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This page covers the Marvel comicbook hero Scarlet Witch also known as Wanda Frank , Gypsy Witch , Ana Maximoff , High Priestess . If this is not the page you were looking for check here.
The Scarlet Witch is a mutant with the ability to alter probability. She is the daughter of Magneto, sister to Quicksilver and the half-sister of Polaris.
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Early Life
The Scarlet Witch is a mutant with the ability to alter probability. She is the daughter of Magneto and his late wife Magda. She has auburn hair and green eyes, she is 5 foot 10 inches and weights 129lbs. Wanda is also the fraternal twin sister of Quicksilver, she was the first born. Magda fled from Magneto(when she was pregnant with the twins;Magneto didn't know she was pregnant) after she saw him use his magnetic powers and realized he was a mutant. Magda eventually found refuge at Mt. Wundagore of Transia. The twins were born on Mt. Wundagore and due to the energy residual, allowed Wanda to use magic in addition to her mutant powers. Magda would eventually run away from Mt. Wundagore and apparently committed suicide near a frozen wasteland because she was afraid Magneto might come for their children.
Now the motherless twins would stay with a humanoid cow named Bova. However, a World War II heroine named Miss America was also giving birth to twins with her husband the Whizzer. The twins and the mother died due to radiation poisoning but Bova only told Whizzer the mother died, and Bova gives Whizzer Pietro and Wanda instead. Whizzer would run away from Wundagore with the twins but would eventually return the twins back to Mt. Wundagore. Bova would find another set of foster parents for Wanda and Pietro with Django and Marya Maximoff, who had just lost two children of their own.
Django and Marya were Romans who were victims of prejudice in Transia. Django worked as a doll-maker but it was hard for him to find customers due to him being a Roma. Django would eventually have to steal food to keep his family from starving. Later, Wanda was sexually molested by a boy her age but she used her powers to keep him away and ran to safety. The villagers however, accused Wanda of seducing the boy and they attacked the entire family. They burned the family’s wagon. Marya was still inside and burned to death. They clubbed Django unconscious but Wanda and Pietro were able to escape. Wanda and Pietro now believed that they were the only ones of their families left. The two twins would grow up together taking care of themselves. Pietro was very protective of Wanda.
Scarlet Witch's magic
Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
Originally she and Quicksilver joined the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants when Magneto saved the twins. They would be the first members of the Brotherhood but neither Magneto nor the twins were aware that Magneto was their father. Toad and Mastermind would often try to seduce Wanda, but Magneto always protected her from them. However, Magneto would also always inflict pain on Wanda whenever she was thinking of leaving the Brotherhood. Magneto recruited more powerful beings to aid the Brotherhood, such as Namor, after Wanda failed her objectives during some missions. Namor would eventually quit the Brotherhood when he saw Wanda being abused by Magneto for being disloyal. After Magneto was taken away by the Stranger the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants effectively disassembled, and Wanda and Pietro joined the Avengers.
The twins went back to Europe but soon returned to America to join the Avengers. They wanted to redeem themselves for their past actions when they were with the Brotherhood. Captain America allowed them to become Avengers, and Hawkeye became Wanda’s closest friend in the team. During her stay at the Avengers, Wanda began to see the Vision romantically. Both Pietro and Hawkeye were very vocal in their disagreement with the relationship. Pietro felt dating an android was beneath Wanda, and Hawkeye disagreed because he had feelings for her. Eventually Hawkeye would get over his jealousy and gave Wanda and Vision his blessing. Pietro, on the other hand, denounced his sister’s love. Later, during an argument with Hawkeye, a telepath named Moondragon erased Pietro’s hate against Vision. Also during her stay with the Avengers, Wanda was tutored by a true witch named Agatha Harkness. Harkness helped her understand and employ her powers more efficiently. She disciplined Wanda’s magical ability and taught her to control her mutant hex power. Wanda married Vision. She then began to believe that the Whizzer was her biological father. Wanda eventually learned that Magneto was her real father and this made her even angrier at Magneto because of what happened between them during her time in the Brotherhood. Later, after Agatha Harkness died, Wanda would be infused with magic powers that made her pregnant with twins she named Thomas and William. Wanda and Vision decided to retire as Avengers to raise their children.
The dysfunctional couple
West Coast Avengers
Vision and Wanda eventually came out of retirement and joined a depleted West Coast Avengers. Vision was kidnapped by other countries that were still angered with his attempt to take over the world years earlier. Vision's memories were eventually wiped, leaving him completely robotic and logic driven, and having no emotional attachment to anything, much less Wanda. Wanda decided to seek a person who could restore Vision's memories and personality. She sought Wonder Man, Vision’s partial brother. Vision's memories were created from Wonder Man's. This caused a problem because of Wonder Man's jealousy of Vision and Wanda. He wanted her to marry him instead. Wonder Man was counseled by Wasp (who could not have children of her own and questioned Wanda’s children) and she convinced him to not allow anyone to use his memories to restore Vision’s. Wanda’s children began to fade in and out of existence. It would be eventually revealed that Agatha was still alive and she had used energies containing parts of Mephisto’s soul and turned them into Wanda’s children to hide them. One of Mephisto’s minions would kidnap Wanda’s children and reabsorbed them back into Mephisto. The Avengers went in to try and save them but failed, Agatha erased Wanda’s memories of her twins and helped the Avengers escape out of Mephisto’s realm.
Heroes vs Onslaught
Everyone’s life went on as Vision still had no memories and would show little concern of Wanda in the battlefield. Vision eventually decided to leave the West Coast team to join the East Coast one. Wanda begged Vision to stay by her side, but he told her that the East Coast needed him more then she did. This lead to Wanda having a nervous breakdown and helping found the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, along with Magneto (who had returned a while ago) and her brother. Quicksilver quickly revealed that he only joined Magneto to take back his fragile sister. The West Coast Avengers tried to save Wanda but she was kidnapped by Immortus. Immortus reveals he had manipulated Wanda’s relationship with Vision to easily destroy Vision, and this process made Wanda emotionally fragile. During the process Wanda’s mutant power connected her to multiple parallel universes. She was then rescued by the West Coast Avengers, who she rejoined. Wanda stayed on the West Coast Avengers for a long time. Hawkeye helped her deal with the loss of her husband and twins. Wanda became the leader of the West Coast Avengers and would later become a founding member of the Force Works. Wonder Man died on the first Force Works mission. Eventually, the group disbanded and Wanda rejoined the West Coast Avengers. Around this time, Vision began to regain his past memories and emotions for Wanda, and the couple tried to reconcile. The were interrupted when they had to battle Onslaught. Eventually, they died alongside other heroes and were put in an alternate universe for some time.
Wanda was kidnapped by Morgan LeFey but was able to escape, and resurrected Wonder Man to ghost form in the process. LeFey battled Vision and wounded him badly. Vision tells Wanda not to visit him because of his current status and her fragile mind. Wanda revisited Agatha Harkness where she learns that her mutant powers were still evolving. She is able to now channel Chaos Magic which is considered very dangerous by professional magicians. Wanda also learns that she can resurrect the dead now. After she was rejected by Vision so much, decided to revive Wonder Man and pursue a relationship with him. They began having an obvious affair right in front of Vision who had his entire memories restored. However, their relationship would go nowhere after Wonder Man reveals that he does not want to get married and have children. Wanda dumped Wonder Man right after that. Soon Wanda and Vision would reconcile and try to rebuild their relationship. Wanda began using her Chaos Magic more and it started to consume her with chaos energy.
Avengers Disassembled
When the Wasp began a romantic relationship with Hawkeye, she would constantly talk to Wanda about it. One day after Wasp had a few drinks, she revealed to Wanda that she once had children that were hidden to her. This triggered something deep inside Wanda’s mind. She sought out her former teacher, Agatha Harkness to learn the truth, and murdered Agatha for the betrayal. She went on to exact her revenge on her fellow Avengers. She hit each of them unexpectedly. At this point Wanda was believed not to be in her right mind, driven mad by her immense power and the memory of the children she lost. It is highly likely that what she did to the other Avengers was unknown even to her, and their destruction was created on a subconscious level.
First the corpse of Jack Of Hearts was raised from the grave, and blew up the Avengers Mansion, killing Scott Lang. It is not fully known whether this was actually Scott Lang's body, if his mind was in the body at the time of the attack, or if it was simply a construct generated by Wanda's magics which was meant to resemble the former Avenger. Next during a U.N. meeting where Iron Man was speaking, the unmasked Tony Stark became overwhelmed with the sensation of drunkenness despite his long term sobriety. He called out the Latveria ambassador, talking about how the entire country should be wiped off the map, and threatening to kill the politician where he stood. Before Hank Pym was able to lecture Tony, Wanda's Avengers communicator signaled a code white--signaling that they were needed at the Mansion. As Stark flew off the United States Chief of Staff called him, informing him that he was being forced to resign from his position within the government.
Back at the mansion SHIELD had arrived at the scene to lend assistance and investigate. The Vision flew in on an Avengers Quinjet, crashing into the side of the building. An apologetic Vision emerged from the rubble and ejected several metal orbs which grew into Ultron robots. The Ultrons attacked the Avengers, sending She-Hulk into a blind rage. After the Ultron robots were defeated She-Hulk ripped the body of the Vision in half, destroying him. Iron Man arrived just in time to incapacitate her, but not before she had severely injured both Wasp and Lionheart.
At this point Wanda had either killed or taken several of her teammates out of action, most likely still not even realizing that she was behind the attacks. The remaining Avengers had little time to try to figure out what was happening or who was attacking them before returning to the Mansion. When they returned they found Nick Fury as well as many past members who were close enough to assemble, and a few friends of the team. Fury was trying to get the superheroes who had arrived to leave so that they didn't mess up his investigation when a group of Kree warriors (generated by Wanda's magic) flew in to attack. During the attack on the Avengers, Hawkeye sacrificed himself to bring down the Kree warship.
After the destruction of the ship the remaining Kree fled and Doctor Strange arrived to inform them that the attacks on the Avengers were magic based. He declared Wanda to be insane due to her possession of reality altering abilities that were beyond her comprehension or control. He was aghast that she had been allowed to live her life without checks and balances, saying anyone who had such a powerful control over probability would have a lose grasp on reality. He scolded the Avengers for not consulting with him about Wanda’s past. He also reveals that there is no such thing as “Chaos Magic.”
Strange led the Avengers to Wanda who had began creating a fake reality around her composed of those she cared for. The arrival of the Avengers threatened this peace, and the existence of the children that she had once again willed into being. Wanda summoned new constructs of heroes and villains to battle the group of superheroes, and created demons to battle Strange. She was no match for Strange's power, and she was immobilized by him. It was then that Magneto, hearing of his daughter's mental break, arrived to rescue her. Magneto took Wanda back to Genosha in hopes of healing her broken mind.
House of M
House of M
While in Genosha, Magneto asked Professor X to help Wanda but he refuses to do so. Instead, Xavier put Wanda in a coma. She was trying to restore her husband’s life and undo the harm she has caused. Xavier then calls a meeting with the Avengers and the X-Men, to decide whether they should allow Wanda to live or not. A horrified Pietro immediately came to Wanda, and told his sister of this. He convinced her, while she was in this fragile mental state, to distort probability to create a new reality, called House of M. In this new reality, the mutant:human ratio was reversed, and Magneto was the supreme ruler (hence, House of M). Wanda was also not a mutant in this reality and she has children.
However, Layla Miller used her powers to restore the memories of a few mutants, who created an assault force to try and re-establish the correct reality. This militia assumed it was Magneto who convinced Wanda to create House of M. They attacked the House of M with a full army and in the process, Layla was able to restore Magneto’s memories. Wanda confessed it was Pietro that convinced her to warp reality.
Infuriated, Magneto yelled at his son for using his name in this and killed Pietro. Wanda then revived Pietro, angered that Magneto placed mutants over his own children. To remedy the problem, Wanda conjured all her powers and uttered the 3 most impacting words in all of the Marvel Universe: "No more mutants". This sling-shotted reality to where it was before with only a select few remembering what happened, and 99% of the mutant population lose their powers. The events following were referred to as M-Day.
House of M Aftermath
It is later revealed, that not only does Wanda not remember House of M or have her powers, she does not have any recollection of who she was, and has created a new life for herself. She currently resides in an unknown village in Europe. Later, Hawkeye was able to track Wanda down to a city near Wundagore Mountain. Hawkeye saves Wanda from thieves but Wanda reveals that she has no memories of her past and believes that she has lived in the village her entire life. She thanks Hawkeye and calls him her hero. The two begin to get close and eventually they sleep together. Beast has also tried to get Wanda to undo the damage she caused the mutant race. But, like her encounter with Hawkeye, she did not remember anything about her past stating that she doesn't believe in magic.
Powers
The Scarlet Witch possesses the mutant power of affecting probability fields. By a combination of gestures and mental concentration, she creates a hex-sphere, a finite pocket of reality-disrupting quasi-psionic force, which upon reaching its intended target, causes disturbance in the molecular-level probability field surrounding the target. Thus, unlikely phenomena will occur. Among the many phenomena she is able to cause are: the sudden melting of gun barrels, the spontaneous combustion of any flammable object, the rapid rust or decay of various organic and inorganic materials, the poltergeist-like deflection of an object in flight, the sudden evacuation of air from a given volume, the disruption of energy transmissions and fields, and so on. These phenomena occur practically instantaneously after the completion of her hex. Her range of hex-casting is limited by her line of sight. (She cannot watch a live television broadcast and cause a hex-phenomenon to occur at its point of origin.)
Scarlet Witch's hex-casting ability still has a 20% unreliability factor, which can be overcome with strong concentration and mystic enhancment. Wanda is also a living focal point for the earth's magic. Her sorcerous training with Agatha Harkness is separate from her mutant ability of probability (science). But the mixture of the two makes her considerably more powerful than just using her probability powers. She has a special affinity for the natural elements and materials that true witches utilize in their spells: the four alchemical elements, wood, organic substances, etc. The reliability factor of her hex-casting ability is also limited by her physical condition: when well rested, in good health and mentally and emotionally alert Scarlet Witch can cast numerous hex-spheres in rapid succession and attain desirable results for almost an hour. However, certain events in House of M, have shown that her limits may have been removed altogether. And her powers actually evolved, giving her the mutant ability to alter reality on a vast scale by way of magic
In the House of M storyline, Wanda showed that she could fly, transform people and matter, fire powerful beams of magic, and disable other mutants abilities. She could also bring the dead back to life. And while it appears that Scarlet Witch may have depowered herself, an incident with Hawkeye shows that she may have in fact retained her reality altering powers. Another hint of this, is that Wanda is 1/3 the earth's High Priestess, As seen in tarot cards. Showing that there is still hope for her after all.
Alternate Universes
Age of Apocalypse (Earth-295)
In the alternate reality called Age of Apocalypse, Wanda's life was short lived. She grew up with her father, Magneto, and her brother, Quicksilver, at Wundagore Mountain, the location for Magneto's training school. The two Lehnsherr siblings were taken care of by Bova, a humanoid cow, when their father was otherwise busy. When Magneto and his X-Men left to stop Apocalypse's first attack on his way to domination, Scarlet Witch and Rogue were left behind to watch the other, younger, students. Unfortunately, Apocalypse had planned for this and sent his son, Nemesis, to attack the remaining students. In the battle, Wanda was killed, but with her dying breaths, made Rogue promise to watch over her father.
Wanda had the same hex-casting powers as in the regular Marvel 616 universe.
Ultimate Universe (Earth-1610)
In the Ultimate universe Wanda Lensherr Maximoff is the daughter of Magneto and the twin of Quicksilver. Both she and Quicksilver were in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but when her father apparently died at the hands of Xavier, the twins took over the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. They decided to embrace Xaiver’s ideals instead of their father’s idea of mutant supremacy. They assisted the X-Men in rescuing many mutants from the Weapon X
Ultimate Wanda
program. Wanda and Pietro would eventually join the Ultimates in exchange for release of any brotherhood mutants in prison. However, Fury kept them out of public’s eyes due to their terrorist past. Wanda would constantly plead to Betty Ross to convince Fury to let them be on the public team, but Betty would always refuse. Eventually Magneto would return and took back his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Wanda and Pietro try to run away from their father to the Triskelion base. However, their father caught them and he proceeded to injuring Quicksilver badly, while leaving Wanda unharmed to watch her brother’s suffering. Right afterwards, the twins were promoted to public status and on the main Ultimates team. During Ultimates 2 Hank Pym had taken two robots to the Triskelion base Wanda flirted with the one named vision and later arranged a date to go to a museum with him. After the Ultimates were no longer part of SHIELD while walking with his brother Wanda was shot with a bullet made specially to kill her. It was later revealed that the bullet was designed by Stark Enterprises.
Wanda’s powers in the Ultimate universe shows that she needs to know math in order to use her powers effectively. She calculates mathematical probability in order to choose the one that will give her the advantage. Wanda also appears to be stronger then her 616 counterpart and has received training during her time with the Brotherhood. Wanda ca also fly, change objects, and create force fields. She also has her luck power but requires concentration and the use of her hands.
Marvel 1602 (Earth-311)
In the 1602 reality Wanda a nun and is known as Sister Wanda and is serving the Grand Inquisitor, Enrique, (this universe's version Magneto). She doesn't know that he is her father.
Earth-398
Wanda of Earth-398 was known as Gypsy Witch and was a member of the Queen's Vengeance.
Exiles (Earth-2182)
In this reality Scarlet Witch and Nightcrawler fell in love had a daughter - Nocturne.
Earth-12
On Earth-12 Scarlet Witch was a member of the Brotherhood along with Quicksilver, Toad, Blob, and Mimic.
Evolution
In X-men Evolution, Scarlet Witch was put in an asylum by her father. She had anger against Magneto until he had Mastermind brainwash her. Her powers in the series were more like matter animation-- everything around her victim moves and attacks them.
Heroes Reborn
Scarlet Witch was one of the Avengers on this earth, which is not an alternate reality, but a parallell earth located in Earth-616. Here she was raised by Agatha Harkness. Enchantress mistook her for her mother.
Marvel Zombies (Earth-2149)
In the crossover between Marvel Zombies and the Army of Darkness, She helped Ash get the Necronomicon. She was later killed by the Punisher in the siege of Doctor Doom's castle.
MC2 (Earth-982)
She is in a coma beneath the Avengers Mansion her powers holding a gate to another world. She was awaken from her coma by the mad god, Loki, to become his puppet, and to take his vengeance to the heroes that have defeated him in the past.
Larval Universe (Earth-8311)
In Spider-Ham's reality, Scarlet Witch is a anthropomorphic dog named the Scarlet Pooch and is a member of the Scavengers (this reality's version of the Avengers)
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