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What do you think are the chances of Wanda and Vision rekindling their romance in the comics? Also, how do you think the general public would react to WandaxVision in the MCU?

Zero. He’s got a wife, son.

I mean, Virginia did kill somebody and she’s technically more of a slave than a wife, but, uh, she still exists. Despite my best angry blogging, Tom King’s Vision book has been well-received and Marvel is trying their hardest to make it popular. This version of Vision is probably going to stick around for a while. Does that mean that Tom King won’t kill Virginia off or split her and Vision up himself? Not necessarily, but for the foreseeable future, Wanda and Vision are going to live separate lives. 

They will keep having occasional interactions because of their significance in each other’s histories, but it’s important to understand those interactions for what they are: nods to the past, not signs of a future. People seem to think any panel that has the two of them is set up for a reunion, and that has not, thus far, been the case. There’s no reason to think anyone at Marvel wants to put them back together, and some people (named Tom Brevoort) have been clear that they don’t want that.

Could they get back together way down the line? Sure, but chances are good it wouldn’t last. They’re not Reed and Sue. They haven’t been together since the 80′s. They’ve gone in different directions, and the Wanda who exists now is, conceptually and thematically and psychologically, very different from the Wanda who was married to Vision. The one true, earnest effort to put them back together ended with the writer, Geoff Johns, having another character say it was impossible to imagine them being together and then dropping the plotline. Another attempt to reunite them might go better than that, but superhero comics are shaky ground on which to build long-lasting relationships.

To your second question: I don’t think the general public cares about Wanda or Vision or romantic relationships in the MCU. We’re talking about two relatively minor characters fighting for limited screentime in ensemble movies. We’re also talking about a franchise whose canon romances have failed to connect with audiences. They generally get overlooked, except in Age of Ultron where the reaction was negative. The most popular het pairing in the MCU, by far, is Clint/Natasha, and that was only ever a red herring.

If Wanda/Vision does become canon, it will probably be the same kind of underwhelming subplot that the other canon relationships were. There might be some backlash about the huge age gap between the actors or the specific handling, and certainly, there will be fanboy “ew”-ing over the fact that he’s an android. How loud that is depends on how their romance is treated. In the comics, their relationship has its vocal supporters, but most people 1.) don’t care about either one of them or 2.) don’t like them together. Or both.

Also, Vision’s gonna die in Infinity War I. Whether or not he comes back depends on a lot of different things, but he’s got an Infinity Stone in his head. Thanos is gonna kill him.

Thoughts on Wanda Maximoff x Stephen Strange?

616-wise, he’s not really her type. He’s not sad enough. He needs to cry more. That sounds like a joke, but it’s not. Wanda is drawn to that tragic-but-stoic vibe, and Strange has some of that but it’s not as prominent.

Strange is also a relatively unromantic character. His original incarnation was lot less interested in melodramatic Silver Age love affairs than other heroes of the period, and that influences my view of his romantic life. Wanda would probably be too much for him, and he wouldn’t be as devoted, in terms of time or energy, as she likes her partners.

As a male fan of Wanda I'm a little bothered by that lettered preview into issue 1. Has she ever been like this before? Have her powers ever been described as such before? And although its pure speculation, do you think she's going to be a pseudo misandrist for this run, because that might just be painful to read.

I got a few questions about the preview and this reworking of Wanda’s powers, and I’m gonna try to address all of them here.

The short version is that, off and on since the early 70′s, Wanda has had two power sets. I’m not talking about the various names her powers have been given (probability manipulation, chaos magic, etc.), but the idea that she has two separate powers. She has her natural powers that she was either born with or gifted with at birth by the demon god Chthon. That is sometimes called her “hex power” or just her “mutant power” (way back when she was a mutant!!). But she also learned nature-based, elemental magic from Agatha Harkness. That magic is sometimes completely separate from her hex power and sometimes tied up in it in ways that are difficult to explain.

I’ve talked about this a little before (and maybe I should explain it more?), but the magic Agatha Harkness taught Wanda is What If Paganism Gave You Superpowers. It’s not Harry Potter magic that’s divorced from spirituality and based around genetically-inherited gifts, and it’s not Doctor Strange magic, which pulls from pseudo-Eastern mysticism and the specific history of the Marvel Universe.1 It is based on Neopagan nature worship that is practiced in our world and the magick that goes along with that. The incarnation from the second volume of Vision & the Scarlet Witch is meant to be Wicca, and that’s when you really see Wanda talk about the goddess and Pagan sabbats and more religious elements.

The big difference here is that her second set of powers (the ones she learned from Agatha) are being called “chaos magic,” whereas before the term chaos magic was tied to her Chthonic powers. Chthon himself even said in Mighty Avengers that chaos magic was his and that people didn’t believe in it because they were trying to stomp out his influence. I prefer that canon to this new one. “Chaos magic” just sounds Chthonic, right?2 It sounds dangerous, and I don’t like tying up the spiritual and woman-centric aspect of Wanda’s powers with that dangerous side.

As for the idea that preview is anti-man somehow, that notion of ancient female-centric spiritual practices that were feared and suppressed by men is not an uncommon one in Wiccan and Pagan circles. I’m not surprised to see Wanda express it in the same way that I wouldn’t be surprised if she was into crystal healing or burning incense. 

The old Magic Wanda stories were done by Steve Englehart, who didn’t want female characters to be too feminist, so she never said anything about magic being suppressed by men, at least not that I can remember. It’s not hard for me to imagine even Englehart’s Wanda feeling this way though. Her magical experience has been very female-centered. She learned magic from a woman and taught it to another woman. There are very few men in the Agatha Harkness-driven magical world.

Possible additional evidence: The spiritual belief system in Vision & the Scarlet Witch is duotheistic. There is the Horned/Sun God and the Goddess Diana, but aside from one scene where she explains Yule, we only ever see Wanda mention the goddess, not the god. Other characters mention the god, but he doesn’t seem to be much of a factor to Wanda.

That said, I don’t see any of this as being against men. It’s about empowering women and acknowledging the ways they have historically been disenfranchised by the patriarchy. It’s not like Wanda created a slave-husband who she coldly derided and forced to live a miserable existence. That would be truly awful.

1. This is more complicated than I can get into in this post. Doctor Strange has Pagan influences as well, but what people remember most about his mythos is made up stuff like the Vishanti and the pseudo-Eastern mysticism. Likewise, Wanda’s own internal mythos has influences from Lovecraft, as well as tons and tons of demons, but that is more or less separate from the Pagan-flavored stuff Englehart did.

2. There is a system called Chaos Magick in our world, but it has nothing to do with Lovecraftian elder gods or female-centric spirituality. Grant Morrison, noted writer of Santa Claus comics, practices Chaos Magick, and his comic The Invisibles is meant to be a hypersigil, which is, like, a giant magical symbol in Chaos Magick. Long story short: Morrison gave himself a flesh-eating face virus and a collapsed lung writing The Invisibles.

Is Elizabeth Olsen really only contracted for two films? I thought she's also set to appear in Infinity Wars? Although, to be fair it's pretty much assumed that EVERYBODY is going to be in Infinity Wars.

Yeah, her original contract was for two movies. She could always renew her contract, of course, and it seems like she would want to. There have been rumors about other actors having movie-to-movie contracts with Marvel, which means her situation may not be that weird.

Because of what happened with the vision getting erased and that version of him "dying" would Wanda be considered a widow?

Vision was only “dead” for a while. Through the magic of comics, he got his old personality, emotions, and memories back, though he didn’t feel obliged to tell Wanda the exact truth about that. Characters die and come back a lot in comics. Their spouses generally aren’t considered widows after they’ve come back to life, but it’s a complicated situation and not one you can compare to the average person’s life. If they were still together, then she would be his wife, but they’re not so it’s harder to put a label on it.

I’d say she’s more of an ex-wife since Vision is married to someone else now.

with whom do you think wanda is going to be paired up with? vision like in the comics? steve? iron man? or do yu think wonder man is showing up any time soon?

My powers of divination are not that strong, anon, but it almost certainly will not be Iron Man.

As a scarlet witch expert what job do you think Wanda would do if she was not a superhero? I think a lot about Wanda recently and, idk it stuck on my mind. thanks!

I kind of sort of talked about this here, but I didn’t really like my final verdict then and I don’t like it now. I’m not sure I have a better answer though. 

In ye olden Silver Age days, she wanted to be an actress, but her one attempt to break into show business, while the Avengers were temporarily disbanded, didn’t go well.

This was during a time when the Avengers were considered “public menaces,” and no one wanted anything to do with them. It hypothetically could have gone better if she hadn’t been persona non grata at the time. So maybe, possibly she could have been an actress.

Beyond that, I don’t know. Maybe something with animals…? She could sell crystals on etsy?

As a Scarlet Witch fan myself, I am hoping we get an actress for Wanda in the X-men movies who looks close to a Romani woman. But I don't think we will. Evan Peters looks as white as they can get and they apparently removed his Romani background by naming him Peter instead of Pietro.

Yeah, that would have been ideal. Unfortunately, as you said, “Peter”’s twin will probably look somewhat like him, so it will likely be another white actress. That is, assuming they’ll even include her in the movie, or that Fox is allowed to use her, which we can’t know for sure.

The best we can hope for is that, after the end of Bryan Singer’s established X-universe, if there is a recasting, since there might be a reboot of sorts, they cast people with more diverse backgrounds. But, again, Fox doesn’t have the best record for that.

My money is on a Wanda cameo in Apocalypse. Would you settle for a cameo? I would, I just need her acknowledged as a mutant and Erik's daughter. I love the Lizzie Olsen tho. PS- in X2, Mystique hacks into Stryker's files & there's an entry entitled "Maximoff (2)".

I would settle for a cameo, yes. If that doesn’t happen, she could be in New Mutants. Or they could include her when they reboot the universe in however many years.

This makes me sound spoiled because many people don’t get a single version of their favorite character in a movie, much less have the possibility of two. :-/

ok but even if wanda and pietro aren't magneto's, they're still roma and/or jewish, right? mr brev, we can't just look back on comic books' history of being a medium for jewish empowerment without giving marvel's two newest a-listers, courtesy of AOU, their pretty gosh-darn important ethnoreligious background, can we?

I’ve asked this before, and had no takers: can you point me to a single story, just one, in which the “fact” that Wanda and Pietro come from a Jewish background is in any way relevant?

I don’t think you can. So far as I can see, no such story exists. So this feeling of Jewish empowerment exists solely in the minds of readers who projected it onto those characters via the background of Magneto. So eliminating that link doesn’t actually eliminate anything tangible, just an idea that some people had in their minds rather than anything on the page.

Wanda and Pietro are still Roma, in fact they’re more legitimately Roma now, as they’re no longer Jewish kids brought up by a Roma family, but legitimate members of the Roma people. That’s a background that informed a whole lot of stories over the years, so that all needed to remain in place regardless of whatever else we might do.

I understand their relationship is complicated, but does Wanda love Magneto?

Two things: 1. If you haven’t, you need to read this post first. 2. I wrote this in a hurry and I’m sure it’s missing some stuff, but I have to go.

This is a complicated question because superheroes. comics are complicated and vast and self-contradictory. Characters shift over time, and part of the reason for the shift in Wanda and Magneto’s relationship is the shift he has made as a character and how perceptions of him have shifted.

For some writers (Nicieza, Stern), the answer to this question was undeniably no. It was a loud, screaming, “Django Maximoff is my real father” no, but in recent years, that’s gotten more complicated.

If I were to track the development (starting with the reveal of him as her father), it would go like this:

After all that, my answer is yes. Not a simple yes, but it’s much easier to say she saved his life during AVX because she loves him and she hides that out of fear of being left again and righteous anger over his treatment of her and her brother than it is to figure out how the answer is no. To make the answer no, you have to ignore the latter half of this list. You can reconcile her rage and the screaming and the rejections by saying there is hatred there too (and sadness and fear and pain) and that whatever love she feels for him is kind of irrational (and she knows it) and this is a vulnerable part of herself that she doesn’t want to share and doesn’t really understand. But you can’t explain why it was him she called out for at her worst moment if she hates him and nothing else.

Magneto is a part of Wanda’s family (screw you, Marvel, I reject your reality and substitute my own). She is a lot like him, but those aren’t parts of herself that she likes. He’s someone she feels great empathy for and tries to understand (though, by her own admission, she doesn’t quite succeed), but he’s also someone who is often violent and almost never good at keeping promises. She can’t risk trusting him again or letting him in like she tried to do during his first reformation period. It would hurt too much to be betrayed after everything that’s happened, and she would have no one to blame but herself. 

To complicate things further, he’s a symbol of a time in Wanda’s life when she was weak and didn’t have control, before she became an Avenger and learned magic and had real power and agency. He represents vulnerability and fear and all the things she fought to get away from, as well as the dark side of herself. And he used her, and Wanda is very, very tired of being used.

So, yes, she does, but she would never say it.

What the heck is wrong with Tom Brevoort? Some of the anons are asking him legitimate questions and he's being really dismissive.

That’s what he always does - makes jokes about the fans’ concerns.

Okay, I see why he can’t give us answers yet; he wants people to keep buying Axis and buy Uncanny Avengers to know what will happen*. But there are better ways to handle this than just indirectly saying “f*ck you”. We all know these changes are about MCU synergy, there’s no point in denying that anymore. If Brevoort and the others need to hide this like a dirty secret, well, it tells you all you need to know about how “story comes first”…

*I won’t be buying Axis and Uncanny Avengers (or any other Avengers comics, for that matter, nor Inhuman). If you want to know what happens but would rather not waste your money on the further assassination of your favorite characters, don’t worry, Tumblr is sure to keep you updated on this mess.

What the heck is wrong with Tom Brevoort? Some of the anons are asking him legitimate questions and he's being really dismissive.

That’s what he always does - makes jokes about the fans’ concerns.

Okay, I see why he can’t give us answers yet; he wants people to keep buying Axis and buy Uncanny Avengers to know what will happen*. But there are better ways to handle this than just indirectly saying “f*ck you”. We all know these changes are about MCU synergy, there’s no point in denying that anymore. If Brevoort and the others need to hide this like a dirty secret, well, it tells you all you need to know about how “story comes first”…

*I won’t be buying Axis and Uncanny Avengers (or any other Avengers comics, for that matter, nor Inhuman). If you want to know what happens but would rather not waste your money on the further assassination of your favorite characters, don’t worry, Tumblr is sure to keep you updated on this mess.