scarlet Witch, despite her brother's
disapproval, became romantically drawn to one of her fellow Avengers,
the android known as the
Vision. To better control her power, she began taking sorcery lessons from the witch
Agatha Harkness,
and after both she and the Vision had built their confidence, the
couple married. At the time, none of the Avengers realized the
Limbo lord
Immortus,
who sought to arrange events so the Scarlet Witch would never have
children whose power would grow to be a threat, had subtly encouraged
the marriage.
Not
long after their wedding, the old Django Maximoff approached the
Avengers. Determined to have his children back, he used a magical amulet
known as the Nivashi Stone, the old man trapped the souls of Wanda and
Pietro in two dolls shaped like them, which he locked in small bird
cages. Rescued by the Avengers, the siblings took pity on the old man
and decided to go back with him to Transia. Not long after, Wanda was
attaced by the warlock known as
Mordred,
acting in the service of a mystical entity called Chthon. Chthon was
able to possess Wanda's body, and hid in Wundagore Mountain. Pietro
rushed to her aid, but was hit by an energy field and rescued by the
evolved cow mid-wife
Bova
who, after healing him, revealed the nature of the sibling's birth to
him. The Avengers flew to Transia and managed to save Wanda from
Chthon's possession. Sadly, Django Maximoff died during the battle, and
Wanda and Vision left active duty.
Some time later, Magneto returned to Wundagore, searching for his
past, and casually learned, from the lips of Bova herself, the truth
about Wanda and Pietro. Excited to finally know the truth, Magneto
traveled to
Attilan, home of the
Inhumans in Earth's Moon, where Wanda had traveled to in order to meet her newborn niece,
Luna. Magneto told the pair the news, and held his granddaughter in his arms.
When the Baxter Building was threatened by the
Negative Zone warlord
Annihilus,
the Scarlet Witch and the Vision returned to active duty. Weeks later,
when most of the Avengers were trapped in the Secret Wars, the Vision
was named Chairman of the team. He used his position to create a second
branch of Avengers, placing them in the West Coast of the United States.
Vision's mind was affected by an interface with the Titanian computer
ISAAC,
and he launched an attempt to take control of the world's computers, an
effort stopped by the Avengers. The Vision and the Witch then left
active Avengers duty once more. Although the couple sought only to live
in domestic peace, they found themselves repeatedly drawn into clashes
with several super-villains. During one such encounter, a battle with
the sorcerers known as
Salem's Seven,
the Scarlet Witch used accumulated magic energy to become pregnant by
the Vision, and she later gave birth to twin sons, William and Thomas.
When the Scarlet Witch and the Vision choose to return to active duty as members of the
West Coast Avengers, a multi-government force called
Vigilance,
concerned the Vision would again attempt a world takeover, captured and
dismantled him; although he was soon rebuilt, his personality was
severely altered, greatly distressing the Scarlet Witch. It was later
revealed it was Immortus who orchestrated the Vision's dismantling. Her
distress was magnified when her sons were reverted into fragments of the
demon lord
Mephisto's
soul and effectively ceased to exist. The Witch suffered a nervous
breakdown, which left her open to manipulation by her father, Magneto,
who still sought to take control of the world in the name of mutantkind.
She was subsequently abducted by Immortus, but was rescued by the
Avengers and regained her sanity. Wanda had also reanimated her deceased
mentor,
Agatha Harkness,
through whom she cast a spell to make her forget her children in order
to ease her pain. Though Wanda later recalled her loss, she suppressed
this memory over the long term. The souls of her twins were separated
after Mephisto's defeat. She and the Vision separated, and she became
drawn to another fellow Avenger,
Wonder Man.
With Agatha Harkness's help, the Scarlet Witch learned of her nature
as a Nexus Being and was able to drive off an extradimensional invasion
by another Nexus Being,
Lore.
When the West Coast branch of Avengers disbanded due to internal
conflict in the overall team, several members formed a new team known as
Force Works,
and the Scarlet Witch was appointed leader. During their first mission,
her mutant powers interfered with the teleportation of the alien known
as
Century,
bringing him to Earth. Century joined the Force Works team, and did not
hide his feelings for the Scarlet Witch, which she seemed to
reciprocate. However, the team disbanded before they could actually
express their feelings, and Wanda returned to the Avengers. She was
among those who were seemingly destroyed by the psionic being
Onslaught. In fact, they were transported to an alternate universe created by the powerful mutant
Franklin Richards. She and her fellow heroes remained there for months before returning to their home universe. The centuries-old sorceress
Morgan Le Fay came across the Twilight Sword of
Surtur, and was able to gather the
Norn Stones.
She then created a series of attacks on the Avengers to capture Wanda
in the process. Using Wanda's mutant powers, she was able to pierce the
gap between her Celtic magic and the Asgardian magic of the Twilight
Sword, with it she remade the world in her image, turning the Avengers
into the
Queen's Vengeance.
Subsequently, while held captive by Morgan Le Fay, the Scarlet Witch,
in attempting to summon the other Avengers, inadvertently caused Wonder
Man to partially cross over from the world of the dead. Channeling the
willpower of the Avengers through Wonder Man, Morgan was defeated and
the world returned to normalcy.
While battling the
Squadron Supreme,
Wanda was once again able to call Wonder Man, and the deceased Avenger
was able to return when Wanda was in danger, whether conscious or not.
Wanda was also able to feel Morgan's magic within her still, even long
after the sorceress had been defeated. Confused, Wanda sought the
guidance of Agatha Harkness once more. Agatha revealed it was not
Morgan's magic, but her own power that had matured before its time.
Agatha then revealed that it was Chthon who had imbued in her the
potential to wield magic, if not for his involvement, she would have
been a mere energy-wielding mutant like her father. She was linked to
Chthon's chaos magic, and that was the true source of her mutant power,
though she wielded it in an unschooled manner. Agatha told her she had
to control it and guide it, instead of allowing her subconscious to
direct her "chaos-grenades", that she needed to understand her full
power and subsume it within her, or the results could very well be
disastrous. Wanda asked Agatha how she could bring back Wonder Man to
life for good, and her mentor laughed saying Wonder Man had held on
because he loved her, and all she had to do to bring him back was love
him in return. Soon after, Wanda used her powers to bring back Wonder
Man to life, as well as Wonder Man's brother, the
Grim Reaper. She and Wonder Man began to pursue a romantic relationship.
With
Iron Man severely injured,
Thor
preoccupied with his alter ego, and Captain America missing, the rest
of the team appointed her as Deputy Leader, even though she had been
considering leaving the Avengers. Wanda led the Avengers in the
Captain's absence, focusing her energies on improving the morale and
efficiency of the team. During this period, Wanda began using her powers
in new ways, fighting diseases, healing wounds and even creating
sickness in her enemies.
Wanda's
chaos magic, which was revealed to be an uncontrolled aspect of her
mutant power, began to wear away at her mental stability. When vague
memories of her children resurfaced, she suffered a nervous breakdown
and lashed out with her new power, subjecting the Avengers to a series
of devastating attacks, apparently killing several team members and
ultimately causing the dissolution of the team. She was eventually
defeated by the combined efforts of
Doctor Strange
and the Avengers, ultimately lapsing into a coma. In the ruins of the
Avengers mansion, Magneto appeared to the Avengers and spirited her away
to Genosha for treatment.
After several months of almost no progress in restoring her stability,
The X-Men and the Avengers gathered to decide Wanda's fate. Quicksilver,
suspecting that the inevitable conclusion would be to kill her,
convinced Wanda to alter reality into a
utopian world
where all of the heroes and Magneto would have what they wanted. Wanda
did, creating a reality where Magneto was the head of a mutant empire
and humans were the minority. Eventually the heroes discovered the ruse
and, believing Magneto to be responsible, attacked him at his fortress
in Genosha. When Magneto learned that Quicksilver was the instigator of
the warp, Magneto turned on him in anger. Distressed by all the fighting
and her father's hatred of humanity, Scarlet Witch revived Quicksilver
and muttered three simple words: "No More Mutants," sending reality
back to normal, but reducing the mutant population from millions to an
estimated 198. Wanda has since been living on Wundagore mountain in
apparent powerless obscurity. Thus far only Hawkeye, seeking closure
after his multiple deaths and resurrections at Wanda's hand, has sought
her out.
It has been revealed that the Young Avengers members
Thomas Shepherd (Speed) and
Billy Kaplan
(Wiccan) are new incarnations of Wanda's children, William and Thomas.
Whether Wanda brought them back or there is another reason for their
existence remains to be seen.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 12:00PM
Every once in awhile people will ask me if I really like
superheroes or if I just post about them on occassion because it's good
for traffic. The answers are a bold
yes and an er,
probably not (The Film Experience isn't so much on the fanboy traffic
radar for numerous reasons including undoubtedly because actresses on
the verge of onscreen nervous breakdowns are a way more thrilling visual
effect than superhero powers). But in truth I've always loved
superheroes and only wish that superhero
movies had more
variety and imagination and a fan culture that was less slobbering and
homogenous. See, I grew up completely obsessed with X-Men. Just as with
movies where strong casts are consistently more likely to thrill me than
movies built on
one performance, I generally appreciated team
comics the most, so I also read (in ascending order of favoritism): The
Legion of Superheroes, Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, The Avengers and
The Teen Titans. I liked the Avengers best when certain characters were
present. For those of you who didn't read comics, The Avengers operated
on an internal narrative wherein the roster of heroes changed fairly
regularly, sometimes only one or two slots but never exactly the same
roll call.
So with last week's
no shit announcement that box office titan
The Avengers would be getting a sequel, I thought I'd list the ten characters I'd most like Joss Whedon to consider for it.
He's already on record saying he'd like another female though the pickings are somewhat slim.
The unstated problem is that the best female superheroes are part of
the X-Men team, characters 20th Century Fox is in control of... a
thorough breakdown of who owns which characters can be found
at Screen Rant. This
is all assuming that Marvel Studios doesn't want Whedon to just make
the first movie again with a new villain. Which, I'll quickly note, is a
ridiculous assumption. The guiding rule of expensive studio sequels is
"make it the same only bigger"
Top Ten Heroes To Consider for Avengers 2
With apologies to Quake who was in the original post and was accidentally deleted until it was all written.
10
Doctor Strange
The Marvel Universe's premiere
sorcerer has yet to make a dent outside of comic books. Name recognition
wouldn't be high for mainstream audiences but that's what people
worried about with Iron Man and look how that turned out? Strange got a
TV movie in 1978 but subsequent planned film versions have been cursed,
the spell forever uncast.
The rights have changed hands many times but last we heard, Marvel
Studios had control of the mystic doctor again and had hired
screenwriters. Adrien Brody was rumored for the role a couple of years
ago and then Patrick Dempsey was lobbying hard
in 2011.
I'm not crazy about the Dempsey idea since his charisma is scaled so
well for the small screen -- really it's just the hair that make people
think he's right for it because as an actor he definitely lacks
mystery -- but the Doctor could be an intriguing character in the right hands.
09
Ms Marvel / Binary /
War Bird
I've
never met a soul who has any deep feelings or fandom for Ms. Marvel,
which probably dooms her big screen chances altogether but hear me out.
Her backstory is so fucked up, her name has changed multiple times, that
nothing is canon. A writer like Joss Whedon could do virtually whatever
he pleased with her without upsetting decades of story. But it's also
worth noting that Ms. Marvel's most intriguing story connects to the
X-Men mythology. Rogue (played by Anna Paquin in the movies) once
absorbed just too much of her and gained all her memories and identity
giving both women major psychiatric issues thereafter.
If handled brilliantly and with a team of great lawyers couldn't she
straddle both superhero franchises as a supporting player, essentially
tying them into the same universe without disrupting either studio's
plans too much?
08
The Beast
Yes, yes, we're still stuck on the
X-Men which
belong to 20th Century Fox. But couldn't they lend out just one
character? If so it'd be interesting to see what Joss Whedon could do
with blue, furry, brainy Hank McCoy. He's had two lackluster movie
appearances (Kelsey Grammar in
X-Men 3: The Last Stand and Nicolas Hoult in
X-Men First Class) but Joss proved with the Hulk and the Black Widow, that he can reenergize characters without completely reinventing them.
A difficulty: he's blue and jumps around a lot which might look
ridiculously like A Synchronized Superheroing Sport with the green and
jumpy one in the mix (and you know the Hulk is getting a bigger part in
The Avengers 2).
07
Daredevil
Speaking
of characters that have been mishandled in previous movies. The
Daredevil movie (and its spinoff Elektra) had absolutely
no
business being as awful as it was given that its source material was a
pretty damn terrific comic book story. Frank Miller's dark violent and
fascinating run on the series threw the assassins Elektra and Bullseye
against the blind crime fighter and against each other and it should
have been a great great movie. But here's the thing. You need
imaginative directors, good casting, and the right tonal choices to make
a great movie and Daredevil had none of those virtues. The best thing
that could happen to Daredevil as a film character would be Marvel
Studios buying back the rights and rebooting him through either his own
standalone feature or in a supporting role, a la Hawkeye.
It's worth noting also that Daredevil has a pretty rich comic book
history with Natasha Romanoff (The Black Widow) so he'd be easy to pull
in to the narrative via Scarlett Johansson's assassin.
06
Firestar
I mention Firestar primarily because she is a woman, it's true.
Quota! But there's a deeper more nostalgic reason. Everyone and their inner child was sad when
Spider-Man didn't swing into the Manhattan action at the tale end of
The Avengers. You can't have New York City superheroics without Spidey!
Since Sony is as likely to release the movie rights to Spider-Man as America is to boycott summer movies
and
superheroes forever more, isn't Firestar the next best thing? She
debuted on TV as one of Spider-Man's "Amazing Friends" in 1981 forever
tying her to the webslinger in the eyes of an entire generation. And she
even did a stint as an Avenger in the 1990s.
Namor vs. Human Torch by Yildiray Cinar05
Namor04
The Human TorchSwerving towards the Fantastic Four here. But if
someone
is never going to make an Aquaman movie, though so many wish he would,
whether ironically or un, shouldn't someone make a Namor movie.
Water-based movies are notoriously expensive whether ships are sinking
or the whole world is drowning but they can look exceedingly cool
onscreen. And Namor's arrogance would fit right into the Thor / Tony
Stark "me party" dynamic.
Mostly I just want to see The Human Torch again onscreen for more Chris Evans snark...
oh. Damn. Chris Evans, otherwise occupied.
asldgksl
03
The Wasp
If Edgar Wright ever makes that Ant
Man movie, we could see either or both of the Pims (Henry and Janet),
the shrinking superheroes in the mix. They're the only founding members
of the team that weren't featured in the film version.
But maybe Joss isn't in her, using her as the but of his joke in his awesome jokey
thank you to fans on Whedonesque wherein he quotes an imaginary Saturn awards speech:
[Reads from notecard]. I couldn’t have done this myself. Part of this
Saturn Award belongs to Jeremy Latcham, Kevin Feige, and the fine
Marvel folk… But the secret ingredient is my closest peeps: J-Mo, who
did uncredited punch-up work (carrier battle, yo!), Z-bro, Drew “I am
Loki only taller and foppier” Goddard, and Kai, all of whom worked the
story with me. Without them (and Jeremy), I’d still be figuring out how the Wasp fits in to this, and where to put Red Hulk."
So maybe no Wasp?
02
Quicksilver
01
The Scarlet Witch
Ever
since I was a wee boy, this brother and sister duo fascinated me. And
for a long time The Scarlet Witch, at least, was a mainstay of The
Avengers team. Like most non household name comic book characters, the
siblings have had their origin stories messed with multiple times but my
preferred reality is that they are the twin children of Magneto
(!!!)and still siblings rather than lovers (which I'm hearing they're
recently been rewritten as?).
The only sibling superheroes we've seen onscreen were in the truly terrible
Fantastic Four
movies, and who better to find ways to illustrate a complicated sibling
bond with questionable family backstory than Joss Whedon? Plus, nobody
on the current Avengers team has superspeed (Quicksilver) or magical
powers (The Scarlet Witch) so the movie would be working with fresh
material for its battle sequences.
But most importantly, the superhero genre desperately needs more
female energy and The Scarlet Witch is the single best female Avenger.
Bonus points if Whedon can come up with a more exciting way to show
Wanda's "hex" power once it leaves her hands other than colored energy
blasts of CGI light a la Harry Potter.
