Wanda's “unforgivable” crime?!

[GenericUsername]

It was the issue where Bendis brought Vision back, and of course - of course - She-Hulk said not to blame Wanda because she couldn't help being crazy because she was raised by Magneto.

(I know she wasn't raised by Magneto, you know she wasn't raised by Magneto, and probably Bendis does too and doesn't care. The more objectionable thing to me is how he consistently portrayed her as someone who was always destined to snap and turn evil. That's not the character as she was portrayed for the 40 years before he got her.)

Oh yeah I remember her interaction with Vision. I wish she got one with Wanda herself.

And that's another point about that relationship to Mags. It seems like they suddenly wanted to push that Wanda was like dear old dad. Not sure why. I guess to force it into being believable that she'd commit M-day. But it never fit her. And I don't mean like, Mags would have done M-day. But the whole, I'm good, no wait I'm bad again. I'm unstable stuff.

[GenericUsername]

Agreed but them's the breaks.



I am sure Hickman has some idea and concept that will allow Wanda to land on her feet.

I hope so. The story is long overdue for some closure.

[gurkle]

I'm surprised that Spider-Man is forgiven for some of the same things others never were able to survive. He slapped Mary Jane but wasn't as branded by that action as Hank was. Even the writer of the Avengers story Jim Shooter said that the slap was not his intention for that scene and the artist overplayed it. It all mushroomed from there

Off topic, but I feel like Shooter is blaming the artist for something he could have changed even if there was no time to re-draw. He was writing Marvel Style, so he wrote the dialogue after he saw the art, and he could have added a line where Hank said he hit her by accident, but he didn't.

[Ichijinijisanji]

I'm surprised that Spider-Man is forgiven for some of the same things others never were able to survive. He slapped Mary Jane but wasn't as branded by that action as Hank was. Even the writer of the Avengers story Jim Shooter said that the slap was not his intention for that scene and the artist overplayed it. It all mushroomed from there

Pete did it very accidentally in the heat of the moment and it was clearly shown, especially with his reaction afterwards.
With hank, he did not get the same benefit.

In fact if you read issue 212-213, you may even think that Jim Shooter may be lying.

It starts with him (yellowjacket) destroying one of Jan's dresses

Then we go to the antagonists gorn and linea, where gorn hits linea directly showing a case of abuse with a black eye

Then they shift the scene to YJ making Jan cry with his words

[Ichijinijisanji]

Next issue just before the slap page we see him turn the robot right at Jan and hurt her

Then comes the slap

Then there's this page

The wording the dialogue is basically not giving any indication of it being accidental, and the previous issue showed basically the same dialogue, wording and imagery with Gorn/Linea showing a more straightforward version of it seemingly atleast drawing a parallel. It's hard to tie all of this to an artist mistake.

[Triniking1234]

Hank Pym will always get the short end due to all the Yellowjacket nonsense being used as evidence of him always being an abusive a-hole even though his West Coast appearances say otherwise.

Peter got away because he clearly in an enraged fight with Ben and he clearly comes to his senses when he realized what happened.
Reed got away because Sue was Malice and he needed to get her angry enough to break through Psycho-Man's control (the cartoon removes the slap).
Cyclops got away because just like Peter and Reed he isn't portrayed as abusive plus he did try to look for Maddie and Nathan but the X-Factor writers always side-stepped that plot for the book's other drama.

[Ichijinijisanji]

Hank Pym will always get the short end due to all the Yellowjacket nonsense being used as evidence of him always being an abusive a-hole even though his West Coast appearances say otherwise.

Peter got away because he clearly in an enraged fight with Ben and he clearly comes to his senses when he realized what happened.
Reed got away because Sue was Malice and he needed to get her angry enough to break through Psycho-Man's control (the cartoon removes the slap).
Cyclops got away because just like Peter and Reed he isn't portrayed as abusive plus he did try to look for Maddie and Nathan but the X-Factor writers always side-stepped that plot for the book's other drama.

During inferno they just up and said sinister manipulated him to do it with cyclops.

Pym also did get an out.... during the Crossing, but it got retconned out with Avengers forever.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The wording the dialogue is basically not giving any indication of it being accidental, and the previous issue showed basically the same dialogue, wording and imagery with Gorn/Linea showing a more straightforward version of it seemingly atleast drawing a parallel. It's hard to tie all of this to an artist mistake.

Yeah Jim Shooter is lying in his recent blogpost. I think many writers and fans harassed him about this so he came up with this flimsy excuse.

The original story of Avengers #211-230...it's quite clear that Hank Pym was written as an abuser. That was what the story was going for. In that same blogpost, Shooter said this about Hank,
Jim Shooter: Before I embarked on the storyline that led to the end of Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne's marriage, I reread every single appearance of both characters. His history was largely a litany of failure, always changing guises and switching back and forth from research to hero-ing because he wasn’t succeeding at either. He was never the Avenger who saved the day at the end and usually the first knocked out or captured. His most notable "achievement" in the lab was creating Ultron. Meanwhile, his rich, beautiful wife succeeded in everything she tried. She was also always flitting around his shoulders, flirting, saying things to prop up his ego.

So what he wrote with Hank proceeded logically from what was set up in Roy Thomas' run. Hank wasn't even Ant-Man at the time, because Michelinie already created Scott Lang to take the role that Pym's malfunctions had left him to vacate the role he was conceived to embody.

Peter got away because he clearly in an enraged fight with Ben and he clearly comes to his senses when he realized what happened.

With Spider-Man he was always a bigger character with many great stories and that incident comes in a very bad story so it's quite easy to neglect. Unlike Wanda and HoM, it didn't happen in a story that damaged the continuity of another Marvel title and team. Likewise, where Shooter's excuse about the artist making a mistake is wrong...I think in this case, in that story, the writers didn't come in with the intention of writing the character as abusive and that was a mistake on the part of the artist. In Shooter's case, the story and its aftermath is all written based on the idea that Hank crossed a line that cannot be undone and that in his arrogance he drove away the one good thing in his life.

With Wanda Maximoff, House of M was conceived all along with the aim of using Wanda's powers to depopulate mutants because Quesada had an editorial axe to grind and he wanted to use Scarlet Witch to do it, no matter what it meant for the characters (because that's the Joey Q way---scorched earth, ends-justify-the-means). It was the biggest story she was part of, an entire event storyline centered on her powers and her backstory. And the climax is she serves as the means for mass sterilization of mutants which led to the longest lasting status-quo on X-Men, and kneecapped them to the margins. The X-Men remember until then was consistently Marvel's biggest team and overall they are still that.

It's not reasonable to expect that this wouldn't become a hairshirt for Wanda. That this wouldn't have to be addressed or that it wouldn't stick to her going forward.

[XPac]

During inferno they just up and said sinister manipulated him to do it with cyclops.

Pym also did get an out.... during the Crossing, but it got retconned out with Avengers forever.

Yeah, it was Avengers Forever which took away Pyms free pass and opened up the flood gates again. The Crossing revealed that Kang was behind Pyms breakdowns. And in comics, a super villain manipulating you USUALLY is your get out of jail free card.

And you can argue after the Crossing Hank basically put everything behind him. Him and Jan were pretty much good.

Then Avengers FOrever took put the blame back on Hank, and once his free pass was taken away guys like Austen and McDuffie basically brought everything to the forefront.

[Frontier]

Yeah, it was Avengers Forever which took away Pyms free pass and opened up the flood gates again. The Crossing revealed that Kang was behind Pyms breakdowns. And in comics, a super villain manipulating you USUALLY is your get out of jail free card.

And you can argue after the Crossing Hank basically put everything behind him. Him and Jan were pretty much good.

Then Avengers FOrever took put the blame back on Hank, and once his free pass was taken away guys like Austen and McDuffie basically brought everything to the forefront.

What did McDuffie do?

[XPac]

What did McDuffie do?

In Beyond, he milked the Hank/Jan drama.

[Huntsman Spider]

What did McDuffie do?

I think he's referring to the Beyond! miniseries he wrote for Marvel, which was kind of a spiritual successor to the original Secret Wars almost a decade before Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars.

[Alan2099]

I'm surprised that Spider-Man is forgiven for some of the same things others never were able to survive.

Spider-man once worked for Jackal when they were trying to murder the entire human race and replace it with clones. Spider-man attempting genocide isn't even a random bit of trivia to most people.

[Tony Stark]

Spider-man once worked for Jackal when they were trying to murder the entire human race and replace it with clones. Spider-man attempting genocide isn't even a random bit of trivia to most people.

Well I learned something new today. He shouldn’t get away with hitting MJ or OMD.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

To reiterate, Wanda is on trial here in this thread. Trying to bring in other characters and publication stuff isn't going to bail her out.