Which writer has been the most influential to Scarlet Witch's character?

[Anthony Shaw]

Byrne's story for Wanda and Vision in west coast avengers is an odd one. If one where to call it character assasination then I wouldn't really object. If that term can ever be used. The changes he made at first glance certainly seems regressive on vision and mostly for shock value with Wanda. He took away much from both characters and never really replaced it with something new. It limited Vision and it saddled Wanda with one of those stories that would forever haunt her. More so then Gruenwald it opened the door "once turn evil, allways turn evil". Like the big red button that some want to press even while they know it's not a good idea. As a stand alone story it can be fun but the MU isn't built for these stories. They take on a life of their own.

That storyline still sticks out in a bad way. It's hard to understand how such obvious limitations could be seen as possibilities. Yet we later on got, for example, OMD, so Marvel showed us there is allways a bigger dumber decision waiting around the corner.

Byrne flushed decades of development for Wanda & Vision down the toilet. They were great in the 70's.

[Huntsman Spider]

It's really telling that no one is immune from those writings. Though having high popularity certainly helps certain characters recovering.

Sadly, and yes, you'd be right there.

[MaximoffTrash]

House of M is her most known story and sets the standard going forward unfortunate as they may be to some so Bendis easily.

The standard, you mean using her as little as possible? Because I am pretty sure Heinberg, Remender and Zub for that matter don't really write her by Bendis's standard.

[Rang10]

Byrne flushed decades of development for Wanda & Vision down the toilet. They were great in the 70's.

Hate when writers does this with couples.

Byrne has a serious problem with powerful women, Wanda paid the price years after it happened

[Lukmendes]

Byrne's story for Wanda and Vision in west coast avengers is an odd one. If one where to call it character assasination then I wouldn't really object. If that term can ever be used. The changes he made at first glance certainly seems regressive on vision and mostly for shock value with Wanda. He took away much from both characters and never really replaced it with something new. It limited Vision and it saddled Wanda with one of those stories that would forever haunt her. More so then Gruenwald it opened the door "once turn evil, allways turn evil". Like the big red button that some want to press even while they know it's not a good idea. As a stand alone story it can be fun but the MU isn't built for these stories. They take on a life of their own.

That storyline still sticks out in a bad way. It's hard to understand how such obvious limitations could be seen as possibilities. Yet we later on got, for example, OMD, so Marvel showed us there is allways a bigger dumber decision waiting around the corner.

Really sucks to be Wanda.

I know I'm repeating this a lot here, but man, she goes through some ****, and between what you said Byrne did, and what Bendis did, it seemed it was getting worse over time, but thankfully, nothing topped Disassembled/House of M, at least not yet.

Kinda ironic that a character who can manipulate luck, has so much bad luck, maybe it's how her power balances itself .

Agreed, and I say that as a Scarlet Spider(s) fan.

Well, even though Peter was treated like garbage to make Ben look good, Ben himself was still an alright character.

And you may be a fan, but even if you weren't, it's hard to enjoy such bad writing of a character to make another look good, it's such a childish writing method, and it's even worse in Clone Saga, since it was all done to get rid of Peter.

And OMD was preceded by Civil War, which was in turn kicked off by Wanda's actions at the end of House of M, because the mass depowering of the mutant population left America with the largest base of non-mutant superhumans in the world and thus became an impetus for the government to force them all to register, leading to Captain America going rogue and Iron Man committing all sorts of heinous betrayals of his erstwhile friends and allies in the name of "restoring the public's trust in superheroes." Come to think of it, Avengers Disassembled --- with House of M --- was basically the first in a series of falling dominoes for that entire era.

I don't remember any of this, didn't Civil War only happen because some guy's power is just exploding, which made the public blame super-heroes for some reason, which led to registration? I don't remember the mutant depowering being involved in this at all... But if that really happened, man, what a shithole Wanda started lol.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Really sucks to be Wanda.

I know I'm repeating this a lot here, but man, she goes through some ****, and between what you said Byrne did, and what Bendis did, it seemed it was getting worse over time, but thankfully, nothing topped Disassembled/House of M, at least not yet.

Kinda ironic that a character who can manipulate luck, has so much bad luck, maybe it's how her power balances itself .

That's the truth. She finally got out of that rut and everything got worse than what Byrne did. She's 0-3 for three now, it's like Marvel wants to keep adding to her failures to make her person non grata. While letting the people who were supposed to be helping her off the hook again and again. The safest place to be when Wanda does something wrong is to be her mentor, you won't get blamed for anything.

Well, even though Peter was treated like garbage to make Ben look good, Ben himself was still an alright character.

And you may be a fan, but even if you weren't, it's hard to enjoy such bad writing of a character to make another look good, it's such a childish writing method, and it's even worse in Clone Saga, since it was all done to get rid of Peter.

Later on Ben Reilly would become evil after getting continuously killed and resurrected by the Jackal.

I don't remember any of this, didn't Civil War only happen because some guy's power is just exploding, which made the public blame super-heroes for some reason, which led to registration? I don't remember the mutant depowering being involved in this at all... But if that really happened, man, what a shithole Wanda started lol.

I believe that was Nitro and the New Warriors were in a phase of having a reality show and he exploded in a high school. It was set up very badly, that's like a slow Tuesday for Marvel America. Something something Captain America doesn't know what Myspace is.

[Alphaxman]

The question is who was the most influential writer, and the answer is defiantly not Bendis. He would be the most detrimental writer whose machination against her is still being felt nearly 17 years later.

As for the most influential writer(s), it has to be Steve Englehart, followed by Kurt Busiek.

Robinson wouldn't be anywhere near as influential -- even though he wrote her last series -- because it has barely been followed up on. He did do a decent job of cleaning up the editorial mandate to remove her from mutantdom, by tying her closer to the magical side of the MU.

Byrne and Remember would follow Bendis in the degradation of her character. Byrne did wonders for her powers and I like that she was consider a "Nexus Being" drawing certainty form other realities into hers to garner the effects she wanted or needed. But he ruined her family and her happiness.

Remember simply made many X-Fans hate her by making her so defensive against Rogue and gave the impression that she wasn't remorseful for her infamous "No More Mutants" act. And the AXIS stuff hasn't help, either.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Remember simply made many X-Fans hate her by making her so defensive against Rogue and gave the impression that she wasn't remorseful for her infamous "No More Mutants" act. And the AXIS stuff hasn't help, either.

They hated her for Decimation, after is simply justification to burn the witch. They'd still hate her without Remender. It's like HEAT all over again.

[Agent Z]

They hated her for Decimation, after is simply justification to burn the witch. They'd still hate her without Remender. It's like HEAT all over again.

As someone who finds the Wanda bashing obnoxious (ironically I feel her movie counterpart is less sympathetic), I think this is going a bit too far. There's been no harassment of writers from anti-Wanda fans as far as I can see.

[Hcmarvel]

The question is who was the most influential writer, and the answer is defiantly not Bendis. He would be the most detrimental writer whose machination against her is still being felt nearly 17 years later.

...Do you know what the word influential means? Cause writing a character such that it effects how they are written for the next 17 years is...influential.

[Alphaxman]

...Do you know what the word influential means? Cause writing a character such that it effects how they are written for the next 17 years is...influential.

But that's the thing. I'm talking character over plot. Bendis didn't write about her, he just used her as a plot device.
It was the action that was influential, not Wanda as a character. She didn't have a voice. We didn't see her internalized turmoil or motivations. We just seen her go crazy because she somehow forgot she had kids, get a power-up and then be used by others for their motives. She literally disappeared for years after that.

I will admit that yes, Bendis was very "influential" to her as a plot device to remake the Avengers but not to her as a character and the same way Englehart and Busiek did. Even Byrne's work was character base over plot base. They used plot to change the character, Bendis used her to move his plot.

Allan Heinberg and Remember did more to deal with her character and how the Decimation affected her than what Bendis did.

[Snoop Dogg]

englehart should get the credit for fully forming the character but because marvel (specifically remender) botched her comeback so horribly, she has failed to return as a superhero and is still the decimatrix, so bendis

[Malachi]

The question is who was the most influential writer, and the answer is defiantly not Bendis. He would be the most detrimental writer whose machination against her is still being felt nearly 17 years later.

As for the most influential writer(s), it has to be Steve Englehart, followed by Kurt Busiek.

Busiek really did admirable work with Wanda in his Avengers run. A lot of it sound good ideas that bridged the different elements of Wanda's stories. His exploration of chotnic chaos magic is interesting but seems to be a divisive direction when it comes to Marvel. It seems they can't decide on how literal the witch part of her codename is.

Busiek can become much more influencial if the pieces he added where built upon more in the future. It's still there, waiting to be used. The only thing I'm still on the fence with is her relationship with Simon. But that is just personal preference on interesting partners in fiction.

[GenericUsername]

...Do you know what the word influential means? Cause writing a character such that it effects how they are written for the next 17 years is...influential.

It didn't influence her character because pretty much most of that was written out in Children's Crusade. It influenced her not being in comics much, which is the absence of character.

She also appeared very little in AD/HoM. In AD she wasn't present until the ending reveal, and HoM was mostly about other characters while Wanda was comatose and barely featured.

It's just become an infamous story because more people have heard about it because of what happened to mutants. It was far more influential to them. As it would fuel the next decade of comics stories for them.

For Wanda, she got the fridge.

[Frontier]

englehart should get the credit for fully forming the character but because marvel (specifically remender) botched her comeback so horribly, she has failed to return as a superhero and is still the decimatrix, so bendis

I'm suddenly expecting her to start dressing like evil Mary Marvel...