Intro to Comics: Scarlet Witch (Upgrade)

(This first appeared on my notes section of Facebook, pics are of course copyright to Marvel comics).

            You all have never heard of Wanda Maximoff.  One of the oldest X-Men villains she carries the moniker Scarlet Witch, and is the daughter of Eric "Magneto" Lehnsherr the super terrorist that was the staring villain of all three X-Men movies.  Why they chose to cut her is unclear to me, she has been around forever, she has a simple costume that would have translated alright, and she has a twin brother Peatro "Quicksilver" Maximoff who has super speed and is a dick to everyone.

Seriously, there is no reason why this costume should not have been put on Mila Kunis

            Wanda is, I guess a strange character, her powers started off vague only allowing her to influence luck to a mild degree causing equipment to fail at just the right time, causing spontaneous explosions, or occasionally teleporting other heroes/villains into battle to help out.  She later learned that her mutant powers actually controlled magic, chaos magic more precisely, and allowed her to do pretty much whatever she wanted, allowing her to spiral out of control story-wise as the Deus Ex when the plot needed it.

Quicksilver, he also has stupid hair.

            Wanda actually has a really bad history at the moment, her mother was killed by her father, she became a superhero mostly to show that not all mutants were murderous sociopaths (and it is a heavy burden to bear representing your whole community while battling gods of death and time traveling tyrants), her boyfriend Simon "Wonderman" Williams died (he got better much later), and she fell in love with the superhero Vision (an android who couldn't give her children, then he later lost his memories of loving her, then he got better), she used her powers to cause immaculate conception... which were still born, and after that she went on being a hero.  Then her egg cracked.

Vision, he has nearly every super power and is sort of like "Star Trek's" Data, though I believe Vision came first.

            See even though Wanda had ostensibly gotten over loosing her children and leaving the Vision she grew increasingly crazy and one day decided to go full blown super villain on everyone.  She had Tony "Iron Man" Stark (who was the secretary of defense at the time) appear in front of the United Nations magically drunk and trying to provoke a war with every country that looked at him queer.  Wanda then brought back the dead Superhero Jack of Hearts as a zombie and had him kill the current Ant Man (Scott Lang, a reformed master thief who thought of himself as Hank Pym's successor in the role).  After that she killed Vision by having him transform into a dozen Ultrons (Ultron the ultimate killer robot), who then attacked the Avengers... CHAOS MAGIC.  They beat the Ultrons but then she caused Jennifer "She-Hulk" Walters to go crazy and start tearing through everyone until subdued.  Then she summons an alien spaceship that starts attacking, Clint "Hawkeye" Barton sacrifices his life trying to stop that.  At the end she had killed more heroes than any villain had previously and was talked down from blowing up the world by Magneto who took her to Prof X for psychiatric help.

Oops, there goes the universe.

            Months later the Avengers and X Men were told that Wanda was going to eventually lose control again and unmake reality, the question comes down to: Do we kill her?  The answer is no, but before they can think of a solution Wanda unmakes reality and puts it back wrong... Making Magneto king of the Earth, Doctor Doom in control of Eastern Europe, Apocalypse ruling Northern Africa, Black Panther and Storm taking Africa south of the Sahara, Namor still controls Atlantis, and most of the other Heroes living happy lives.  Wolverine manages to see through the illusion (because of mental blocks... It really didn't make much sense at the time still doesn't... CHAOS MAGIC).  After every hero basically has to tear down a dimension where they have been given their hearts desire, with Spiderman a successful inventor and family man, and Captain America a contently retired old man who was never frozen.  At the end Wanda unmakes her new perfect world and in doing so leaves Earth with only a handful of X-Men having turned most of the mutants human.

Magneto, running a utopia, except for that part controlled by Apocalypse, which is hell on Earth, but what are you gonna do?  Just for information, this whole event was called "House of M".

            Wanda then returned to her roots, living the life of a lunatic in Eastern Europe, having erased her own memories and seemingly abolishing her own powers, Hawkeye having been returned to life following the reality re-write finds her, and rather than jar her awake and forcing her to take responsibility for her actions, including the murder of at least 2 super heroes... well, instead Hawkeye bones her, and then leaves in a huff to rejoin the Avengers... Weird cliff hanger that has yet to be resolved in like 5 years.

Hawkeye, his powers consist of archery, ass kicking, and boning.

            So yeah, Wanda Maximoff, she is a MacGuffin, an all powerful MacGuffin...  Oh, yeah, she also re-wrote reality so that her children had never been stillborn, and they are now teen superheroes on "The Young Avengers", Speed who has her brother's powers, and Wiccan, who has her powers, though toned down and seemingly less narrative breaking...  Very odd.

The comic we star in is critically acclaimed, loved by fans, and strangely not getting milked to death by Marvel.