Can Marvel Ever Fix Scarlet Witchs Mutant Genocide

Can Marvel Ever Fix Scarlet Witch’s Mutant Genocide?

The X-Men’s Trial of Magneto is the latest attempt to redeem Scarlet Witch after Avengers Disassembled and House of M – can she ever be redeemed?

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Can Marvel Ever Fix Scarlet Witchs Mutant Genocide

Marvel’s latest X-Men event, The Trial of Magneto, is just the latest in a long line of comic book stories essentially attempting to redeem Scarlet Witch after her mutant genocide – is it possible to do so, or will she forever be tarnished by her past? Scarlet Witch and her brother Quicksilver started out as villains, members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. It didn’t take them long to switch sides, though, and the twins soon joined the Avengers.

Wanda Maximoff may have decided to fight on the side of the angels, but she became increasingly unstable as her powers expanded. All that came to a head when comic book writer Brian Bendis took over the Avengers franchise in 2004, and he chose to make her a central part of his “Avengers Disassembled” arc. “As a fan, I would read those Scarlet Witch stories and her powers seemed crazy,” Bendis recalled in an interview with CBR. “It felt like she could easily get unhinged. Plus, she’s Magneto’s daughter. That certainly seems like a recipe for craziness.” So Scarlet Witch became the villain of “Avengers Disassembled,” her mental instability responsible for tearing the Avengers apart – and killing several popular heroes, including Vision and Hawkeye. Her madness escalated in House of M, a miniseries in which she rewrote all of reality for a time – and ultimately committed an act of near-genocide, stripping all but 98 mutants of their powers. In truth, Marvel had simply used her as a plot device; Bendis to achieve his goal of writing the ultimate Avengers disaster story, and Marvel editorial as a tool to reduce the number of mutant characters because they believed there were too many. And Scarlet Witch’s character has never recovered from what can legitimately be called an act of character assassination.

House of M ended with Scarlet Witch disappearing, and Marvel kept her off the table for years, unsure of what to do with her. Bendis brought her back in one issue in 2007, but that version was retconned to be a Doombot (ironically meaning a resurrected Hawkeye actually had sex with a Doombot, given he slept with Wanda Maximoff in that story). It was another three years before Marvel settled on a way to bring Scarlet Witch back into play, in Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung’s Avengers: Children’s Crusade. This retconned Scarlet Witch’s actions in “Avengers Disassembled” and House of M, revealing she’d been under the influence of a demonic being, but – as tremendous as the story may have been – the retcon wasn’t emotionally satisfying for readers and has been largely ignored ever since.

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Can Marvel Ever Fix Scarlet Witchs Mutant Genocide

Marvel doubled down on its attempt to redeem Scarlet Witch, with her next return combined with an ongoing “Mutant Messiah” arc to launch the Avengers Vs. X-Men event. This saw Scarlet Witch and Hope Summers ultimately team up to restore the mutant race, a functional attempt to put things right. But even this wasn’t enough, because for X-Men readers the potential extinction of the mutant race – accompanied by the death or depowering of countless characters – had dominated comics from 2005 through to 2012. They simply couldn’t forgive Wanda Maximoff. It fell to Jason Aaron to make another attempt, integrating Wanda into his Uncanny Avengers book, but still, the dislike for Scarlet Witch remained.

The modern X-Men books seem to have recognized that, in the eyes of X-Men readers, Scarlet Witch still hasn’t been redeemed. Scarlet Witch is basically viewed as the Devil by the mutants of the living island of Krakoa, condemned as “The Pretender” because for years she thought herself to be a mutant even though this was only a deception (albeit one perpetrated upon Wanda Maximoff as well as upon the world). The Trial of Magneto seems to be an attempt to bring that arc to a head, forcing Scarlet Witch to heal at last. But the problem is that, while Leah Williams and Lucas Werneck’s story has been a compelling and enjoyable one, all it really demonstrates is that – some 17 years after Marvel began to use Scarlet Witch as a destructive plot device – she still isn’t redeemed.

The irony, of course, is that Marvel Studios now seems to be bringing these stories to life on the big screen as well. Elizabeth Olsen talked about House of M back in 2015, although she actually believed the story would be too dark for the MCU. Still, WandaVision undoubtedly set that story up, with even the credits featuring a reality warp based on Wanda’s power flares in “Avengers Disassembled” and House of M. The difference in approach, however, seems to be that Marvel Studios sees this as an actual character arc for Scarlet Witch, rather than simply using Wanda Maximoff as a tool to tell a disaster story or erase mutants. Ironically, many viewers expected WandaVision to do the opposite, assuming the expansion of Scarlet Witch’s powers in the MCU was a way of introducing mutants or vampires – relegating her to a plot device once again – but Marvel seems to be avoiding either option.

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All this raises one simple question; will Scarlet Witch ever be redeemed in the comics? It’s possible the damage done to Wanda Maximoff in “Avengers Disassembled” and House of M was simply too great; as far as modern readers are concerned, she’s now defined by her actions in those arcs. Most of the deaths have been reversed, the mutant race is flourishing as never before, and even depowered mutants are having their powers restored courtesy of the X-Men’s Resurrection Protocols. But the damage remains nonetheless, and readers seem unable to look beyond Wanda Maximoff’s past instability and her act of mutant genocide. No doubt that problem will become even greater as Marvel Studios advances with its own potential House of M arc in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and future multiversal stories.

Leah Williams and Lucas Werneck may be doing their best to heal Scarlet Witch, to finally redeem her from her past mistakes, but their efforts are likely doomed to failure. Scarlet Witch should serve as a warning to writers and editors; don’t use characters as plot devices on such a scale, because the results can be longlasting and irreversible.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/x-men-scarlet-witch-house-m-redemption-trial-magneto/

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