Should Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch stand trial for House of M ?

[Steel Inquisitor]

a lot of your defense of wanda reads as " oh that happened but pretty please ignore it because I dont like it" wich I can't agree with, she did what she did and still needs payback

The defense is that there's more going on then she's evil. Acknowledging that she's a super-hero who is a normal person who happens to get in over her head with powers corrupting her, like this hasn't happened to any X-men, isn't telling anyone to ignore what she did. You may as well just write Jean off forever if you started during the Dark Pheonix saga. This is the actual reason why Jean to died in the Dark Phoenix storyline.


http://jimshooter.com/2011/06/origin...nix-saga.html/

I told Chris that the ending proposed in his plot didn’t work. It wasn’t workable with the characters, and in fact was a totally lame cop-out, storywise. I demanded a different ending. Chris–enraged–asked me just what that might be. I suggested that Phoenix be sent to some super-security interstellar prison as punishment for her crimes. Chris said that the X-Men would never stop trying to rescue (?!) her and that the story would become a loop. I said that then he should come up with an ending.

I wasn’t privy to Chris and John’s conversations that night, but whatever.

The next morning, Chris stormed into my office and said that there was only one answer–they’d have to kill Phoenix. I said fine.

I don’t think he expected me to say that, since killing characters just wasn’t done in those days. Chris waffled a bit, but then I became insistent! She’s dying. That’s it.

At a trial I'd love to see this bought up when Cyclops is on the stand. He's such a hypocrite when it comes to Wanda and so is Rogue.



If you want to condemn super-heroes for being evil when they get corrupted or turning to the dark side we'll have to create an entire thread over the X-men since that's a long list. But the problem isn't that, it's that those characters you like and Wanda's an "outsider" to the X-men and worse, an Avenger.

I'm curious what your response would be reading Onslaught where all the main super-hero teams are friends.

[Ferro]

nah she's evil and will probably do it again.

[gurkle]

a lot of your defense of wanda reads as " oh that happened but pretty please ignore it because I dont like it"

Well, yeah. You and I both agree that what she did at the end of House of M, curse an entire race of people as petty revenge on her daddy, is unforgivable and means she can never be a hero again.

The only thing we differ on is that you didn't find the character interesting before House of M, so you would like that to define her going forward. I am a fan of the character, so I go: House of M is wrong, a writer's mistake, no different than artists drawing characters using powers they don't have.

It all comes down to if you care more about the character pre-HoM or after. For you it's the most interesting thing she ever did and you would like the story to count. I prefer the character to be a hero, therefore, doing something so incredibly evil doesn't count, or Doom did it as some kind of convoluted master plan, or whatever. My favorite character is more important to me than making every story "count" (plus no one actually thinks every story counts equally; we mostly want to count the ones we find interesting).

[Ferro]

Well, yeah. You and I both agree that what she did at the end of House of M, curse an entire race of people as petty revenge on her daddy, is unforgivable and means she can never be a hero again.

The only thing we differ on is that you didn't find the character interesting before House of M, so you would like that to define her going forward. I am a fan of the character, so I go: House of M is wrong, a writer's mistake, no different than artists drawing characters using powers they don't have.

It all comes down to if you care more about the character pre-HoM or after. For you it's the most interesting thing she ever did and you would like the story to count. I prefer the character to be a hero, therefore, doing something so incredibly evil doesn't count, or Doom did it as some kind of convoluted master plan, or whatever. My favorite character is more important to me than making every story "count" (plus no one actually thinks every story counts equally; we mostly want to count the ones we find interesting).

kay it still affected almost 10 years of stories in the x-men universe, its too big of an event to brush off

[gurkle]

kay it still affected almost 10 years of stories in the x-men universe, its too big of an event to brush off

Not really, all those stories still happened the same way if Doom did it. The storyline is too big to brush off, but saying they weren't Wanda's fault doesn't really affect them at all, because she wasn't in the stories, she was just the McGuffin to make the stories happen.

[BroHomo]

Not really, all those stories still happened the same way if Doom did it. The storyline is too big to brush off, but saying they weren't Wanda's fault doesn't really affect them at all, because she wasn't in the stories, she was just the McGuffin to make the stories happen.

It's once again just letting her off.... having a character use the wrong powerset is one thing buuut Ignoring SWs involvement in MDay is a choice but it's like ignoring the latest Secret wars or Spider-Man OMD

[gurkle]

It's once again just letting her off.... having a character use the wrong powerset is one thing buuut Ignoring SWs involvement in MDay is a choice but it's like ignoring the latest Secret wars or Spider-Man OMD

People ignore those stories all the time, though. Most writers understandably don't write Spider-Man as the kind of guy who would sell his marriage to the devil. It happened, but they choose to write his characterization as if it didn't.

[Veitha]

Her role in M'Day has been a big part of stories for years though, up to today's The Pretender moniker. It's not like it was a one-of, out-of-character story that was later forgotten. It was as crucial to her character as her previous history.

[gurkle]

Her role in M'Day has been a big part of stories for years though, up to today's The Pretender moniker. It's not like it was a one-of, out-of-character story that was later forgotten. It was as crucial to her character as her previous history.

But that's where the pro-Wanda and anti-Wanda camp will never agree. To Wanda fans, it was a one-off (well, two-off, with Avengers Disassembled) story where she barely appeared, did something that would forever disqualify her from being a hero, and vanished from the comics for years. Of course we don't accept this as a major part of what makes her who she is; she was barely even in the actual House of M story, and never appeared again as "herself" until Children's Crusade.

Looking at the X-Men comics that followed Decimation, though, while she didn't appear in those comics, she was constantly talked about as the person who caused all that pain and suffering. Naturally people who read those stories want to see her get some payback for what she did.

But I don't think Wanda fans will ever accept it. For us it's just a badly-written few pages that contradict everything she was before 2004 and even most of what she's been after Children's Crusade (a few mean speeches in Uncanny Avengers aside). We'd accept it if it were like Jean/Phoenix, where Claremont went out of his way to show that Jean was still a hero despite what the Phoenix did. Bendis, and then the Decimation X-Men stories, made it impossible for Wanda to ever be a hero again if she actually did this... so she didn't.

[Bunch of Coconuts]

People constantly ignore that she was possessed, anyway.

[Ferro]

But that's where the pro-Wanda and anti-Wanda camp will never agree. To Wanda fans, it was a one-off (well, two-off, with Avengers Disassembled) story where she barely appeared, did something that would forever disqualify her from being a hero, and vanished from the comics for years. Of course we don't accept this as a major part of what makes her who she is; she was barely even in the actual House of M story, and never appeared again as "herself" until Children's Crusade.

Looking at the X-Men comics that followed Decimation, though, while she didn't appear in those comics, she was constantly talked about as the person who caused all that pain and suffering. Naturally people who read those stories want to see her get some payback for what she did.

But I don't think Wanda fans will ever accept it. For us it's just a badly-written few pages that contradict everything she was before 2004 and even most of what she's been after Children's Crusade (a few mean speeches in Uncanny Avengers aside). We'd accept it if it were like Jean/Phoenix, where Claremont went out of his way to show that Jean was still a hero despite what the Phoenix did. Bendis, and then the Decimation X-Men stories, made it impossible for Wanda to ever be a hero again if she actually did this... so she didn't.

wanda stans are like 1 to 10 x-men fans, in other words wanda isnt relevant enough to be protected from a story she caused, in this situation telling a satisfying x-men story is more important than "protecting" a terrible mediocre character a handfull of people enjoy, but unfortunatly she came back when the offices were not favoring the x-men, so the room for proper justice is closing but im hoping in the future of the current status quo, we will finally get a proper destruction of the pretender

[gurkle]

People constantly ignore that she was possessed, anyway.

Well, I can't really blame them. It wasn't until very late in Children's Crusade that someone said she was possessed and the possession was chalked up to a magical force that has never been mentioned before or since (the "Life Force" whatever that is).

Disassembled and House of M were very clear that this was not possession, this was not Wanda being made to do something, this was Wanda, the consequences of her own out-of-control powers driving her mad. And then the years of X-Men comics that followed the Decimation never suggested that this was anything except Wanda's own personal intention. And there are a lot more of those stories compared to one or two pages of "oh, she was possessed and we won't explain how or by what."

wanda stans are like 1 to 10 x-men fans,

True, but popularity ≠ quality. Wanda stans have stuck with their character through years that make the Inhumans-push years look like a breeze by comparison (I mean, those years were terrible but at least the X-Men were in comics). Our loyalty makes up for our small numbers.

in other words wanda isnt relevant enough to be protected from a story she caused, in this situation telling a satisfying x-men story is more important than "protecting" a terrible mediocre character a handfull of people enjoy, but unfortunatly she came back when the offices were not favoring the x-men, so the room for proper justice is closing but im hoping in the future of the current status quo, we will finally get a proper destruction of the pretender

Well, we can all hope for things that won't happen. I'll hope for her to get back on the main Avengers lineup where she belongs, you'll hope for her to be punished for what Doom did, and ironically, being on the Avengers again would be punishment enough, so neither of us will get what we want.

[Bunch of Coconuts]

Well, I can't really blame them. It wasn't until very late Children's Crusade that someone said she was possessed and the possession was chalked up to a magical force that has never been mentioned before or since (the "Life Force" whatever that is).

Disassembled and House of M were very clear that this was not possession, this was not Wanda being made to do something, this was Wanda, the consequences of her own out-of-control powers driving her mad. And then the years of X-Men comics that followed the Decimation never suggested that this was anything except Wanda's own personal intention. And there are a lot more of those stories compared to one or two pages of "oh, she was possessed and we won't explain how or by what."

Yeah. It’s just funny that people argue with “facts on their side”, and wind up ignoring the facts that don’t gel with their narrative.

[Veitha]

We've been talking about the possession and comparing it to the P5 for pages

[Bunch of Coconuts]

We've been talking about the possession and comparing it to the P5 for pages

Cool, so you agree that Wanda didn’t intend for M-Day to happen, and it was the Life Force controlling her.

Awesome. Sounds like something someone deserves to die, or otherwise be punished, over.