If the AXIS retcon is undone...

[Journey]

Not that this has anything to do with this discussion but in regards to previous statements I'm just gonna say the O5 coming to the future fell flat because of too much focus on Jean. The whole series revolved around her problems. And when she left it became the scott show with a tad of Hank. Warren was just there, Bobby didn't get anything out of it until the end only to be shoved in a silly relationship just to get ghosted for forever unknown reasons. Hank got the magic thing that went absolutely nowhere, plus a little love triangle with Jean and Scott. Had Bendis and the other author actually focused on some legitimate arcs for those 3 it could have been so much better than what it was IMO.

[AbnormallyNormal]

It's one of the big what-ifs, isn't it - Lee and Kirby obviously intended Wanda and Pietro to come over to the good guys' side, but it was decided to have them join the Avengers instead of adding them to the X-Men. (Probably because Stan Lee was known to prefer small teams.) Then a few years later they left the Avengers and there was some talk in letters columns that maybe they'd join the X-Men, but then the X-Men got canceled and the twins went back to the Avengers a year later.

Of course Wanda's "hex power" was always so poorly defined, and so poorly differentiated from magic, that she might not have fit on a team where everyone had more defined powers. I think that's one of the reasons Quicksilver has always been a better fit with X-groups. With Scarlet Witch writers are always trying to explain that her powers aren't really magic, they're a mutant power to... do... something... probability... uh... whatever.

I mean... Domino? Longshot? Exact same situation as Wanda's mutation just inverted.

[ermac]

It's one of the big what-ifs, isn't it - Lee and Kirby obviously intended Wanda and Pietro to come over to the good guys' side, but it was decided to have them join the Avengers instead of adding them to the X-Men. (Probably because Stan Lee was known to prefer small teams.) Then a few years later they left the Avengers and there was some talk in letters columns that maybe they'd join the X-Men, but then the X-Men got canceled and the twins went back to the Avengers a year later.

Hm, that's interesting. In a way, Xavier's decision to gather a new team for the Krakoan rescue in Giant Size makes no sense... Considering he could have called the Avengers or even the other mutants he already knew besides Banshee (like Wanda e Pietro).

Hickman confirmed Bendis got tired of writing XMen because of editorial screwing the line over due to movies rights. Creators are not machines and working in an environment that dont foster creativity will mess with te quality of the work. Thats why the genral consensus is that Bendis run was good during the first year and whatever after that.

Really? Where did you catch that?

[Relugus]

I think it's very clear that Marvel's writers and editors don't care about Wanda. When they do write her they are lazy. That bodes badly for any story involving her and the X-men as the writers will make little effort to write her. I think most Marvel writers don't know how to write her at all, and fundamentally don't care. Wanda is seen as not feminist enough by an editorial that likes to virtue signal.

Let's be honest here, people want the retcon reversed to give Magneto storylines, it's really all about Magneto to the fandom, as just about every article and YouTube video on the retcon has talked entirely about the importance of Magneto. The purpose of Wanda and Pietro being his kids is to emphasize his importance and (this is unspoken but IMHO clearly deemed important) virility. Because Magneto has what Deadpool called "The power of popularity", writers will always give him the focus, and it's him readers are interested in.
Furthermore, Magneto's relationship with Pietro has always interested writers due to the concept of the son usurping, or seeking to, usurp and crush the father. Wanda's relationship with Magneto obviously has none of that masculine conflict and so ends up being dull and tedious, never rising above soap opera trite.

For this reason, if they do a storyline where Wanda is bought to trial, it will be 100% about Magneto, with Wanda's role being very small. Trial dramas by their nature involve going over lots of past continuity, and writers and readers are not interested in Wanda's history (expect the writers to mess up her continuity even more).

Wanda joining the X-men would be unbelievable and would offend too many X-fans. It would be about as popular as Hydra Cap. Wanda going to Krakoa would be like Hitler being welcomed to Israel (which Krakoa is an obvious allegory of).

Doom's words indeed cannot of course be trusted, but then neither can Strange, exposed by Chthon as a colossal fibber. The Lifeforce is a hard to swallow nonsense from the start, a power that just comes out of nowhere and is never seen again. High Evolutionary, like Agamotto, had a vested interest in people believing Wanda to be a mutant, as HE, who had Chthon at his doorstep, had common cause with Agamotto.

The most credible explanation for Wanda's madness would logically be Chthon or Set, as writer David Sexton had Ian McNee state in Marvel Tarot.

Set has the greatest motive of all, given his hatred of the Celestials, who sowed the seeds for the rise of mutants, and snubbed his Serpent Men. M Day, for Set, would have been revenge against Arishem the Judge and Gaea for colluding against him. Within the context of the Marvel universe and the origin of mutants, that would have made sense, and even been poetic. But we got the Lifeforce and Doom asspulls instead because with Wanda no effort is made.

Bare in mind that Hickman, during his Avengers run, didn't even feature Wanda, not even as a blank face in the background. He's not going to suddenly become interested in her, especially since his specialty and focus is male characters. I don't see him putting a whole lot of effort into a character he does not care for.

The logical direction for Wanda is towards mystical stories that fit the tone of her character. Politics, a focal point of X-men, I'll fits her. There was a time when she was connected to most corners of the Marvel universe, but that has become a detriment as Wanda is now disconnected from everything.
Wanda's mystical narrative lore has a growth arc at its core, advancing her character and emphasising her skill. In contrast with her mystical narrative, her mutant narrative is one of unearned power and bungling incompetence. There's no growth arc just blunders. I can't think why male writers would be so keen to devalue her mystical skill in favour of unearned bungling, hmm?

One thing I have noticed in fiction and pop culture is that you can measure a character's value by the number of interactions they have across their fictional universe. Spiderman and Wolverine have the most interactions because they are the most popular. Writers who are interested in a character will have them interact with and bounce off of other characters. You know your fave character is in trouble when they become Billy No Mates.

By that metric, Wanda is about as popular as cancer with Marvel's writers.

[gurkle]

I suspect it's a little more than writers simply not wanting to write about Wanda, though I agree that Hickman has no interest in her (because she's a classic Avengers character and his Avengers run was near-fanatically obsessed with avoiding Avengers nostalgia). Some writers have expressed interest in her, like Jim Zub, but haven't been given the opportunity to use her outside of the weekly events. Uncanny Avengers was the last ongoing comic she was in and that was two years ago. It can't be just that people don't want to write her or she wouldn't have been part of the Avengers: No Road Home cast. There are other writers who would at least be OK if they were handed the character; people write characters suggested by editors all the time, and clearly Wanda and Pietro are not on the list of characters being handed out to writers.

What I believe, and why it belongs in this thread, is that 1) there probably has been some tug-of-war over whether to undo the AXIS retcon, and 2) Marvel is probably just waiting to find out what will happen in the TV series and movie Wanda will appear in in 2021.* Bleeding Cool's rumor that there were Maximoff/Magneto plans for 2020 that are on hold is just a rumor but it's a rumor that makes sense to me. Sometimes characters fall into limbo while the editors figure out what to do with them, much like Vision's second limited series got cancelled because of "plans" for Vision that never seem to have come to light.

*This is likely why Sam Wilson/Falcon has disappeared off the face of the earth since his series ended: Marvel takes its cues from the movies and are waiting to see what the movies will do with him (the only thing they know is that he is in line to be the next Captain America, and they already did that story).