"HEX Be a Lady!" Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff Appreciation 2021

[CosmiComic]

He didn't really commit. He just chose to not say yes or no. Which could mean anything. Bunn teased that he wanted to put Wanda and other women in Fearless Defenders and it never happened. I'm just not gonna expect anything. Seemed like from his interview, the focus is on how mutants have been dealing with the tragedy in regards to Wanda. So it might be about them and she's mentioned. She might appear there. Hopefully it's done better than Hickman's attempt at writing her in Empyre X-Men.

So I'll expect that it's about mutants themselves, and if they finally put the last 17 years to bed, that'll be great. But keeping expectations really low based on history.

Marvel isn't probably going to let up on anything to keep the mutant victimization going on.

[Journey]

IDK after WandaVision call me an optimist I guess but I see good things in Wanda's comic future going forward.

[GenericUsername]

IDK after WandaVision call me an optimist I guess but I see good things in Wanda's comic future going forward.

I really, really hope you are right.

[Cruelrain]

WandaVision ended like two months ago? And still very present in the locals and fans minds, in memes etc, i want to believe they're planning some things with her in the comics

WandaVision was really sucessful, i'm even surprised it was that sucessful tbh, thanksfully we have MoM next year which seems like a big event and this helps to have her around and present and Hopefully someone transfers that hype to the comics

[CosmiComic]

WandaVision ended like two months ago? And still very present in the locals and fans minds, in memes etc, i want to believe they're planning some things with her in the comics

WandaVision was really sucessful, i'm even surprised it was that sucessful tbh, thanksfully we have MoM next year which seems like a big event and this helps to have her around and present and Hopefully someone transfers that hype to the comics

Most of the Phase 4 movies appear to be big events, aside from Shang-Chi which seems smaller and more personal

[Cruelrain]

[GenericUsername]

I had to get the figure through Entertainment Earth because it's already sold out on Amazon.

[Albert1981]

Look, as you probably know that I have become extremely enamored of the idea of magic having costs in fantasy. I learned from the Strange threads I mostly frequent these days, that it was a concept introduced by Jason Aaron in the Strange books in 2015. I know folks here don't seem to like Aaron's writing, but I think it's very important for Marvel to embrace the growing movement to have magic have a price in fiction because the fantasy genre has already largely embraced it. So I think Aaron deserves credit for bringing it to attention in the comics. I honestly don't understand why comic book fans have such a beef with this simple rule. I think it's great!

I remember when Wanda brought back Simon from death in the 90s. Folks here know I HATE people being brought back from the dead in fiction. I think it's an absolute failure in storytelling. I think reviving the dead using "magic" is the ultimate feat for a magic user. But when Wanda brought Simon back, it didn't cost her jack ****! I mean, there were NO consequences for her actions. Even in comic books, I think bringing people back from the dead should be a pretty big fucking deal. In regards to Wonder Man, he actually came back stronger than before. Sure, he couldn't have kids after his revival, but he never wanted them anyways, so I don't consider that a penalty. And he just resumed his life right where he left off before he was killed. And Wanda got what she wanted and basically became a goddess by doing what she did. I have nothing against Simon, if she revived other characters in the same way, I would still be miffed. I can't believe people would accept that kind of storytelling today. Magic should have costs, rules, limitations, logic and consistency. Any arguments against those things are just bullshit as far as I'm concerned. I'm delighted that the Strange books are now addressing the costs of magic head on in recent years.

https://screenrant.com/marvel-comic-...ge-magic-lost/

https://www.cbr.com/doctor-strange-hands-magic-spell/

I'm really glad that Feige and the execs at Marvel Studios are incorporating the costs of using magic in the movies.

[gurkle]

Wanda's bringing back Simon wasn't really played as a huge magical feat. It was based on a bunch of factors including the fact that he might not have been completely dead to begin with, and he had already died and come back before as a being of pure ionic energy (which is why he couldn't have kids). The comics explain this in more detail, but basically, when his ionic form was "killed" he wasn't completely dead, and he wound up sort of in limbo between life and death until Wanda called him back. What she did was pull him back fully into the land of the living, not make a totally dead person alive out of thin air.

Her revival of Vision in the TV series is a much bigger feat, since she re-created him out of nothing but her memory of him. But the comics version just was never that powerful.

[Albert1981]

Wanda's bringing back Simon wasn't really played as a huge magical feat. It was based on a bunch of factors including the fact that he might not have been completely dead to begin with, and he had already died and come back before as a being of pure ionic energy (which is why he couldn't have kids). The comics explain this in more detail, but basically, when his ionic form was "killed" he wasn't completely dead, and he wound up sort of in limbo between life and death until Wanda called him back. What she did was pull him back fully into the land of the living, not make a totally dead person alive out of thin air.

Her revival of Vision in the TV series is a much bigger feat, since she re-created him out of nothing but her memory of him. But the comics version just was never that powerful.

Oh, I see. Thank you for making that distinction clear to me. I loved comic books as a kid, but I hated the hair-splitting on certain things. I clearly never understood what dead meant back in the day, and that's really annoying to me NOW. If I asked what Marvel editors what death "means" in their universe, their answer would basically be: "it depends on what your definition of dead is". I find that terribly unsatisfying. Marvel's stances on death and magic are very confusing to me. Isn't it against some sort of cosmic and/or magical rule to create "something out of nothing"? I've asked this on numerous occasions, and I've been told it can't be done in the comic books. But Wanda literally created three beings out of "nothing" in WandaVision. That's why I'm hoping against hope that the MoM gets more into the rules of magic in the MCU. I assume Strange 2 will be a horror/fantasy type film, but if the magic doesn't make "sense" in it, there's a good chance it could actually suck. I think people on this thread are seriously underestimating how the failure to implement a logical and effective magical "system" could ruin the Strange sequel. I've seen it happen before, and I don't want it to happen in this movie.

[gurkle]

I can't say I really care about the rules of magic, I have to say. Maybe in a more serious kind of story, but there's a reason why "WandaVision" was a sitcom in the tradition of "Bewitched," because the magic isn't much more serious than that. Magic is just something that gives you what you wish for, and the "cost" of it is that it doesn't always give you exactly what you thought you wanted, or it can backfire.

Wanda wished that she could have Vision back and live with him in Westview, and she got her wish, but it backfired. I don't think it really matters whether this violates rules of magic or has a cosmic cost -- she's already paid the cost, because her wish hurt other people and left her worse off than when she began. It's not so much important that there should be rules for magic as that characters shouldn't get everything they want without any cost. But that's a rule of storytelling, not a rule of magic. The rule is that whatever a magic user wants, there will be consequences.

[Ravin' Ray]

This is where we can compare how magic in RPGs like D&D is treated, where a tier of spell levels and spellcasting is well established and the game mechanics are laid out. Short of casting the highest-level non-epic wish and miracle spells which can do Deux ex Machina effects (and even those come with a cost in say XP points), magic has well-defined limits.

[Albert1981]

I can't say I really care about the rules of magic, I have to say. Maybe in a more serious kind of story, but there's a reason why "WandaVision" was a sitcom in the tradition of "Bewitched," because the magic isn't much more serious than that. Magic is just something that gives you what you wish for, and the "cost" of it is that it doesn't always give you exactly what you thought you wanted, or it can backfire.

Wanda wished that she could have Vision back and live with him in Westview, and she got her wish, but it backfired. I don't think it really matters whether this violates rules of magic or has a cosmic cost -- she's already paid the cost, because her wish hurt other people and left her worse off than when she began. It's not so much important that there should be rules for magic as that characters shouldn't get everything they want without any cost. But that's a rule of storytelling, not a rule of magic. The rule is that whatever a magic user wants, there will be consequences.

Yeah, I would personally like more detailed rules to be spelled out to make sure writers don't get lazy. But that's just me. I agree that the most important "rule" of magic in fantasy stories is that the use of it has a cost. And Wanda paid it, that's for sure. I get that. But if she gets her children back in her very next movie, wouldn't that cost sort of be nullified? Vision "dying" in order for Wanda to remove her Hex is a big sacrifice. I just think it would be weird for her to get a happy reunion with her kids, but at the same time NOT address what happened in Westview, you know? And there's a lot of talk about Wanda "destroying" the world. Is she gonna gain a whole host of new powers to make this "happen"? Will it be consistent with the powers she has shown before? And I've asked this question many times on Wanda's threads: How the hell did she "create" her children? I think this stuff will have to be dealt with in the MoM.

[Albert1981]

This is where we can compare how magic in RPGs like D&D is treated, where a tier of spell levels and spellcasting is well established and the game mechanics are laid out. Short of casting the highest-level non-epic wish and miracle spells which can do Deux ex Machina effects (and even those come with a cost in say XP points), magic has well-defined limits.

That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about. RPGs have really "hard" magic systems, where limitations and rules are CLEARLY spelled out. The MCU so far has adopted a more "soft" approach, and are somewhat vague and ambiguous about the limitations and rules in their universe. It makes sense Disney has done this because audiences just won't have any patience for massive magical "info dumps" in their movies. That being said, I think hard magic is more appropriate if the writers are trying to solve conflicts and plots with magic. But "soft" magic systems make more sense to use when magic is more rare or you aren't intended to know how it works perfectly because even the users don't understand it well because their understanding of it is more primitive.

Now I don't know how often Strange and Wanda will be using their magic in Strange 2. And how well they will understand it. That's actually one of the things I'm most looking forward to finding out when the MoM comes out.

[GenericUsername]

Look, as you probably know that I have become extremely enamored of the idea of magic having costs in fantasy. I learned from the Strange threads I mostly frequent these days, that it was a concept introduced by Jason Aaron in the Strange books in 2015. I know folks here don't seem to like Aaron's writing, but I think it's very important for Marvel to embrace the growing movement to have magic have a price in fiction because the fantasy genre has already largely embraced it. So I think Aaron deserves credit for bringing it to attention in the comics. I honestly don't understand why comic book fans have such a beef with this simple rule. I think it's great!

I remember when Wanda brought back Simon from death in the 90s. Folks here know I HATE people being brought back from the dead in fiction. I think it's an absolute failure in storytelling. I think reviving the dead using "magic" is the ultimate feat for a magic user. But when Wanda brought Simon back, it didn't cost her jack ****! I mean, there were NO consequences for her actions. Even in comic books, I think bringing people back from the dead should be a pretty big fucking deal. In regards to Wonder Man, he actually came back stronger than before. Sure, he couldn't have kids after his revival, but he never wanted them anyways, so I don't consider that a penalty. And he just resumed his life right where he left off before he was killed. And Wanda got what she wanted and basically became a goddess by doing what she did. I have nothing against Simon, if she revived other characters in the same way, I would still be miffed. I can't believe people would accept that kind of storytelling today. Magic should have costs, rules, limitations, logic and consistency. Any arguments against those things are just bullshit as far as I'm concerned. I'm delighted that the Strange books are now addressing the costs of magic head on in recent years.

https://screenrant.com/marvel-comic-...ge-magic-lost/

https://www.cbr.com/doctor-strange-hands-magic-spell/

I'm really glad that Feige and the execs at Marvel Studios are incorporating the costs of using magic in the movies.

Aaron's writing can be good or bad or just meh depending on the run. I think he's a good writer overall, but maybe there are some other factors at play. Also not every run is gonna be good. It happens to every writer.