Wanda Maximoff: Scarlet Witch Appreciation 2020

[Albert1981]

For both of them, really. Both characters have been a mess since those days.

Arguably, the same is true of Wanda, post-Vision. As part of a 'power couple,' writers seemed less prone to mess with her, but once she was on her own, she became easy pickings for Byrne, Bendis, etc. to drive her cray-cray or whatever, between 'Darker than Scarlet' and 'No More Mutants.'

I kinda wish they'd play up her Romani heritage a little for the shallow reason that, if she was visibly diverse, writers might fear the optics of heaping too much abuse on the character.

I could not agree more with your assessment of the situation. Bad stuff happened to Wanda during her time with the Vision, but a lot of evil dudes and chicks didn't want to mess with her when they knew an arm or two could literally go through them at any point. I know it's old-fashioned, but when Pietro, Vision and Simon were there with her, she was less vulnerable to bad writing. For the past thirty years her personal life has been an absolute MESS, and a lot of the bad stuff that's happened to her is when she was alone. To play up the Romani angle for diversity reasons alone is REALLY cynical and cheap, but I'd even be okay with it if it forces the people at Marvel to give her a fair shake.