Wanda Maximoff: Scarlet Witch Appreciation 2020

[whitecrown]

You know it's funny. The director of the Incredible Hulk (2008), Louis Leterrier always wanted Ruffalo to be his Hulk. Leterrier stated that Marvel Studio executives wanted Norton because he was "more famous." And apparently Marvel Studios wanted Don Cheadle all along as War Machine, but Terrence Howard's agent helped him get the job at the last second. It's pretty clear that the Marvel Creative Committee was very active at the time so they definitely had a role in these negotiations. Clearly mistakes were made. Ed Norton and Terrence Howard are excellent and talented actors, but they have well-earned reputations for being "difficult" on sets. Their perceived lack of professionalism working with Marvel truly damaged their careers because they are not nearly successful as their potential would have you believe. Downey Jr and Renner have had troubled personal lives, no question, but so far they have acted on their best behavior on sets. Ruffalo and Cheadle are ultimate team players and fantastic professionals. If Marvel had stuck to their guns, they would have had Ruffalo and Cheadle to begin with and no recasting would have been necessary. The MCU would have started out more seamlessly. The Marvel Creative Committee might deserve some of the blame here. I'm not sure how much control Feige had at that time. I believe he would have opposed a long, dark and serious Hulk film (which is what we sort of got with the Hulk in 2008). You know that dude loves comedy in superhero films and so do I. Here is a list of things the Marvel Creative Committee had a hand in that potentially prevented earlier MCU movies from being more popular:

https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelstudi...rvel_creative/

The first two Thor movies and the Incredible Hulk film in 2008 were TOO humorless and serious in my opinion. I also think the two Amazing Spider-Man movies also suffered from the same problems. That's why they were not as successful as they could have been. We know that other Marvel films (non-MCU) like the X-Men films, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Punisher, Fantastic Four (2015) were more dark and serious with very few jokes. They did not score well at the box office. The first two Fantastic Four movies and Man-Thing film were way too campy from what I understand, and they never had the heart of the MCU films, so they were not as great as they could have been either. Now, practically EVERY MCU film is full of joy and laughter (with the notable exception of the Black Panther, which is kind of like a "movement" movie). And this is largely due to the work of Kevin Feige and his staff of dedicated Marvel assistants. I have long been an admirer and fan of his work. I totally agree with a great deal of his creative decisions. I was absolutely stunned last year when Feige finally toppled Perlmutter in a major coup. And basically Quesada was demoted. Feige's promotion pretty much led to the firing of Jeph Loeb, who Feige saw as Perlmutter's man running things at Marvel TV. That's why Feige REFUSED to have anything to do with the Marvel TV shows. And the Marvel TV shows were far too violent and mature for them to truly reach a wider audience (from what I understand, Daredevil was the only one that performed well). In fact, Marvel TV itself has now been absorbed into Marvel Studios. The synergy between Marvel's films and television shows is now complete.

I know this has very little to do with a Scarlet Witch thread, but there is a connection. I read that both Feige and Whedon both fought really hard to get the Maximoff twins and Vision into the MCU over the staunch opposition of the Marvel Creative Committee. The latter were clearly not fans of those characters, but it was obvious that Feige and Whedon saw GREAT storytelling potential in Wanda and Vision in particular. And as I said previously, they have been proven absolutely correct. So for that, I will always be grateful to Feige and Whedon. Whedon takes a lot of unfair criticism in my view, but I really appreciate him fighting to get Wanda and Vision into the movies. And the Age of Ultron, for all its problems, had one great result. Feige was liberated from Perlmutter's dominance. So I will never criticize Whedon's work. One of my biggest beefs with the Marvel Creative Committee were their decisions to kill off so many villains TOO quickly in the films. They could definitely be used more than once or twice in many cases. Comic book creators almost NEVER kill off villains so speedily in the comic books themselves, but the ones on that Committee kept recommending the movies do so. That totally made no sense to me. Thankfully, I believe Feige has learned from previous mistakes. One thing I am looking forward to is having more women write women characters in the MCU. Let's face it, a lot of these broads are written as ACTION FIGURES. They have no real personalities at all. They are just bitchy badasses who display NO humor at all. The dudes get to be the quippy ones. I think in future Marvel movies this will also change, and that's a good thing. Feige is really upping his game as time goes on. Ironically, one of the few women superheroes in the MCU that is being written well in my opinion is actually Wanda Maximoff. I think that's largely because Whedon, the Russo brothers, Markus and McFeely grew up loving the relationship she had with the Vision when they read the comics as kids. And it clearly shows in the movies. Even the notoriously unsentimental GenericUsername loved the following lines in Captain America: Civil War:

Wanda: And what do you want?
Vision: For people to see you...As I do.
And then, silence.

Now if Marvel Comics can FINALLY return to all-ages storytelling, things could only get better!

Wow, thanks for that link and all that information! I had no idea that Mark Ruffalo and Don Cheadle were always intended to be the first choices. I knew Ike Perlmutter was a terrible person so I shouldn't be shocked that he made racist comments about Cheadle and Howard and didn't believe a woman could be a superhero villain. So glad he lost his power at Marvel. Same with Joe Quesada who is one of the most misogynistic people who probably ever worked at Marvel. It's because of him that Jean Grey was killed off and dead for so long and why Spider-Man and MJ's marriage was retconned. Anyone who didn't get along with him must be a hero so more power to Feige then.

Downey Jr. may have had personal issues but that was a long time ago and he clearly outgrew them. Renner may not have caused trouble on set but clearly he has major issues in his personal life and isn't the most sane person. On Twitter, a lot of people have pointed out that during public appearances, Elizabeth Olsen looks very uncomfortable near him since he's always touching her in some shape or form.

I know that people didn't really like the Thor movies until Ragnarok and I admit that Thor: The Dark World is one of my least favorite films, but I'm not really a fan of Ragnarok either. I'm fine with the MCU humor but I don't need it in everything and I liked the Shakespearean take on Thor and Kenneth Brannagh is a brilliant director. Ragnarok wasted all the classical mythology imo and was focused more on laughs than coherent storytelling. That's a super unpopular opinion I know, especially since people think Thor has been revitalized as a character since then but the original MCU Thor was more like in the comics and frankly still not close enough for my taste. I actually did like the first two Fantastic Four films but I haven't seen them in forever so I'm not sure how well they've aged. Out of Marvel TV, Daredevil was a major hit and still has a very devoted fanbase trying to get the show back. There's a lot of chances that Daredevil might be revived since the 2 years during which Marvel can't do anything more with the property are nearly up. Jessica Jones was also fairly popular although not as much as Daredevil. Luke Cage was more mixed but people did like it. Iron Fist was the first critical dud and got a lot of flack. Defenders got a lot of flack too. I never saw Punisher but I heard people liked it enough. But yeah, basically Daredevil was the most successful show.

I don't like Whedon very much because it's come out that he wasn't as feminist as he claimed to be and harassed a lot of women, but I do appreciate the fact that he fought to get the Maximoffs and Vision into Age of Ultron. To be honest, I was not an MCU fan until Age of Ultron primarily because these three characters were introduced. It's interesting that your link said that Whedon fought hard for the Hawkeye family subplot to not be removed when frankly I felt that's one of the low points of the film. The Thor subplot may not have been necessary and was editorially mandated, but I'd much rather have that than Family Man Barton. And I do agree that a lot of the female characters in the MCU are a bit interchangable, not just personality wise but also with the same powers, which makes Wanda stand out especially. I think they're doing a lot better with the new female characters like Carol, Shuri, and Okoye though. Mantis too technically even if I'm not a fan of the MCU version of her but at least she's different from the others.

I think the reason Wanda and Vision have such a following in the MCU now is because of scenes and lines like the ones you posted.

[whitecrown]

There's a simple thread in the X-Books section about what the X-Men would have been like without Xavier AND Magneto and literally half the posts are trashing Wanda for no reason. It's not just limited to her (Captain America and the Fantastic Four have been targeted as well) but it's pretty revealing that Wanda gets the brunt of the hate. Or I should say Scarlet Witch because apparently some posters like to pretend they don't recognize who Wanda is.

[Cruelrain]

You must be new...

Anyways, what are y'all expecting from the Darkhold comic on december?

I would like to see Wanda facing Morgan le fay again, with her current powers, they both have a conection with Chthon in different ways

Wanda was a able to hold her own against an amped Morgan who had planetary reality warping at the time

[GenericUsername]

You must be new...

Anyways, what are y'all expecting from the Darkhold comic on december?

I would like to see Wanda facing Morgan le fay again, with her current powers, they both have a conection with Chthon in different ways

Wanda was a able to hold her own against an amped Morgan who had planetary reality warping at the time

I want an appearance by Victoria Montesi.

[MaximoffTrash]

There's a simple thread in the X-Books section about what the X-Men would have been like without Xavier AND Magneto and literally half the posts are trashing Wanda for no reason. It's not just limited to her (Captain America and the Fantastic Four have been targeted as well) but it's pretty revealing that Wanda gets the brunt of the hate. Or I should say Scarlet Witch because apparently some posters like to pretend they don't recognize who Wanda is.

Welp, again it's the Avengers' fault writers feel like to make torture porn out of the X-line of comics.
It's kinda strange when people seem to enjoy mutants being the underdog/cartoonishly oppressed, and then proceed to trash none-X characters for their "indifference to mutant suffering".

[MaximoffTrash]

You must be new...

Anyways, what are y'all expecting from the Darkhold comic on december?

I would like to see Wanda facing Morgan le fay again, with her current powers, they both have a conection with Chthon in different ways

Wanda was a able to hold her own against an amped Morgan who had planetary reality warping at the time

Yeah, I want some acknowledgement from Morgan, something like Morgan saying how she indirectly caused Wanda's current state of power set.
I would be interested in Morgan's reaction, would she pity Wanda's state or envy her power?(I mean, Morgan is the power hungry type yet she wouldn't want to be potentially subject to anyone, which is probably why she shut off Chthon the moment she realized she cannot control an Elder God.)

[lowfyr]

I want an appearance by Victoria Montesi.

That would be great.

[lowfyr]

Except when most people think of the X-Men, they still think of Claremont's X-Men. Not Matt Fraction's Utopia X-Men or Bendis' Extinction X-Men (besides Wrongclops fanboys that this place is fraught with). The X-Men films are heavily inspired by Claremont's X-Men from Dark Phoenix, to Days of Future Past, to Wolverine's first solo series, to God Love Man Kills. And even the popular 90s animated series pretty much adapted all of Claremont's big stories. The best selling comic of all time is still written by Claremont.

I love his old stuff but if we go by this statement we would still only have the O5, because something new should not happen? Bet Marvel got a lot of not so nice letters than about the new group.

And compared to the stuff that happened for the last 15 to 20 years at last Hickmans X-Men are a lot more hopeful. It is just a more realistic stand on what Mutants need to do to take a stand after getting hunted for decades.

[leokearon]

There's a simple thread in the X-Books section about what the X-Men would have been like without Xavier AND Magneto and literally half the posts are trashing Wanda for no reason. It's not just limited to her (Captain America and the Fantastic Four have been targeted as well) but it's pretty revealing that Wanda gets the brunt of the hate. Or I should say Scarlet Witch because apparently some posters like to pretend they don't recognize who Wanda is.

They aren't trashing here for no reason, they are probably thinking "Well if Chuck and Mags weren't there then Wanda wouldn't have gone No More Mutants, since it was there arguing that made her do it." Which is some really flawed logic

[Ravin' Ray]

Folks, in as much as the MCU discussion is very engaging, this is a Scarlet Witch appreciation thread, ok? Just a reminder, and let's put the focus back on Wanda.

[leokearon]

You must be new...

Anyways, what are y'all expecting from the Darkhold comic on december?

I would like to see Wanda facing Morgan le fay again, with her current powers, they both have a conection with Chthon in different ways

Wanda was a able to hold her own against an amped Morgan who had planetary reality warping at the time

I'm not too sure what I want from Darkhold, except I don't want this to be another excuse for Dark Scarlet Witch

[MaximoffTrash]

I'm not too sure what I want from Darkhold, except I don't want this to be another excuse for Dark Scarlet Witch

I wouldn't mind seeing Wanda actually controlling Darkhold power for a while. I mean, she should have talent for that.

[lowfyr]

I'm not too sure what I want from Darkhold, except I don't want this to be another excuse for Dark Scarlet Witch

The "Wanda gets corrupted" thing got old with Byrne using it. After that it was getting even worse.

[Electricmastro]

Welp, again it's the Avengers' fault writers feel like to make torture porn out of the X-line of comics.
It's kinda strange when people seem to enjoy mutants being the underdog/cartoonishly oppressed, and then proceed to trash none-X characters for their "indifference to mutant suffering".

Yep, if anyone is truly to blame, then I suppose the blame should be linked back to the writers making apocalyptic torture porn out of mutant hate rather than having it meaningfully lend itself to analysis and perhaps a little productivity in figuring this stuff out, as opposed to constantly having cold bitterness between the mutants and the non-mutants like the Avengers as if we’re meant to dislike our heroes. There are no bad characters, only bad writers, and there feeling like a whole bag of extremely smelly and dirty laundry is opening up every time Wanda’s mental breakdown at House of M is brought up as if to be used against her probably doesn’t help matters either.

[Sutekh]

The "Wanda gets corrupted" thing got old with Byrne using it. After that it was getting even worse.

While Dr. Strange has flirted with learning black magic from Kaluu to 'fight evil with evil,' I suspect Wanda using the Darkhold would fall inevitably into the 'wimmen can't handle power' trope and involve her flipping out and having to be stopped by some dudes. Been there. Seen that. Let's not.

There could be an interesting story in there. (The evil power builds up in there over time, and has to be released in aggressive displays from time to time, or it starts wreaking havoc on it's surroundings and evil critters start leaking into the local surroundings? 'Evil calls to evil' and it can be used as a talisman to find other concentrations of wickedness that the good mages can then oppose? Something like that.) But I don't trust that Wanda wouldn't come off badly from any interaction with it.