Trial of Magneto #4 Preview

[GenericUsername]

This article from earlier this year, basically says Wanda and Vision's time has passed, and Marvel has moved on from them, and new, more nuanced (by which I think they mean less melodramatic) and more relevant characters (Wanda is perceived as pre-feminist and very conservative, thus she is viewed as out of date, while modern Marvel writers have also tended to write Vision as a generic robot with no emotions, they have all accepted Byrne's view of the character. They have tended to portray the likes of Vision, Machine Man and Death's Head as inferior stooges or background props to human characters, a complete reversal of their 1980s portrayals) have superceded them:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenr...el-comics/amp/

It's weird because the only thing that is pre-feminist and conservative is their notion of what women are relevant. I am very progressive, and Wanda always felt like she was before her time. Headstrong and ambitious. Determined not to let her awful life drag her down. She's not a punchy or science based character. But I feel like Marvel confuses what a strong female character is in feminist terms. It is a well written character, not someone who punches people. They only cater to a couple of female archetypes and throw the rest away. And if all types of women aren't included in their feminism, it's not feminist.

[Kurolegacy]

I’m still suspecting Agatha all along.

But did she kill Sparky too?

[GenericUsername]

But did she kill Sparky too?

Virginia beat her to the punch. She did sacrifice Ebony though.

[Lucyinthesky]

This article from earlier this year, basically says Wanda and Vision's time has passed, and Marvel has moved on from them, and new, more nuanced (by which I think they mean less melodramatic) and more relevant characters (Wanda is perceived as pre-feminist and very conservative, thus she is viewed as out of date, while modern Marvel writers have also tended to write Vision as a generic robot with no emotions, they have all accepted Byrne's view of the character. They have tended to portray the likes of Vision, Machine Man and Death's Head as inferior stooges or background props to human characters, a complete reversal of their 1980s portrayals) have superceded them:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenr...el-comics/amp/

Well I found something else besides her being apparently too conservative like her current story being quite nebulous still:

Throughout their histories in the comics, both Wanda and Vision have lost their initial defining pathos as characters. The retcon of Wanda’s mutant status, and her subsequent estrangement from her father and brother, has been met with antipathy from longtime readers and fans. While she has carved out a new identity for herself among Marvel’s mystical heroes in the pages of titles such as Strange Academy, little has been done to differentiate her status from the likes of Doctor Strange and Brother Voodoo.

I do think they have a point here that Wanda needs more stories focused on her to differentiate her from Dr Strange, Clea, or Dr Voodoo, just like the ones she had on her solo series and more interaction with Tommy, Billy and Pietro would not hurt either, family, retcon or no retcon, has always been an important part of her character and marvel needs to stablish a clear stance on this point imo.

Now on the conservative vs progressive type of women character, I believe is quite wrong to limit women on this way, women don´t need to be part of the military or scientists or badass antiheros to be considered interesting or full characters, part of the reason I enjoy reading about Wanda way more than Carol or even Wonder Woman is that her stories are mostly about her, she doesn´t sound like someone who´s always trying to prove herself to others and we need more of those type of women on mass media and comics as well, why should male characters be allowed to show all aspects of the human experience, the good, the bad and the ugly while women characters always have to fullful some quota to be considered for more stories? it doesn´t make sense and I honestly hope marvel has other reasons for limiting Wanda´s appareances on current comics than this one.

Now on Vision, I don´t think it´s Wanda precisely the reason he´s not gotten more stories, Tom King version of Vision was critically lauded and more can be done with him besides that, I personally think Avenger just need more titles besides the main one and the solos so long time traditional Avengers like him have the space to appear and keep developing their story.

[Omega Alpha]

With Wanda, besides the Disassembled/House of M disasters, I agree that retconning her relationship with Magneto and also distancing her from Pietro were terrible for the character. It's not a matter of "the woman can't survive without the men around" or some non-sense like that: you can remove say, Reed Richards from Sue, Ben, Valeria, etc, but he would be a lot less interesting without them and the relationships that come from the association.

[GenericUsername]

Wanda has historically been vastly different from other magic users, so that article is not accurate at all. Her very way of going about magic has been non-conventional. And it's another article that plays up her time as a mutant as if comics ever went into it much. Wanda did have a space carved out for her before and after she was even with Vision. It's people that haven't either read enough of that time or any at all that don't realize she had her own thing for quite sometime. Vision is someone that they didn't give much to in comics after he was torn apart. But they did try to give him his own thing as well. And he could continue to have his own thing as a tech consult for Avengers since his specialty was communicating with tech and knowing many languages and references due to high intelligence and knowledge of many things he's researched due to pure curiosity.

The only ones that short change either character are ones that believe they are the sum of a few other parts from select stories, and lack the imagination to make them much more than that.

If Marvel can't do either character past retconning them or rehashing their worst moments, that's a problem with Marvel and their lack of imagination. Not a short-coming of the characters themselves. People in real life don't become their tragedies. They do other things besides that. Marvel has a hard time approaching characters as characters anymore. All their stories are plot driven. So their issue is figuring characters into some long term plan.

They also often keep Clea from comics anyway, so it's not how similar or different Wanda is. It's just these characters are ones they don't invest a lot in.

[GenericUsername]

With Wanda, besides the Disassembled/House of M disasters, I agree that retconning her relationship with Magneto and also distancing her from Pietro were terrible for the character. It's not a matter of "the woman can't survive without the men around" or some non-sense like that: you can remove say, Reed Richards from Sue, Ben, Valeria, etc, but he would be a lot less interesting without them and the relationships that come from the association.

Wanda didn't have a close association with mutants and she and her brother had not been close since he left to go be with Crystal in the 70s, so it's not that.

[Relugus]

With Wanda, besides the Disassembled/House of M disasters, I agree that retconning her relationship with Magneto and also distancing her from Pietro were terrible for the character. It's not a matter of "the woman can't survive without the men around" or some non-sense like that: you can remove say, Reed Richards from Sue, Ben, Valeria, etc, but he would be a lot less interesting without them and the relationships that come from the association.

Sue doesn't add anything to Reed, though. Reed is an Alpha male wish fulfillment fantasy, a genius who is, we are constantly told, above everyone else.

[BroHomo]

It's funny to know that Old Lady Wanda is as ugly on the outside as she is on the inside.

Soo much Truth in this one post!

Sue doesn't add anything to Reed, though. Reed is an Alpha male wish fulfillment fantasy, a genius who is, we are constantly told, above everyone else.

Yeeeeah having a "smokin hot" hot superhero wife is a big part of that

[Rift]

Nah. His family, especially Sue and the kids, add a lot of humanity to Reed. It's come up a few times, but they keep him from going off the deep end with his work. His relationship with Sue is complex because with it, you can see both his selfish elements (ignoring her, or being jealous of others, keeping secrets) and his heart. (He'll ultimately always choose her over his work, moments where he makes time just for her, the two being able to confide in each other and speak as equals, him being humbled when he's inadvertently cruel.)

They definitely need to explore the dynamics more, though. The kids are older now and that sort of thing affects all dynamics in a family.

[Witchfan]

This article from earlier this year, basically says Wanda and Vision's time has passed, and Marvel has moved on from them, and new, more nuanced (by which I think they mean less melodramatic) and more relevant characters (Wanda is perceived as pre-feminist and very conservative, thus she is viewed as out of date, while modern Marvel writers have also tended to write Vision as a generic robot with no emotions, they have all accepted Byrne's view of the character. They have tended to portray the likes of Vision, Machine Man and Death's Head as inferior stooges or background props to human characters, a complete reversal of their 1980s portrayals) have superceded them:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/screenr...el-comics/amp/

Wanda is not a has been, she is the moment in 2021. 23 Emmy nominations for her show and still the writers don't want to use her. The writers are out of touch.

[Gnostic]

This has probably been asked before but why can Jean be forgiven for genocide but not Wanda? What Jean did was arguably worse.

[Kingdom X]

This has probably been asked before but why can Jean be forgotten for genocide but not Wanda? What Jean did was arguably worse.

This has come up before. Let’s please not let the fandom wars start.

The TLDR is that Phoenix in the DPS technically wasn’t Jean based on the retcon (but she has those memories and still feels guilt over it) AND the audience doesn’t have the same connection to the race she killed versus the mutants that Wanda affected.

There’s also the fact that Decimation put X-Men comics in a dark place for a good while. Moral of the story: editors shouldn’t ruin characters just because they want to change the status quo.

[Gnostic]

This has come up before. Let’s please not let the fandom wars start.

The TLDR is that Phoenix in the DPS technically wasn’t Jean based on the retcon (but she has those memories and still feels guilt over it) AND the audience doesn’t have the same connection to the race she killed versus the mutants that Wanda affected.

There’s also the fact that Decimation put X-Men comics in a dark place for a good while. Moral of the story: editors shouldn’t ruin characters just because they want to change the status quo.

Haven’t the X-Books been ignoring that retcon though?

[Starchilde]

This has probably been asked before but why can Jean be forgotten for genocide but not Wanda? What Jean did was arguably worse.

It was worse. But the difference is not the magnitude of the situation, it’s the perspective of the mutants/humans about both of those things. The annihilation of the D’bari was done to aliens, so Earthling people (like the mutants and the humans) don’t feel much connected to the incident, meanwhile Wanda’s spell affected earthling people (mutants) so they do have strong opinions on that. It’s a bit hypocritical? Maybe yes, but not unexpected. People in general tend to be more concerned with situations that happened to them, and not so much with what happened to others. On the other hand, the Shi’ar used to be very harsh on the Phoenix situation, even when Jean was dead, even with the teenage time-displaced Jean. The affected part (Shi’ar) weren’t very forgiving for a good chunk of time. I don’t think the alien races have much hate for Wanda for example.