Ever since Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlet Witch, entered the MCU, her character has been one of complexity and consistent change, thanks to the many traumas throughout her life. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, we are introduced to her and her brother, Pietro, as they protect Hydra with their incredible powers, giving the Avengers a run for their money. With Pietro’s abilities revolving around super-speed and being a total arrogant loud mouth, while Wanda’s powers were telekinesis, mind-disruption, and energy manipulation, the twins seemed to be incredibly dangerous agents of Hydra. The truth of their origin was that they were experiments and now prisoners of a Hydra scientist; that the Avengers were attempting to put an end to, Dr. Strucker.
As the movie and the twins’ debut went along, Tony and Bruce created a synthetic being aimed at becoming a protector of the world, better than the Avengers could be, though Ultron turned out to be a ferocious opponent to humanity, deeming humans parasites to the natural world. After a short stint of Wanda and Pietro working for Ultron, following the newly-birthed machine of damnation’s killing of Dr. Strucker, the twins betrayed him after Wanda was able to read his consciousness and see his true intentions were for humanity’s extinction.
Now working with the Avengers, her brother, and her future lover in the form of Vision (who Ultron created as a perfect body for himself but was taken and given life by the Avengers and Thor’s lightning powers), Wanda is in the middle of her home country, feeling outmatched, overwhelmed, and scared. With her brother Pietro’s self-scarifying death and the Avengers’ defeat looming against an army of Ultron-controlled robots, Wanda was able to dig deep and unleash her true power, showing the audience, the Avengers, and Ultron the first glimpse of the earth-shaking power the Scarlet Witch possesses.
Wanda’s Eternal Struggle: Her Faults and Redemption Cycle
Marvel Studios / Disney
After Wanda saw the error of her ways of working for Hydra and then Ultron, followed by joining the Avengers, and with the sacrifice of her brother, Quicksilver, in addition to her finding true love in the form of Vision, you’d think Wanda understood right from wrong well enough, and would try to grow from her mistakes and losses. Unfortunately, Wanda would be faced with more tough breaks, hard decisions, and devastating losses, which just added more pain and trauma to her already sorrow-filled past. Wanda would go on to repeat past offenses to an extent, not committing the exact same wrongdoings but enacting events that similarly harm a group of people in ways that vary in malice.
In Captain America: Civil War, Wanda made the difficult decision to overpower Vision, who had been tasked with keeping her “safe” in the Avengers tower during a highly volatile time that pitted Tony Stark and Steve Rodgers against each other, over superhero jurisdiction, government control, and confidentiality. While this only created a very short-lived rift between her and Vision, it also made her a fugitive since she fought on the side of Captain America, a side not in favor of the Sokovia Accords. Being a fugitive isn’t a good thing by any means, though Wanda and the rest of the Avengers who sided with Cap meant well and held good intentions to a degree; this incident wouldn’t be the worst committed by Wanda after her becoming of an Avenger, though.
Wanda would find some redemption in Avengers: Infinity War, when she joined forces with other heroes from around the world to fight Thanos and put an end to the Mad Titan’s plans to extinguish half of all life in the universe. During the attempt to foil Thanos’ plans, Wanda would witness Vision being killed twice, the first being by her hands in a sacrificial act to keep one of Thanos’ needs away from him. Sadly, this plan didn’t work, as Thanos initially succeeded with his plans, and this entire event only added to Wanda’s historically unstable mental state. This would result in WandaVision, in which Wanda retreated from her good deeds and only half-heartedly took over Westview Hostage, forming a shield around them with her amazing powers. As the town’s inhabitants were bent to Wanda’s will, they were constantly in an unending torment of being filled with Wanda’s incredibly drowning grief. Wanda would eventually see the issues with what was being called the Hex, and have to say goodbye to Vision again, as well as her children, for they were only constructs of her powers and would be lost with the hex being taken down.
With Wanda retreating from Westview and diving into the Darkhold’s power, she would be consumed with the premise that her children were still out in the multiverse. She would conjure up a plan, fueled by the Darkhold’s corruption and her own traumas, to achieve a multiverse crossing to abduct a version of her children for herself during Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. To do this, she was pitted directly against Doctor Strange and committed many atrocities. She went after a teenage girl, America Chavez, with the intention of killing her for her multiverse jumping powers, and dream-walked into another version of herself to take control of her life to an extent, and killed another universe’s mightiest heroes (the illuminati). Wanda caused universe-ending destruction, nearly killing Doctor Strange and America Chavez and using her overwhelming powers to enact her diabolical wishes. Luckily for everyone, Wanda finally saw the error of her ways again, thanks to the 838 universe’s Wanda and her children. Upon realizing she was being the bad guy again, she destroyed the Darkhold and Darkhold temples in all the universes, seemingly sacrificing herself in the process.
Wanda’s Powers as the Scarlet Witch and Her Potential to be a Hero
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Ever since Wanda Maximoff was introduced into the MCU, she has been a game changer, for better or for worse. Wanda is one of the most powerful characters in Marvel, humanoid or not, and has always had extremely high potential as far as her powers and abilities are concerned, while her character and state of being had always been very unstable. After joining the Avengers team, Wanda had an extremely high probability of becoming one of the most, if not the most, powerful and successful heroes in the entire world. Unfortunately, Wanda’s fragile and broken mind would prove to be her undoing, and be attributed to her assumed demise. In addition to her unreliable mentality, her inability to fully grasp the scope of her powers was an enormous contributor to Wanda not becoming the top hero in the MCU.
As stated plentifully in this article, Wanda is a top-level powered individual in the MCU, similar to her comic book counterpart being an omega-level mutant. Wanda’s powers consisted of mind-altering to the degree of vision prompting and even mind control, energy manipulation and control, as well as the overpowered ability of reality warping and creation. Wanda could have, and in some ways did, achieved world-destroying or saving powers that would be difficult for people to comprehend if she had access to the proper time and training, or materials such as the Darkhold. Powers such as dream walking into other multiverses, hexing to control magic users’ abilities, and flight are also powers Wanda wasn’t shown to have in her debut but worked to achieve throughout her training as a magic user. Her powers in the MCU come from chaos magic and a demon-like elder god, Chthon, and were directly activated from within her thanks to coming into contact with the mind stone. Wanda’s powers are so immense that she is one of the few humans who is able to not only withstand infinity stone powers, but also destroy them.
Wanda’s Future in the MCU: Can the Scarlet Witch be Forgiven, Again?
While Wanda has struggled to be a hero ever since her debut, she has proven she could be a prominent savior and heroine with many strong feats and powers. With her positive character arcs upended by her ineptitude to control her trauma-stricken mind and her problematic cycle of creating issues to then seek redemption, Wanda finds herself in a tricky position. While Wanda has a good heart at her core, her deep-rooted and seemingly ongoing problems tend to lead her down very bad paths. There is only the possibility for Wanda to have a better, more positive, future in the MCU if she is 100% able to get the help she needs and her feelings under control. Once Wanda returns, it will be interesting to see how she deals with all her mistakes and if she runs from them, owns up to them, or possibly continues the cycle that she continues to go down.
Once she does return to an MCU project, there are a couple of arcs that we could expect to see Wanda go through. She could, and should, be held accountable for all the pain and torment she inflicted on people in the MCU as well as the people of Universe 838, and imprisoned, or, worse, experimented on once again. While the Scarlet Witch likely wouldn’t let herself be subjected to experimentation, or captivity for that matter, again, this seems to be the most obvious immediate circumstance for her. On the other hand, Wanda likely wants to distance herself from both the heroes and the government of the 616 universe at this point and may elect to flee to a different universe/reality. To accomplish this, she may seek out America Chavez once more, or some other odd comic book-like explanation, though doing this would risk causing other incursions which could end multiple universes.
While these possible character arcs seem decent, similar to the idea that she actually did pass away as a result of the Darkhold temple collapsing around her (a heroic sacrifice), there are more exciting possibilities for the character. Since incursions are happening, and will probably continue to be an ongoing problem in the multiverse, the 616 universe, or even other multiverses, could use the help of the reality-altering powers of the Scarlet Witch to combat them, or other looming threats. To get rid of such a prominent character with such vast potential would be somewhat of a letdown. Another thing that could happen to the character of Wanda could be a mind-wipe of most, if not all, of her past traumas and shortcomings, similar to a comic book arc, in order for her to become more pure-minded and innately good. We all know how the MCU likes to mix-and-match comic book storylines, as well as alter them to fit the story they are trying to tell, so something like this would fit well. Whatever direction Marvel takes Wanda and the Scarlet Witch in the future, one thing is certain: Wanda Maximoff is an amazing character for the MCU, and the Scarlet Witch’s essence needs to be used correctly in the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
