Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch Appreciation Thread

[CJStriker]

This has likely been mentioned on before. We all know that the original plan for Doctor Strange 2 was to give Wanda a corruption are. Apparently Michael Waldron said in another interview that Wanda would have later been a villain for an Avenger movie. So Avengers 5 would have been Wanda centric.

What do you guy think of the original idea?

I honestly feel We Dodge a Much Worst Bullet with this reveal.

Yea it would have been more slowly, you could have had more understanding on why Wanda went Bad, while maybe being a better story. But I doubt it would have not had its story problems and plot holes we still be upset about so it would not have been more perfected of a story with this writing team.

Mostly however, it would have been FAR Worst for Wanda's Bad Arc, it would have lasted WAY Longer for sadly story wise understanding reasons, multiple movies and would have led to Wanda being a Bad-Girl for most of Phase 4-5 even, it would have been an era of Bad Wanda in which she could have done far worst things and hurt characters we honestly cared for, it would have hurt much more for far longer in ways that feel much worst.

As controversial as MoM is, the good things are it is that it is by what I have learned kind of silly and campy its more darker parts have been even played for comedy at times or meme culture. It is not as taken as serious of a Bad-Girl Wanda Turn cause of all the off screen, not following WandaVision, plot holes by the truckloads, not offering what MoM set out to be, Campy story elements, not well put together of a story, so on.

What MoM did most importantly most of all that is WAY Better then the Alternative is that is BURNT-OUT the Bad-Girl Wanda Story-Plot we have all been so worried would come to pass. It burned so hard, so Campy, and so over the top while having a 3-Act-Structure to it, it truly has played itself out now.

They really can’t go back to it for her, doing so would be obviously repetitive and even would anger fans that liked MoM and would put Marvel Studios in even more of the Controversies house by been seen as not learning their lessons of how to respectfully use Female Leads with Power and be called for permit Sexist and Misogynistic. It would just be the embarrassment of all embarrassments to try to continue the Bad Girl Wanda Stick.

So This gives our Wanda a chance, now she is still Red-Hot and is still mostly loved by the majority of fans, given support to see her comeback, fix what went wrong and have Solo projects of her going forward, the desire for her to have this seeming to outweigh any other characters in the MCU right now.

So yea while MoM is not by far what we Wanted, it has taken away likely finally the Bad-Girl Wanda angle for good and saved us in a morbid way from a far worst scenario with the original plan.

[WallStreeter]

I agree that it’s a good that MoM basically did Avengers Disassembled. WandaVision did a House of M and Darker than Scarlet in a way.

So make they cab move forward with redemption and hero storylines.

[Daedra]

This has likely been mentioned on before. We all know that the original plan for Doctor Strange 2 was to give Wanda a corruption are. Apparently Michael Waldron said in another interview that Wanda would have later been a villain for an Avenger movie. So Avengers 5 would have been Wanda centric.

What do you guy think of the original idea?

When I read stuff like this I have to wonder what the hell is wrong with these writers, it’s like it can’t be helped, they have to go for the lamest trope/low hanging narrative fruit no matter how many movies and characters get ruined and teated as cannon fodder, we had 2, I repeat 2 horrible dark phoenix movies and they have learned nothing.

[CJStriker]

I absolutely LOVED that one panel Dauterman did of her with just her head and shoulders and hair. Avatar worthy-ness!!! and we are not worthy.

Devaishwarya, This is All Because of YOU, Thank You!!

[Gnostic]

When I read stuff like this I have to wonder what the hell is wrong with these writers, it’s like it can’t be helped, they have to go for the lamest trope/low hanging narrative fruit no matter how many movies and characters get ruined and teated as cannon fodder, we had 2, I repeat 2 horrible dark phoenix movies and they have learned nothing.

We only had one Dark Phoenix movie and Jean wasn't even a villain in it. She didn't murder anybody in it unlike Wanda in MoM. The worst she did was commit involuntary manslaughter (accidently killing Mystique during a PTSD episode). So that comparison doesn't work at all.

DP Jean was a hero struggling with mental illness while MoM Wanda was a homicidal villain. They aren't comparable.

X-Men: The Last Stand is not really a Dark Phoenix movie since Jean was not central to the story. She was a side villain like Deadpool was in Origins.

[Daedra]

We had 2 dark phoenix movies and they both featured a female with power going mad for very nebulous and unclear reasons, mcu scarlet witch is just another female with power that surprise …..surprise ….. goes mad. I’m also gonna add the Game of throne finale, another female with power going mad
So played out, so boring.

[Gnostic]

We had 2 dark phoenix movies and they both featured a female with power going mad for very nebulous and unclear reasons, mcu scarlet witch is just another female with power that surprise …..surprise ….. goes mad. I’m also gonna add the Game of throne finale, another female with power going mad
So played out, so boring.

It was explicitly explained in both versions.

In X-Men: The Last Stand, Xavier explained that Jean became homicidal due to developing dissociative identity disorder (aka multiple personality disorder). The real problem was that DID does not automatically make you homicidal. That is just an ablest myth. I will admit that MoM Wanda is comparable to X3 Jean because they both suddenly become murderous villains.

In Dark Phoenix, it was explained that Jean had childhood trauma that developed into PTSD due to Xavier suppressing it for years. It is just like how Wanda was losing her mind in WandaVision from trying to suppressing her trauma and lashing out at people.

[Jv565]

The problem I had with MOM is that it came out after Wandavision. Wandavision feels like a remptive arc,. We get to know Wanda's pain, understand it, and watch her grow to a place of acceptance. MOM trashes all of that and throws away its progress. The best I can hope for at this point is that Wanda shows up as an Eastern European amnesiac and we set up Children's Crusade.

[WallStreeter]

We had 2 dark phoenix movies and they both featured a female with power going mad for very nebulous and unclear reasons, mcu scarlet witch is just another female with power that surprise …..surprise ….. goes mad. I’m also gonna add the Game of throne finale, another female with power going mad
So played out, so boring.

I agree with you. It’s just played out, and Marvel knows it evict us why the comics no longer do those stories. With MoM they saw it was an opportunity to fully introduce dark magic and demons into the MCU.

[WallStreeter]

The problem I had with MOM is that it came out after Wandavision. Wandavision feels like a remptive arc,. We get to know Wanda's pain, understand it, and watch her grow to a place of acceptance. MOM trashes all of that and throws away its progress. The best I can hope for at this point is that Wanda shows up as an Eastern European amnesiac and we set up Children's Crusade.

Women having amnesia is another player out trope. Just have Wanda fully deal with the consequences of what she did.

[Jv565]

Women having amnesia is another player out trope. Just have Wanda fully deal with the consequences of what she did.

She killed literally dozens of people, though. Having her fully deal with the consequences of what she did would have her in jail for the rest of her life.

[gurkle]

She killed literally dozens of people, though. Having her fully deal with the consequences of what she did would have her in jail for the rest of her life.

Well, they've already got murderers walking around free (Hawkeye, U.S. Agent) but it would actually make sense for her to give herself up, go to jail (she already did, in Civil War) and get released when she's inevitably needed for something.

Anything's better than the amnesia route which means the resolution to her story depends entirely on her kids finding her, not her own agency. But then, literally anything's better than what they did in Multiverse of Madness , so I don't have high hopes.

[MythicalChicken]

Well, they've already got murderers walking around free (Hawkeye, U.S. Agent) but it would actually make sense for her to give herself up, go to jail (she already did, in Civil War) and get released when she's inevitably needed for something.

Anything's better than the amnesia route which means the resolution to her story depends entirely on her kids finding her, not her own agency. But then, literally anything's better than what they did in Multiverse of Madness , so I don't have high hopes.

Not to disrespect the thread but full disclosure: I am not a Wanda fan at all and all the repeated attempts to put Byrne-bendis behind her/us just backfire majorly for me. For all that, they did something amazing with wandavision.

All That said, I’m reading all this and it’s a lose-lose for Wanda fans, too, MCU or otherwise.

[CJStriker]

The problem I had with MOM is that it came out after Wandavision. Wandavision feels like a remptive arc,. We get to know Wanda's pain, understand it, and watch her grow to a place of acceptance. MOM trashes all of that and throws away its progress. The best I can hope for at this point is that Wanda shows up as an Eastern European amnesiac and we set up Children's Crusade.

Women having amnesia is another player out trope. Just have Wanda fully deal with the consequences of what she did.

She killed literally dozens of people, though. Having her fully deal with the consequences of what she did would have her in jail for the rest of her life.

Well, they've already got murderers walking around free (Hawkeye, U.S. Agent) but it would actually make sense for her to give herself up, go to jail (she already did, in Civil War) and get released when she's inevitably needed for something.

Anything's better than the amnesia route which means the resolution to her story depends entirely on her kids finding her, not her own agency. But then, literally anything's better than what they did in Multiverse of Madness , so I don't have high hopes.

Not to disrespect the thread but full disclosure: I am not a Wanda fan at all and all the repeated attempts to put Byrne-bendis behind her/us just backfire majorly for me. For all that, they did something amazing with wandavision.

All That said, I’m reading all this and it’s a lose-lose for Wanda fans, too, MCU or otherwise.

The 1st and most major issue is that both the lead writer Michael Waldron and director Sami Ramai have fully admitted to creating MoM with at the very least watching only alittle of WandaVision and that has gotten both of them especially Michael Waldron into allot of backlash trouble and for good reason. When you start your movie’s story on that premise and the story diverts way too much from what the source material you should have taken the start of your movie’s story from you are already at a major lost and rip to have your own movie look illegitimate with bounds of now possibilities for recons and pothole fill ins down the line with future projects.

That is where the opening to the creative side of whoever takes on Wanda’s story going forward takes over. There are much more creative ways of both Comeback and explanation stories well outside of the bad tropes of the Amnesia route or the most stereotypical jail yet uncreative jail route.

While missing some boring story in the middle, Trial of Magento and then the later the Darkhold series showed creative ways for Characters to fix the wrongs of the past, to put right with what went wrong. There are still many open doors of creative Comic Book ways to help fix the negatives of MoM and bring Wanda back into the fold. But it would be throwing creative stories, strange journeys, self-improvement and most importantly making fixes on the levels of creativity we saw by the ends of Trial of Magento and Darkhold series.

To say it looks bleak I honest can’t agree with for a moment cause the beauty of the industry we are apart of is how creative our heroes stories get outside of how we might worry or think it could happen. I did see the ending Trial of Magneto or Darkhold coming at all, it showed me when you have the right creative teams with the skills to write and direct using the creative Comic Book worlds, they should be using many things are possible.

We still have the corruption of the Darkhold and Wanda’s history with Chthon just to name so beginners as to how they can take Wanda’s comeback story in the MCU, but there are likely more creative ways too.

There is much to hope and reasoning the hope if Marvel Studios they given themselves the will and decide (& they Should, Wanda is to Popular not too) to bring Wanda back they put the right creative team on it like they had with WandaVision, many things will be possible.

[WallStreeter]

She killed literally dozens of people, though. Having her fully deal with the consequences of what she did would have her in jail for the rest of her life.

Going to jail means the government would dissect her and use her as a weapon. That’s not dealing with the consequences. She isn’t a normal human, so those rules can’t apply. She could help take down a major interdimensonal threat as a way to make amends.