How can you say the Scarlet Witch has never been in a good story? I understand Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and Avengers vs. X-men are controversial, so I won't press the issue, even though I enjoy all of them. But you're basically saying there were no good Avengers stories in all of the 70s, not even the Kree-Skrull War or the Korvac Saga.
I know there are people who like Wanda Maximoff as a character, but she has one of the most annoyingly-vague powersets in existence. Far as I know, she has one restriction: needs to use her hands freely (or has that gone away), but other than that, boom no more mutants, boom alternate universe, boom Hawkeye’s dead in the most passive-aggressive way possible. (Bad example, I know.) Still. “Alter probability”? So, she has the power to do…whatever. Within a general scope. It’s a mutant power. No, it’s magic. No, it’s mutant magic. It’s chaos magic (even if Dr. Strange says there’s no such thing but that’s Disassembled so whatever). Floor polish, dessert topping, animal vegetable mineral ARGH. And I gather she’s gone up and down on the power scale a few times, so even the most generalize description of her ability is obligatorily rewritten by any new writer.
Maybe there was a point in the comics when her character wasn’t irredeemable, but I was never around for it. I was around for the senseless victimization: she has kids, but not kids, actually demon limbs or something (I glanced over the covers and that didn’t really help), now she’s evil, then she’s gone, then OH HAI HAWKEYE FFFPOOM mutants suck bye lol nooo not my fault was doom rly okay thx :) . (I may have skimmed over some events.) I share Chris’s assessment: if there’s a good Scarlet Witch story (as opposed to a story in which Wanda is tangentially involved), I’d love to know about it, because she does seem to be a plot gear in need of a character (I won’t compare her to the Ultimates version because that would be unfair, though I shan’t say to whom).
And no, not the story where she gives Wonder Man a blowjob, either. (Speaking of characters I never cared for….)
The "no more mutants/alternate universe" thing doesn't exist outside of House of M/Disassembled. It was Bendis completely changing her powers and making her omnipotent, because the plot required someone omnipotent. Fans think it has something to do with her powers, but it just doesn't, it's a writer's mistake and it has been retconned out as her using someone else's powers.
Her powers are vague, but "probability" isn't that hard a power to use. It just means she can make stuff happen that is improbable but not impossible, so she can make your house fall down but can't build it back up again. Making her a lot less overpowered than Zatanna, or Dr. Strange, or for that matter her "son" Billy.
As for good stories with Scarlet Witch... well, she's never had a solo, but she was in all the good Avengers stories of the '70s and the Kurt Busiek/Geoff Johns runs. In the early '70s the focal point of The Avengers was her developing relationship with the Vision. The first year of the Kurt Busiek run is mostly about her, and the subsequent years lean heavily into the Vision/Wonder Man/Scarlet Witch triangle. They're not "good Scarlet Witch stories," they're good stories where Scarlet Witch plays a major role. But in a team book characters don't have stories all to themselves, and she's only been in team books.
Most people who don't like the character seem to have first encountered her with House of M, and don't realize that the character there has almost literally nothing to do with anything she had ever been in the previous 40 years of comics. It's really a different character under the same name, a Bendis specialty.
