Multiverse Of Madness: Is The Scarlet Witch A Hero Or A Villain?

The release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now just one month away. A huge amount of hype surrounds the film, with talk ranging from rumoured big cameos, to the possible introduction of an MCU Illuminati. However, one of the biggest questions people have regarding the film is the exact role of the Scarlet Witch.

While we know Doctor Strange seeks out Wanda for help initially, and one shot in the movie's latest TV spot appears to show her aiding Wong in battle, other trailer footage displays Wanda in a potentially antagonistic light. So, is the Scarlet Witch a hero or a villain?

Well, if evidence from the comics is anything to go by, the answer could get complicated.

The Origins of the Scarlet Witch

Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, made her comic debut in X-Men #4, alongside her twin brother, Pietro Maximoff, also known as Quicksilver. The twins were villains at first, introduced as members of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Initially, the pair (who believed themselves to be Mutants at the time) were drawn into the Brotherhood by the promise of protection from anti-mutant factions. However, finding themselves troubled by the true extent of Magneto's prejudice towards regular humans, Wanda and Pietro fled from the Brotherhood.

Eager to redeem themselves, and seeking protection from Magneto's wrath, the Maximoffs joined The Avengers. In dire need of a roster boost after multiple members left at once, no-one asked too many questions about the twins' past. This incarnation of the team, consisting of just Captain America, the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Hawkeye, is affectionately known as Cap's Kooky Quartet. Despite her villainous beginnings, the Scarlet Witch remains a hero for some time.

Love & Loss

An unexpected love story bloomed when The Vision, a synthezoid built from the body of the original Human Torch, and the brain patterns of the presumed deceased Wonder Man. Initially spurning Wanda's advances due to his synthezoid nature, Vision eventually accepts his feelings for the witch as proof of his humanity, and the couple marry in Giant-Size Avengers #4. After an unfortunate incident in which a damaged Vision almost takes over all the world's computers, he and Wanda resign from the Avengers and move to the suburbs hoping for a normal life. During this time, Wanda becomes magically pregnant and gives birth to twin sons, Tommy and Billy.

Sometime after the twins are born, Wanda and Vision join the West Coast Avengers. Sadly, Vision is kidnapped and dismantled by rogue Government agents. Though he is reassembled, he is a bleached white, emotionless shell of his former self, lacking any emotional attatchment to Wanda or their children.

Further tragedy strikes when it is revealed that Tommy and Billy were born via splintered fragments of the villain Mephisto's soul, and the boys are subsequently absorbed by Master Pandemonium, acting as a conduit for Mephisto. This leaves Wanda dealing the loss of both her husband and children within a relatively short time frame. Wanda's mentor, Agatha Harkness, erases everyone's memory of the twins ever existing, believing that a clean start is best for all involved.

Agatha's decision ultimately has tragic consequences, leading to a dark period for Wanda.

Avengers Disassembled

Eventually, Wanda regains her memory of her lost children, confronting and murdering Agatha in a fit of rage. Suffering severe sanity slippage from her restored memories, and blaming the Avengers, the Scarlet Witch goes on a rambage, causing mayhem with her reality warping abilities. As the Avengers struggle to neutralise Wanda, both Hawkeye, and Wanda's ex-husband, Vision, are killed.

Doctor Strange manages to put Wanda into a coma, with the surviving Avengers left at a loss as to what to do with their troubled former teammate. Reluctantly, they release her to the care of Magneto, who promises to seek the help of Professor X in healing Wanda's shattered mind.

House of M

During Wanda's sessions with Professor X, she continues to warp reality around herself, developing an obsession with restoring Tommy and Billy. Still shaken after the events of 'Avengers: Disassembled', Wanda's former teammates ultimately decide that she is too dangerous to allow her to live. However, before they can act on this decision, Wanda unleashes a huge reality warping spell over the whole world. She gives everyone what she believes they want most. For Magneto, this is a Mutant Utopia, for Carol Danvers, this is being the world's most loved hero, while Wanda simply gets to have her children back with her.

Unfortunately, Wanda's perfect world crumbles when a group of heroes regain their memories of the original reality and confront her, demanding she restore everything to normal. She does, but also depowers a large percentage of the world's Mutants, disappearing immediately afterwards.

Hawkeye, who was revived by Wanda during 'House of M', is sent to find and kill her. However, when he finds Wanda, she appears to have no memory at all of her time as an Avenger. Unwilling to kill her in her new innocent state, and knowing he owes her his life, Hawkeye leaves Wanda be, claiming he was unable to locate her.

Road to Redemption

Wanda remains 'missing' until the events of 'Young Avengers: The Children's Crusade'. Young Avengers team members Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd, aka Wiccan and Speed, seek out the Scarlet Witch, believing themselves to be the reincarnated souls of her sons. While they initially find Wanda in an amnesiac state, about to be married to Doctor Doom, she soon recovers her memories, acknowledges Wiccan and Speed as her children, and vows to set right all her wrongdoings. Her actions in 'Disassembled' and 'House of M' are revealed to be at least partly due to Doom's influence, with the villain taking advantage of Wanda's fragile mental state by promising her the restoration of her children. With Wiccan's help, Wanda restores many of the depowered Mutants, makes a fragile peace with her former Avengers teammates, and departs on a quest to find herself.

This quest for self-discovery eventually leads into the 2016 Scarlet Witch solo series, during which Wanda travels the world with the ghost of Agatha Harkness in the hope of fixing a problem with witchcraft. By the end of this series, Wanda had made peace with her past, and asks to rejoin the Avengers, who by then, are happy to welcome her back.

So, while Wanda did commit a few seemingly villainous acts in the comics, they have almost always been in times of fragile mental health, and rarely with truly evil intent, which is why the vast majority of her fellow heroes have forgiven her. In present day comics, reached a point where she is now fully aware of the impact overuse of her reality warping powers has on her psyche, and keeps a tight rein on herself to avoid another 'House of M' scenario.

The MCU's Wanda is just as complicated

The MCU's Wanda Maximoff has just as much of a checkered history as her comic book counterpart. Initially introduced as a villain in Avengers: Age of Ultron, she and Pietro join forces with Ultron for revenge on Tony Stark, blaming him for the deaths of their parents. However, both switch sides before the film's final battle after realising the true extent of Ultron's plan, and while Pietro is tragically killed, Wanda ends the film as one of the newest Avengers. Unfortunately, Wanda's accidental killing of innocent civilians in the opening scene of Civil War adds fuel to the fire of that film's core conflict. By the end, she and the rest of Team Cap are forced to go on the run.

While Team Cap receive pardons following the events of Infinity War and Endgame, Wanda is suffering intense grief after the death of Vision, and in her grief, creates a whole new Vision and a perfect life for them, putting the entire town of Westview under mind-control in the process. While this seems bad, it is definitely worth noting that, as in the comics, Wanda's seemingly villainous act did not come with malicious intent. It was an accident, born of Wanda's grief and an unexpected growth in her powers. When Wanda realises just how much pain she has really caused the people of Westview, she willingly releases them all.

So, is the Scarlet Witch a Hero or Villain in 'Multiverse of Madness'?

Well, there are a few possible answers to this question. Thus far in the MCU, Wanda has never done anything with purely evil intentions. Even her early mental attacks on the Avengers came about due to their association with the man Wanda believed responsible for the death of her parents.

So, if the Scarlet Witch behaves antagonistically in Multiverse of Madness, it's highly likely that she has a good reason why, or at least believes that she does. It is also quite possible that Wanda has been corrupted by the power of the Darkhold, an evil book that falls into her possession at the end of WandaVision. As often seems the case with Wanda, she may overcome this corruption by the end of the film in order to help the heroes.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theatres in May.