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

[lordozone]

Not necessarily for the best, but Bendis.

[Witchfan]

Steve Englehart, Kurt Busiek, and James Robinson were her best writers. Brian Bendis is her greatest enemy.

[Glio]

Bendis. Not for the better, but it's certainly the character's biggest influence today.

[Rang10]

Bendis for the worse reasons

[MaximoffTrash]

Scarlet Witch has never been more entertaining than when Byrne wrote her but he didn't sow the seeds to her dark side. That was Gruenwald and Grant in Avengers #187.

Not really? There is a major difference between her being possessed and her actively doing harm out of her own will. If anything it's a dark legacy, not an inherent dark side.
Also in hindsight, Gruenwald's work was later further developed by Busiek to expand her lore.
While Byrne's work lead to her ultimate destruction at the hand of Bendis.
Byrne did it in a way that suggest it's Wanda herself being inherently evil and sadistic, and most of all, shouldn't wield great power.

[Lukmendes]

There is a certain logic to his argument though. I wouldn't say Bendis made Wanda more interesting as a character but more more...famous. She was the main plot device behind two major line wide events both of which had huge consequences for Marvel's two biggest franchises. suddenly this B-list Avenger was one of the most important figures in the Marvel Universe.

I'd say it's more accurate to say Bendis made her more infamous, 'cause yes, she became more well known because of it, but being more known for something like that isn't a good thing when it goes against her character.

It's actually very strange to me that little has been done with her since. There was actually a lot of potential to do something with this character post House of M and people would have actually bought it. Right now she's right back to were she was being a B-list Avenger except she's a bit too tainted to ever be part of the main team.

Problem is that her potential post House of M is boring, first they had to get rid of her for a while 'cause even Marvel recognized that what she did was bad, was gonna piss off people, so she went to limbo for a while for people to be less pissed at her when she gets screen time again... But once she returned, now what? We have a potentially insane reality warper, and reality warping is a boring ass power, to the point that's the real reason Franklyn never has it for long, and Wanda had a legit cool power before, why choose reality warping over that?

To be honest, there are no lack of people who have the mindset like "if I don't notice this character beforehand, then he/she must be not worth it."
It's also an excuse to not learn about the character at all, since all their stories before a certain point are by default not interesting.

For sure, and the problem with that mentality is that it spreads lies, even if not on purpose.

Let's say I didn't know Wanda at all, and I watch that review, see what the guy says, and decide to check Disassembled/House of M, the conclusion I could come up with is "Woah, this is barely even a character, it's a plot device for a stupid plot, if she's this bad now, how bad was she before Bendis?".

Either that or question the guy's opinion for thinking that is supposed to be an interesting character lol.

I'd say she was A-list by Avengers standards but I think editorial either doesn't care much for her or sees her as too much of a mess to work from.

Before MCU, "A-list by Avengers standards" didn't mean that much .

Again, I think it says a lot that they've let the X-Titles build up "The Pretender" while The Avengers books have done next to nothing with her. Not even anything really in her defense. I doubt they'd let that happen to Spider-Man, Iron Man, or Captain America.

Really sucks to be Wanda man lol.

Yeah, and considering that Spider-Man made a literal Faustian bargain in One More Day, Iron Man was pretty much violating civil and/or human rights all over the place during the original Civil War, and even Captain America went HYDRA in his relaunch leading into Secret Empire . . .

Spidey also slapped MJ once in clone saga, under similar circumstances that led to Pym slapping Janet the first time, curiously he's not reminded every 5 minutes for doing that like Pym.

Oh and he joined Jackal in Maximum Clonage, 'cause "I'M A CLONE, I HAVE NOTHING TO LIVE FOR, SO I'LL JOIN THE GUY WHO WANTS TO COMMIT OMNICIDE!"

Urgh, clone saga...

Scarlet Witch has never been more entertaining than when Byrne wrote her but he didn't sow the seeds to her dark side. That was Gruenwald and Grant in Avengers #187.

She was possessed by a demon in that story though, and even got rid of it once she had the chance and tried to make sure it'd never return... If anything the story shows that between good and evil, she chooses good without even considering evil.

Steve Englehart, Kurt Busiek, and James Robinson were her best writers. Brian Bendis is her greatest enemy.

I guess Bendis is to her what DiDio is/was to Dick Grayson .

Byrne did it in a way that suggest it's Wanda herself being inherently evil and sadistic, and most of all, shouldn't wield great power.

Really? If so, man, I don't get Byrne... He may prefer to keep characters how they originally intended (Pretty much why his post-Crisis Supes was so much weaker without the silver age nonsense), but once in a while he has these, ideas, that are really against how it was originally intended, and if he really did that with Wanda, man lol.

[Charlie_1981]

Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart

[Steel Inquisitor]

[QUOTE=Lukmendes;5295342]Problem is that her potential post House of M is boring, first they had to get rid of her for a while 'cause even Marvel recognized that what she did was bad, was gonna piss off people, so she went to limbo for a while for people to be less pissed at her when she gets screen time again... But once she returned, now what? We have a potentially insane reality warper, and reality warping is a boring ass power, to the point that's the real reason Franklyn never has it for long, and Wanda had a legit cool power before, why choose reality warping over that?/quote]

But they didn't have to get rid of her, it's not like they got rid of Cyclops after X-men vs Avengers. She did something very bad, except she's not Betsy Braddocks criminally insane reality warper old brother that happened under seven circumstances and she wasn't a danger to anyone outside of that. It's also a problem with women gaining cosmic power in Marvel, it continues the bad stereotype that women can't handle that power without going crazy and in this instance the power was just one piece of that puzzle - nobody's throwing Quicksilver and Magneto into the Raft for life because they made Wanda mentally break when she had the Life Force. They don't get mentioned at all. The problem is also that this was done to her twice by the same writer within a few months.

They could have had her go back to normal because other super-hero have come back from doing horrible things without her circumstances squeaky clean. All Stark had to do was give himself amnesia and everyone forgave him.

The rails warping was also from the Life Force, that's not her sole power base. That's on the writers refusing to complete her redemption simply because she was used as a plot device in two events, rather than a person. Bendis also fudged her powers so someone needs to clean it up. Again.

Let's say I didn't know Wanda at all, and I watch that review, see what the guy says, and decide to check Disassembled/House of M, the conclusion I could come up with is "Woah, this is barely even a character, it's a plot device for a stupid plot, if she's this bad now, how bad was she before Bendis?".

Either that or question the guy's opinion for thinking that is supposed to be an interesting character lol.

Is it true that there were writers at marvel who came to this conclusion after Bendis' run?

Really sucks to be Wanda man lol.

She really needs her own protector at Marvel. Id like Busiek to get another run at Avengers for this.

She was possessed by a demon in that story though, and even got rid of it once she had the chance and tried to make sure it'd never return... If anything the story shows that between good and evil, she chooses good without even considering evil.

Exactly!

I guess Bendis is to her what DiDio is/was to Dick Grayson .

Bendis is more forgiving of Wanda than Didio was for Nightwing. That's more something he did to Tigra, I don't know why she was great in the West Coast Avengers.

Really? If so, man, I don't get Byrne... He may prefer to keep characters how they originally intended (Pretty much why his post-Crisis Supes was so much weaker without the silver age nonsense), but once in a while he has these, ideas, that are really against how it was originally intended, and if he really did that with Wanda, man lol.

Byrne wanted his own Dark Phoenix Saga.

[Huntsman Spider]

I'd say it's more accurate to say Bendis made her more infamous, 'cause yes, she became more well known because of it, but being more known for something like that isn't a good thing when it goes against her character.



Problem is that her potential post House of M is boring, first they had to get rid of her for a while 'cause even Marvel recognized that what she did was bad, was gonna piss off people, so she went to limbo for a while for people to be less pissed at her when she gets screen time again... But once she returned, now what? We have a potentially insane reality warper, and reality warping is a boring ass power, to the point that's the real reason Franklyn never has it for long, and Wanda had a legit cool power before, why choose reality warping over that?



For sure, and the problem with that mentality is that it spreads lies, even if not on purpose.

Let's say I didn't know Wanda at all, and I watch that review, see what the guy says, and decide to check Disassembled/House of M, the conclusion I could come up with is "Woah, this is barely even a character, it's a plot device for a stupid plot, if she's this bad now, how bad was she before Bendis?".

Either that or question the guy's opinion for thinking that is supposed to be an interesting character lol.



Before MCU, "A-list by Avengers standards" didn't mean that much .



Really sucks to be Wanda man lol.



Spidey also slapped MJ once in clone saga, under similar circumstances that led to Pym slapping Janet the first time, curiously he's not reminded every 5 minutes for doing that like Pym.

Oh and he joined Jackal in Maximum Clonage, 'cause "I'M A CLONE, I HAVE NOTHING TO LIVE FOR, SO I'LL JOIN THE GUY WHO WANTS TO COMMIT OMNICIDE!"

Urgh, clone saga...



She was possessed by a demon in that story though, and even got rid of it once she had the chance and tried to make sure it'd never return... If anything the story shows that between good and evil, she chooses good without even considering evil.



I guess Bendis is to her what DiDio is/was to Dick Grayson .



Really? If so, man, I don't get Byrne... He may prefer to keep characters how they originally intended (Pretty much why his post-Crisis Supes was so much weaker without the silver age nonsense), but once in a while he has these, ideas, that are really against how it was originally intended, and if he really did that with Wanda, man lol.

Yeah, that was the absolute nadir of the Clone Saga for me, not to mention that since he had actual super-strength (unlike Pym), he knocked her across the room . . . while he was in the process of trying to kill Ben Reilly for "stealing his life," which MJ was trying to stop him from doing. At least he immediately realized what he'd done, but then going on to join the Jackal in a fit of nihilistic pique? Maybe "absolute nadir" wouldn't go far enough to describe that particular atrocity of writing and characterization. Of course, this is supposed to be about Wanda, so my piece here is that Bendis really, really dropped the ball with opening his Avengers run by having Scarlet Witch go nuts and turn on the Avengers (and later mutantkind) as a whole, and her character has been tainted with that ever since, just because he apparently didn't see very much value in that character in the first place.

[Lukmendes]

But they didn't have to get rid of her, it's not like they got rid of Cyclops after X-men vs Avengers. She did something very bad, except she's not Betsy Braddocks criminally insane reality warper old brother that happened under seven circumstances and she wasn't a danger to anyone outside of that. It's also a problem with women gaining cosmic power in Marvel, it continues the bad stereotype that women can't handle that power without going crazy and in this instance the power was just one piece of that puzzle - nobody's throwing Quicksilver and Magneto into the Raft for life because they made Wanda mentally break when she had the Life Force. They don't get mentioned at all. The problem is also that this was done to her twice by the same writer within a few months.

They could have had her go back to normal because other super-hero have come back from doing horrible things without her circumstances squeaky clean. All Stark had to do was give himself amnesia and everyone forgave him.

A character like Iron Man is slightly higher profile than her, as he has his own on-going, so kicking him out of comics was unlikely, plus, Wanda hurt X-Men as a franchise really bad, and X-fans are, emotional to put it nicely, 'cause it's been 15 years, and they're still butthurt lol.

Basically I can understand why they'd get rid of her for a while, she's not popular enough to still be around without people being pissed at her for doing something like that, plus it's possible writers themselves would rather not write her too after that bullshit lol.

So yeah, I doubt she was in limbo because of how the characters would react to her in-universe, those are always arbitrary reactions anyways... The X-Men wanted Jean to come back just fine after destroying planets as Phoenix (And I'm not even talking about retcons, in the Phoenix saga itself they wanted her to come back and move on from that, and there was even a planned ending that Claremont wanted to use before Jim Shooter said she had to die for destroying that planet), yet the entire Marvel universe treats Cyclops like he's Hitler for, killing Xavier when it's made clear that Phoenix was fucking with his mind, so he's not exactly responsible for his actions... So yeah, doubt it's for in-universe reactions she was gone, it was probably because of fans, and/or writers just not wanting to use her, specially since Marvel wanted to get rid of most of the classic Avengers for that New Avengers lineup

The rails warping was also from the Life Force, that's not her sole power base. That's on the writers refusing to complete her redemption simply because she was used as a plot device in two events, rather than a person. Bendis also fudged her powers so someone needs to clean it up. Again.

Like I said, sucks to be Wanda lol.

Is it true that there were writers at marvel who came to this conclusion after Bendis' run?

That I don't know, the situation I mentioned is about that reviewer mentioned in OP.

At the very least, it seems that some writers did try to undo some of the damage from Disassembled/House of M, but who knows if that's then caring about her, or Marvel thinking "Hey, Bendis fucked up, quiestly fix this ****".

She really needs her own protector at Marvel. Id like Busiek to get another run at Avengers for this.

Yeah, that could help to mitigate the damage, 'cause while she's not that high profile as a character, man, if I were a Wanda fan I'd be depressed with how bad they can treat her lol.

Bendis is more forgiving of Wanda than Didio was for Nightwing.

Which makes you wonder what he'd do if he wasn't that forgiving .

But yeah, Dick was gonna be fucked if he wasn't that well protected, 'cause DiDio was certainly vindictive, and even then, Dick got screwed anyways, which makes me wonder if the Rick bullshit is over lol.

That's more something he did to Tigra, I don't know why she was great in the West Coast Avengers.

Huh, wasn't aware he had it out for Tigra, wonder how bad that was... Thinking of it, I don't even remember the last time she showed up.

Byrne wanted his own Dark Phoenix Saga.

Yeah, he tried to do that at DC too, with that "Dark Angel" nonsense with Donna lol.

Yeah, that was the absolute nadir of the Clone Saga for me, not to mention that since he had actual super-strength (unlike Pym), he knocked her across the room . . . while he was in the process of trying to kill Ben Reilly for "stealing his life," which MJ was trying to stop him from doing. At least he immediately realized what he'd done, but then going on to join the Jackal in a fit of nihilistic pique? Maybe "absolute nadir" wouldn't go far enough to describe that particular atrocity of writing and characterization.

Yeah, throwing Peter's character to **** to make Ben look better... Really damn stupid lol.

Of course, this is supposed to be about Wanda, so my piece here is that Bendis really, really dropped the ball with opening his Avengers run by having Scarlet Witch go nuts and turn on the Avengers (and later mutantkind) as a whole, and her character has been tainted with that ever since, just because he apparently didn't see very much value in that character in the first place.

Yeah, Bendis is like that, he does what he wants, and is high profile enough that Marvel and DC let him do whatever, even if the **** he does is bad...

[Malachi]

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.

[Huntsman Spider]

A character like Iron Man is slightly higher profile than her, as he has his own on-going, so kicking him out of comics was unlikely, plus, Wanda hurt X-Men as a franchise really bad, and X-fans are, emotional to put it nicely, 'cause it's been 15 years, and they're still butthurt lol.

Basically I can understand why they'd get rid of her for a while, she's not popular enough to still be around without people being pissed at her for doing something like that, plus it's possible writers themselves would rather not write her too after that bullshit lol.

So yeah, I doubt she was in limbo because of how the characters would react to her in-universe, those are always arbitrary reactions anyways... The X-Men wanted Jean to come back just fine after destroying planets as Phoenix (And I'm not even talking about retcons, in the Phoenix saga itself they wanted her to come back and move on from that, and there was even a planned ending that Claremont wanted to use before Jim Shooter said she had to die for destroying that planet), yet the entire Marvel universe treats Cyclops like he's Hitler for, killing Xavier when it's made clear that Phoenix was fucking with his mind, so he's not exactly responsible for his actions... So yeah, doubt it's for in-universe reactions she was gone, it was probably because of fans, and/or writers just not wanting to use her, specially since Marvel wanted to get rid of most of the classic Avengers for that New Avengers lineup



Like I said, sucks to be Wanda lol.



That I don't know, the situation I mentioned is about that reviewer mentioned in OP.

At the very least, it seems that some writers did try to undo some of the damage from Disassembled/House of M, but who knows if that's then caring about her, or Marvel thinking "Hey, Bendis fucked up, quiestly fix this ****".



Yeah, that could help to mitigate the damage, 'cause while she's not that high profile as a character, man, if I were a Wanda fan I'd be depressed with how bad they can treat her lol.



Which makes you wonder what he'd do if he wasn't that forgiving .

But yeah, Dick was gonna be fucked if he wasn't that well protected, 'cause DiDio was certainly vindictive, and even then, Dick got screwed anyways, which makes me wonder if the Rick bullshit is over lol.



Huh, wasn't aware he had it out for Tigra, wonder how bad that was... Thinking of it, I don't even remember the last time she showed up.



Yeah, he tried to do that at DC too, with that "Dark Angel" nonsense with Donna lol.



Yeah, throwing Peter's character to **** to make Ben look better... Really damn stupid lol.



Yeah, Bendis is like that, he does what he wants, and is high profile enough that Marvel and DC let him do whatever, even if the **** he does is bad...

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

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.

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.

[MaximoffTrash]

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



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.

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

[Journey]

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

[Tofali]

since the question is about the most influential then it can be none other than Bendis.