―Wanda Maximoff
History[]
Early Life[]
Wanda Maximoff and her twin brother, Pietro, were born to a nomadic Romani witch named Natalya near Novi Pazar, in Serbia. Afraid of harming her children due to her perilous lifestyle, Natalya Maximoff placed the babies under the care of her brother, the ventriloquist Django, and his wife, the gentle Marya. When the High Evolutionary and his Knights ravaged the region where the Maximoffs lived in search of babies for his experiments, the twins were kidnapped by a catholic priest and brought to the Evolutionary's citadel on the Wundagore Mountain, in Transia. The High Evolutionary made alterations to the twins' genomes, disguising them as regular mutants. The babies were nursed by one of the Evolutionary's servants, the humanoid cow and midwife Bova. While under the Evolutionary's care, the newborn Wanda Maximoff was imbued with the mystic energies of the Wundagore Mountain, which was in fact a prison for the demon-lord of chaos known as Chthon. From that moment on, she acquired a natural latent talent for the practice of magic. Bova and the Evolutionary attempted to have the twins to be adopted by World War II heroes Whizzer and Miss America. However, the former fled in desperation while the latter perished after a miscarriage. Instead, a disappointed Evolutionary returned the babies to Django and Marya Maximoff.
Wanda and Pietro lived a happy childhood, constantly travelling alongside their foster parents' tribe in Central and Eastern Europe. Wanda's potential for magic eventually attracted the attention of a powerful coven formed by Margali Szardos, Maria Russoff, and Lilia Calderu. Calderu approached Marya Maximoff and had her bring Wanda to Castle Russoff. They hoped to recruit Wanda into their coven as an apprentice, being able to predict her future as a relevant magic wielder. However, servants of Chthon, Taboo and Damballah, interfered with Wanda's initiation. The battle only ended once Wanda was able to manifest her hex powers for the first time, accidentally allowing Chthon to reach out to her soul and make it known that Wanda was not allowed to join any coven. The witches then returned Wanda to her family.
Under their family's protection, Wanda explored her mystic potential freely while Pietro manifested an unusual superspeed power. Afflicted by poverty and the lack of opportunities to provide for his family, Django began to steal food for his starving family and enraged villagers attacked their caravan. Using his phenomenal speed, Pietro fled from the camp with his sister. The circumstances of their separation from their clan were so traumatic that not until well into adulthood could they remember anything but the barest details of their childhood. For the next few years, Wanda and Pietro wandered central Europe, living off the land.
Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants[]
Wanda accidentally set fire to an unnamed village with her powers, and was attacked by villagers. One of them proclaimed her to be "a Scarlet Witch," which would later become her codename. Magneto arrived at the scene, and rescued Wanda from the villagers. Due to this rescue, Wanda felt indebted to Magneto. She was willing to serve him until her debt was repaid.
Wanda and Pietro were later recruited into Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and, as the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, fought the X-Men on several occasions. Throughout her tenure, Wanda fended off romantic advances from fellow member Mastermind. She proclaimed that she would rather die, than become his wife.
Brotherhood
In their initial battle with the X-Men in Santo Marco, the Scarlet Witch knocked out Angel, who had incapacitated her brother, in retaliation and brought the captured X-Man to Magneto. But the X-Men forced them to abandon their prisoner and even the entire country. At their next scheme, Scarlet Witch disagreed with Magneto's plan to kill the X-Men. During his attempt to kill every X-Man except the captive Angel, Scarlet Witch used one of her hexes to short-circuit Magneto's control panel. She injured one of Magneto's hands in the process. Before Magneto could "teach her a lesson," Wanda hid behind her protective brother Quicksilver. Subsequently, Wanda was nearly injured by debris created by one of Cyclops' blasts.
At their next conflict with the X-Men, Quicksilver was easily captured by Marvel Girl. Wanda was worried about her brother's safety, and asked Magneto to save him. She instead learned that Magneto was about to fire a deadly weapon against the entire group pof X-Men, willing to sacrifice Quicksilver's life to gain victory. Wanda tried to stop him, but Magneto threatened to kill her for defying his decisions. Namor intervened on Wanda's behalf, and destroyed the equipment before it could be used.
When Magneto, Mastermind, and Toad fled from X-Men's attacks, Wanda chose to stay behind. All by herself, she demanded that the X-Men release her brother immediately, but she was in no position to impose demands. Namor, however, came to her aid and started to fight the X-Men. He easily defeated the Beast and the Angel, but was immobilized by Cyclops' blasts. Before their fight could escalate further, Professor X intervened, revealing to Wanda that he had placed Quicksilver under mind-control. He was willing to release him to Wanda's custody, as he didn't consider the twins anything more than Magneto's pawns.
To have her brother returned to her, Wanda convinced an angry Namor to back down. Upon leaving the scene, Namor remarked upon his attraction to the Scarlet Witch. But her beauty reminded him of the Invisible Woman, and he feared that this potential relationship would be similarly doomed and he would end up being rejected, so he departed.
Avengers[]
They would then abandoned their terrorist activities, while Magneto was imprisoned by the Stranger, and joined the Avengers. However, they soon left the Avengers after the Scarlet Witch lost her powers and Quicksilver was shortly influenced by Magneto again.
The Scarlet Witch then began a quest to recover her powers by studying grimoires, with Quicksilver and the Toad supporting her. Her studies accidentally summoned extra-dimensional caudillo Arkon, who kidnapped the Witch to make her his bride, the Toad when he opposed, and then a number of Earth-born scientists in an attempt to use atomic power to save his own world, Polemachus, by destroying Earth. Quicksilver gained the help of the Avengers, and they managed to save Polemachus without damaging Earth, Arkon ceased any further violence against Earth and renounced to the Scarlet Witch because she had convinced him of the importance of small things. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch then resumed their membership with the Avengers. The Toad chose to remain at Polemachus.
Not long after the birth of Quicksilver's first child, Wanda and Pietro learned a secret about their parentage, that Magneto was allegedly their true father.
Wanda fell in love with the synthezoid Vision, an artificial being created by Avengers foe Ultron who joined the team rather than fight them. The Scarlet Witch eventually married her teammate, the android Vision, not realizing that they were being manipulated by Immortus, who sought to prevent Wanda from having a child under the belief that Wanda was actually a key figure, or nexus being, to her reality, and her children would have the power to shake the foundations of the universe.
Wanda eventually drew on magic energy to give birth to twin sons, Tommy and Billy, but this energy was eventually revealed to have come from the demon Mephisto, who reabsorbed them, effectively ending their existence. Agatha Harkness cast a spell to make her forget her children in order to ease her pain. Though Wanda later recalled her loss, she suppressed this memory over the long term. After his reformation, The Vision and Wanda no longer shared the closeness they once had.
Avengers Disassembled[]
The Scarlet Witch seemingly gained powerful reality-altering abilities from "Chaos Magic"; however, this proved to be an uncontrolled aspect of her mutant power and created a great mental strain on her. An unintentional remark by teammate Wasp about Wanda's lost children apparently drove her over the edge. She suffered a nervous breakdown and lashed out with her new power, subjecting the Avengers to a savage assault and apparently killing Agatha Harkness and some of her teammates. Others were injured or affected by various odd outbursts and incidents, including Vision, who was killed by She-Hulk after he attacked the Avengers due to Wanda causing him to lose control of his actions. The remaining Avengers gathered including a number of reservists.
Doctor Strange appeared, sensing abuse of magic, and angry that he had not been notified of Wanda's recent problems. Strange was forced to use the Eye of Agamotto on Wanda, which apparently showed her a memory so horrible she went into a catatonic state. Magneto suddenly appeared to collect his daughter, and brought her to Genosha so Professor X could help her.
House of M[]
Decimation
Unfortunately, Xavier was unable to do so as Wanda attempted to restore her husband to life and undo the damage she had caused. Keeping Wanda in a comatose state, Xavier ultimately called a meeting between the Avengers and X-Men to decide whether or not Wanda should be killed. Quicksilver was horrified at the fact that Xavier seriously considered killing Wanda and convinced Wanda to take desperate action to keep this from happening: By using her powers, Wanda warped reality into the House of M, a world where mutants were the majority, humans the minority, and Magneto the ruler (simultaneously giving various other heroes what they wanted most, hoping this would prevent them rebelling). In this reality, Wanda was believed to be a human, due to an alternate body she created to represent her in public while she cared for her children in private.
A young mutant named Layla Miller (a deformed mutant who was given a normal body thanks to Wanda's reality warp) was able to use her mutant abilities to restore several of the heroes' memories. Meanwhile Wolverine (the only person who sensed the reality's "wrongness") and a resurrected Hawkeye (who had been seemingly killed during Wanda's breakdown) and Cloak gathered these heroes into an assault force to try to restore reality. This rag-tag army headed to Genosha to attack Magneto, believing him to be the one responsible for the change. During the battle between Magneto's forces and the others, Layla was able to restore Magneto's memories; as well, Wanda confessed to Dr. Strange that it was Quicksilver, not Magneto, who had initiated the reality warp.
Enraged, Magneto confronted Quicksilver, angry that Quicksilver had done all of this in his name. Quicksilver told Magneto that he would have let Wanda die. Magneto replied that Quicksilver had only used him and Wanda. He then killed Quicksilver.
Wanda revived her brother, telling Magneto that Quicksilver had only wanted him to be happy and that Magneto had ruined them, choosing the mutants over his own children. She further denounced Xavier and in three words "No More Mutants" Wanda changed the world back to its original form but added the mass de-powering of 90% of the entire mutant population, thus being responsible for many deaths. Surviving mutants and ex-mutants referred to this as "M-Day: The worst day in mutant history".
Post-House of M[]
After the fallout, the resurrected Clint Barton tracked Wanda to a small village near Wundagore Mountain. She appeared to be powerless and believed that she had lived her entire life in the village. She did not recognize Hawkeye, nor did she remember her life with the Avengers or other events.
The mutant Beast later found Wanda at the same village and sought her help to deal with the aftermath of M-Day. She had no memory of him either, and claimed that she did not believe in magic.
The Young Avengers Wiccan and Speed decided to find Wanda, as Wiccan wanted to know once and for all if she was indeed their mother. They traveled to several places connected to Wanda and themselves in their search, but Wiccan was unable to detect any sign of Wanda's magic. Wiccan and Speed united to search for her around the planet, but both ultimately failed, though they were told by Master Pandemonium that they had to cease their quest to seek her, lest risk unleashing the darkness of the Witch's past yet again.
Later, the Asgardian god Loki, concealed in an astral form by simple spells and illusions, disguised herself as Wanda and assembled a new team of Mighty Avengers to be led by Hank Pym to oppose Chthon. Chthon was eventually banished back to his own dimension, and his human vessel Quicksilver was released from his control. Loki's goal was to prevent another god of chaos from laying siege to the Nine Worlds and cracking Norman Osborn's armor to quicken his fall. She continued to assemble the Mighty Avengers, who remained unaware of Loki's involvement.
None were aware that the true Wanda had yet to reemerge from seclusion, as only Clint Barton, Beast and higher powers than they, such as the Living Tribunal or Uatu knew of her status. Quicksilver, having joined the Mighty Avengers, sought to use his position on the team to find her, a desire not missed by the impassive Loki. Pym also wanted to use Pietro in turn to solve the mysterious return of Wanda Maximoff.
Agamotto later detected her presence and displays her as one of thirty possible candidates for the role of Sorcerer Supreme through his Eye, but due to her apparent lack of magic and past instability refrained from selecting her, instead choosing Brother Voodoo to fill the position.
The Children's Crusade[]
With Wiccan and Speed
Wanda was found in Latveria by her alleged son Wiccan. She seemingly lost all her memories and powers and was engaged to Victor von Doom. Wiccan told her about who she was, and what she did. He also told her about her twin sons, and almost told about his suspicions that he and Speed were actually her reincarnated sons. His story was interrupted by the battle between the Avengers, the Young Avengers, Magneto and Doctor Doom. Wolverine tried to kill Wanda, but was stopped by Iron Lad, who teleported the Young Avengers and Wanda into the timestream.
They all went into the past, and met reanimated Jack of Hearts, who exploded. After that Wanda remembered who she is, and regained her powers and returned herself, the Young Avengers and Scott Lang to the present. She then finally confirmed that Billy and Tommy were indeed her reincarnated sons.
Realizing that her sons are alive, Wanda met with X-Factor and re-powered Rictor, planning to restore powers of all depowered mutants who wanted it.
It was revealed that Wanda's ability was brought about when Doctor Doom assisted her in becoming a conduit for Life Force itself, in an effort to recreate her children. The power was too great for her to control, leading to her breakdown. Doom stole Wanda's power and became omnipotent, but while battling the Avengers and the X-Men, his powers overloaded, leaving him with his scarred face again and powerless. Unable to continue the battle, he teleported himself away. The X-Men agreed to leave her be, Magneto and Quicksilver both wished to spend time with her as a family and Captain America offered her a spot in the Avengers but Wanda declined saying she needed to be alone.
Avengers Vs X-Men[]
Wanda played a key role during the events featured in AvX. After defeating both M.O.D.O.K. and A.I.M. with the help of Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman, she visited Avengers Mansion but was not welcomed by Vision. She then began to have visions of the Phoenix Force; and during one of those visions, she foresaw a future in which the Phoenix killed the original Avengers.
Believing the Mutant Messiah to be the key to defeating the Phoenix Five, which consisted of the Phoenix Avatars Cyclops, Emma, Namor, Magik, and Colossus, the Avengers launched an operation to extract Hope from Utopia. If it wasn't for Wanda, they would have been defeated by Cyclops. Wanda convinced Hope to go with the Avengers, as Cyclops vowed that he would no longer tolerate the Avengers.
After a confrontation between the Avengers and the Phoenix Five, in which Wanda defeated Magik, she began to train Hope with Spider-Man's help in Wakanda, but the Phoenix Five decided to take Hope back with them. Hope revealed that Wanda was the only Avenger the X-Men feared and respected. Doctor Strange gave Amulets of Illusion to different Avengers to make them appear as Wanda when she wasn't present, in hopes of scaring the Phoenix Five. It worked to a degree and bought the other Avengers time to complete missions across the globe. The Phoenix Five began to suspect the many-Wandas were an illusion, so Namor decided to attack one of them. Much to his disappointment, she was the real Scarlet Witch and she defeated him. Namor then led the Atlanteans into war against Wakanda, and nearly defeated all of the Avengers, until Wanda showed up and defeated him.
Meanwhile Iron Fist had taken Hope and Wolverine to K'un-Lun to hide and prepare for a confrontation with the Phoenix Five.
When Cyclops learned of their location, he decided to travel there and take Hope back with him, but Hope used Wanda's and Shao Lao the dragon's power to send him to the Moon. After a brief confrontation between Hope and Wanda, which was stopped by Captain America, the Avengers came to realize Cyclops had become the sole-wielder of the Phoenix Force. Cyclops took the title Dark Phoenix after killing Professor X.
The Dark Phoenix began to burn the world so Wanda and Hope decided to join forces in order to stop him. Together, they managed to take down Dark Phoenix. The Phoenix escaped Cyclops's body and entered Hope's. Hope used its power to reverse the damage and destruction caused by Dark Phoenix and restore the mutant population. Then, as Wanda had once used her powers to wish away mutants by uttering the words, "No more mutants," Wanda and Hope joined their powers and wished, "No more Phoenix", forcing the Phoenix Force away from Earth by the spell.
Uncanny Avengers[]
While visiting Charles Xavier's grave, Wanda was approached by Rogue who tried to make her leave. The two wound up fighting, when they were captured by the Red Skull. The Red Skull also took Xavier's corpse and cut out his brain, claiming his vast telepathic powers for himself. The Red Skull then used his powers to brainwash Wanda into helping him de-power mutantkind once again. While tracking down Rogue who had escaped his custody, Wanda encountered Xavier's corpse which snapped her out of the Skull's control. Scarlet Witch and Rogue were mentally controlled into allowing being executed by the mentally-controlled mutant-hating crowd Red Skull gathered, but snapped back once the Avengers Unity Division appeared to fight Shmidt. After Red Skull and his S-Men escaped, Wanda and Rogue joined the Avengers Unity Division.
During a mission involving the Apocalypse Twins, Wanda was killed by Rogue who thought she had betrayed the team. Her death was undone when Havok and the surviving members of the Unity Squad were sent from the future by Kang to stop the twins from destroying Earth, their minds projected back into their past selves so that they could transfer most of their powers to Rogue and give her the strength to fight back. After the crisis was over, Rogue was in the process of being driven mad by all the heroes she had absorbed. The Scarlet Witch cast a spell to return those powers to their owners, although Rogue still retained the powers and the very essence she absorbed from Wonder Man.
AXIS[]
Months after the battle against the twins; Wanda, Rogue, and Alex were abducted by Red Skull's S-Men and taken to his re-education camps in Genosha. After escaping, they encountered Magneto, also held there. They broke him free and confronted the Red Skull and the S-Men.
Fueled by MGH, Magneto killed the S-Men, and beat the Red Skull to death, accidentally unleashing the Red Onslaught, the merging of the Skull with the dark and powerful Onslaught. They were soon aided by the Avengers, X-Men, and allies of both teams, who arrived to Genosha upon learning about the Red Onslaught's existence. However, the Red Onslaught deployed their own version of the Sentinels made specifically to battle heroes. In the ensuing battle against the Sentinels, the Scarlet Witch was neutralized along with numerous other heroes. After being broken free by a group of super villains gathered by Magneto to fight the Sentinels, Wanda and Doctor Doom performed a spell to invert the moral compass of the Red Skull in order to defeat him. The spell worked and the Red Onslaught was defeated, but the spell also accidentally affected everyone in Genosha, turning heroes into villains and vice versa.
Under the influence of the inversion spell, the Scarlet Witch set out to kill Doctor Doom in revenge for his manipulations. Magneto and Quicksilver joined forces to prevent Wanda from crossing the line, but failed. Using a spell meant to affect those with blood ties to her, Wanda seemingly killed Quicksilver. To her surprise, the spell didn't affect Magneto, revealing that the Master of Magnetism wasn't actually her father.
Doctor Voodoo, who used the spirit of his brother Daniel to possess Wanda so she could "cooperate" in the conjuration of a reinversion spell, which successfully brought almost everyone back to normal, including the Scarlet Witch.
Pretender[]
Scarlet Witch, deemed "Pretender", is hated among mutant children
With the establishment of a mutant exclusive island nation on the island of Krakoa, the Scarlet Witch became a diabolical figure in Krakoan society, being referred to as the "pretender". Remorseful due to her past transactions against mutants, she decided to reverse the genocides that mutants had suffered by Cassandra Nova in Genosha. Doctor Strange advised against her efforts, but the Scarlet Witch explored ways to resurrect the mutant victims, unaware of the Krakoan Resurrection Protocols. The spell she cast did not work, raising the corpses of the mutants killed on Genosha as the undead. The Scarlet Witch sought help from Doctor Strange, who countered the spell. As it would take thirty days to return all the dead, a barrier was placed around Genosha to prevent any of the dead from leaving. The barrier did not prevent the living from entering the island though, since the alien Cotati set up a base on the island as part of an attempted invasion and were attacked by the mutant zombies. When the Gateways on Krakoa were affected, Krakoan mutants investigated and wound up under siege until the spell took effect. The Krakoans remained unaware the Scarlet Witch was responsible for this crisis.
Concurrently, the Scarlet Witch was recruited by the Avengers chairperson, the Black Panther, to investigate the Savage Land during the Cotati invasion. One of the Cotati, Veltri, unleashed a controlled Man-Thing against the team and also revealed that they had Shanna the She-Devil under their control as well. Shanna attempted to convince her husband Ka-Zar to join the Cotati while the Avengers were immobilized. The Scarlet Witch employed her magic to take Ka-Zar into his wife's mind to free her from the Cotati. After Ka-Zar was stabbed by the Black Knight's Ebony Blade, the Scarlet Witch, Doctor Voodoo, and Shanna worked together to revive him. With the Cotati in the Savage Land overpowered, the Scarlet Witch joined the other Avengers in their victorious final fight against the aliens. As a celebration, the Scarlet Witch attended the wedding of Wiccan and Hulkling.
Redeemer[]
During the first Krakoan Hellfire Gala, Magneto invited the Scarlet Witch to the event. Ashamed, she saw him in private only, sharing a wish of making amends with the mutant community. That night they performed a mystic ritual to increase the capabilities of the Resurrection Protocols, whose existance had been revealed by Magneto. By folding time, the Scarlet Witch attempted to allow mutants who had died before Cerebro was activated and potential future mutants to be resurrected from a plane called the Eldritch Orchard. In order to link the Orchard with Krakoa, the Scarlet Witch arranged for her own sacrifice since being resurrected on Krakoa would activate the process. Using a glamour spell, she made her suicide look like a murder. Her dead body was found by her son Speed on Krakoa, and Magneto was blamed for her assassination.
A bizarre investigation led the Avengers to invade Krakoa and Magneto to counterattack. Meanwhile, Magneto and Hope secretly had the Scarlet Witch resurrected without the Quiet Council of Krakoa's knowledge, using an old mental backup. This "younger" version of the Scarlet Witch met the Avengers unaware of the most recent events concerning her life. Struggling to cope with being introduced to traumatic memories, the Scarlet Witch conjured gigantic monsters that attacked Krakoa. In the Eldritch Orchard, the present-day Scarlet Witch faced an older version of herself. The old woman explained the monsters where manifestations of her guilt and shame and that she forgive herself to get rid of them. As the three Scarlet Witches joined forces against the monsters, they merged together. Falsely accusing Toad to be her killer in order to protect Magneto, the Scarlet Witch exposed the Eldritch Orchard's existence. Reformed as a mutant savior and finally putting the M-Day behind her, the Scarlet Witch became known by the Krakoan society as the "redeemer".
Powers and abilities[]
Chaos Magic
Wanda Maximoff is a powerful witch, capable of altering reality and probability by using chaos magic.
Powers[]
- Witchcraft: Maximoff is a human of magical birthright which means she possesses the ability to manipulate magic since the very beginning. She was born a human with the affinity to control magic, allowing her to use the witchcraft she was born with and that her powers were never gave to her by the High Evolutionary as it was believed rather, he had altered her so Wanda is more receptive to magical energy. She was chosen to be one of the candidates as the next Sorcerer Supreme.
- Chaos Magic: Wanda's main power is the superhuman ability to manipulate the powerful magic known as Chaos magic, a dark magic, which allows her to alter reality and control various forms of mystical energy. Wanda received the "blessing/curse" of the old God of chaos, Chthon, who came to her, the day she was born, which would allow her to use his chaos magic as her own and this would increase Wanda's natural ability to magic.
- Divine Sources: Wanda Maximoff can tap and channel energies from other dimensions as well as mystical and non-mystical entities other than Chthon, such as Cyttorak and Morrigan. She is actually considered the very Nexus Being of the central universe of Earth-616. Since Wanda is a nexus being, she acts a living focal point for earth's and her universe's mystical energies, making her much more capable to harness and use various kinds of magic as she desires.
- Spells and Phrases: Scarlet Witch has a vast knowledge of mystical spells and incantations invoking names and aspects of various extra-dimensional objects, beings and sources of power. Although she has shown the ability to cast "spells" by only saying or focusing on what she wants to happen, this could be related to the nature of her powers. She was trained by Agatha Harkness, who taught her how to control and utilize her magic for many mystical purposes.
- Astral Projection: She is able to project her spirit or astral form out of her physical body in order to travel into the spirit world or the astral plane. She still can use her powers in her astral form and can do this even while unconscious.
- Binding: Wanda has the power to bind and stop someone from moving with her magic and she has used this to stop someone as strong as Colossus.
- Biological Manipulation: Her sorcery allows her to manipulate life on cellular level as well as control all aspects of living creature's biological make-up. For an instance, she can heal different kinds of injures and wounds She once tries to age Jennifer's gamma radioactivity until it's inert. She also has linked the Hulk and a bunch of other Hulks, allowing Banner to merge with them.
- Bond Manipulation: Can manipulate and induce bond of others. She is able to strengthen the bond between the Bloodwraith and the Slorenia itself, to its boundaries as well as its people, trapping the Bloodwraith within the country.
- Chaos Manipulation: Maximoff has the ability to control chaos and manipulate chaotic forces, like she did against the In-Betweener, restoring him to a whole being, after he tapped her powers.
- Clairvoyance: Wanda Maximoff has the ability to receive information about a person or an object even though she has never directly seen them before. She also has the ability to predict the future. She has used a divination spell to search Hope Summers' location and she has had a dream about Black Knight's fate when he was in another dimension.
- Energy Constructs: As an experienced magic user, Scarlet Witch has performed the ability to turn her magical energy into tools, objects, weapons, and other items to suit her needs. She has created a shield, sword, knife, sharp whip and other projectiles, weapons and constructions of mystical energy.
- Energy Manipulation: Wanda is capable to manipulate various forms of energy.
- Energy Absorption: Wanda was capable to absorb and channel energy. Wanda once absorbed Wonder Man's ionic powers as a power source and used it to teleport all of mutantkind into a spaceship.
- Energy Projection: Wanda was capable to release and project powerful energy blasts of various shapes and/or intensities, such as bolts, beams, bursts and waves, that can knock, destroy, slice, and annihilate her targets. Wanda has shown that her energy blasts can knock out god-like beings. This ability becomes the most frequently she uses in almost every fight.
- Energy Transferal: Wanda was capable to take energies from one target and put or transfer it into another several targets or beings. Wanda once returned so many energies Rogue has borrowed back to their previous owners.
- Flight: Maximoff has also proven to be able to fly at will. She can also give others the ability to do so. The full extent of this ability is unknown, but she was capable of fighting an enemy while flying. She has also shown the ability to levitate, as she has done while meditating in the lotus position.
- Force Field: As one of the most powerful witch on the planet, Wanda Maximoff has shown to be capable of projecting powerful fields and shields of mystical energy that she can use for many different purposes. She was capable to protect herself and her allies against many destructive attacks such as bullets, blasts, or explosions. She was also capable to use her force field to contain many items, as well as to prevent someone from teleporting, like she did to Voyager. Not only that, she was also capable to defend herself automatically, meaning her powers can defend her against attacks without her conscious will.
- Gravity Manipulation: In a rare occasion, the Scarlet Witch has proven to be able to alter and control gravity. She has diminished the effect of gravity itself.
- Illusion Casting: Wanda has demonstrated the power to generate and cast realistic illusion. With this power, she was able to fool her enemies like she did to Emerald Warlock. Wanda has also demonstrated the power to create and shape holograms to entertain or to help her explain about any event or incident better.
- Invisibility: Maximoff possesses the ability to make objects or people unseen, casting an invisibility spell on Wonder Man.
- Location Tracking: Can find, probe, and track the location of anyone she desires at the moment over any distance or conditions. She once manages to find someone who previously inhabited Mjolnir, and guide Thor to him.
- Magical Awareness: Scarlet Witch has displayed the ability to be aware of almost anything that affects her and her surroundings.
- Mechanical Manipulation: Can control and manipulate machine as well as mechanical objects. As seen for example, she is able to freeze up, control, and damage Alkhema's internal molecular rearranger.
- Nature Manipulation: Wanda has shown to be capable to manipulate and command nature at her will. She also has an affinity with nature due to her witch training.
- Elemental Manipulation: Wanda can control and generate the elements. She stated that power over natural or classic elements comes more easily to her.
- Weather Control: Wanda can manipulate and influence the weather, creating rain in a certain area.
- Necromancy: Maximoff can contact and communicate with the deceased. She has done it to make contact with the Slorenian dead.
- Non-Physical Interaction: Wanda Maximoff has the power that allows her to affect and harm intangible beings, such as ghosts, intangible demons, spirits, and Vision.
- Portal Creation: The Scarlet Witch is able to open magical portals and gates to another location, gaining the ability to visit or banish anyone/anything in tremendous distances instantaneously.
- Power Resistance: She has resistance to certain attacks, abilities, and powers that can affect and harm her. She is resistant to various types of magic and energy. She also has resistance against reality warping, probability manipulation, elemental forces, and even the Phoenix Force (to a limited degree).
- Protection Spell: Wanda can cast the spell of protection so that she and her teammates can be protected against certain danger. She has casted protection hex to herself, Thor, and Odin to keep them safe from knee-deep acid. She also has maintained protective aura around the Avengers and the civilians, keep them safe from the ruins.
- Purification: During her time as a mystic, Maximoff has demonstrated the ability to purify any kind of objects. She has magically purified a lake and thrown a demon, who at the time possessed 2 people, in it to protect the victims. She used spell in this case.
- Reality Manipulation: One of the most well known powers that Wanda Maximoff has is her ability to shape, warp, defy and bend reality itself. She has been stated as one of the world's greatest and most dangerous reality warpers. She can use this ability to create anything and everything from nothing and can disintegrate as well as erase person or object from existence. She can also combine her physical combat with her reality warping power, as she did against Hope Summers.
- Replication: The Scarlet Witch is capable of replicating and multiplying herself and others. She has used this power to multiply germs in the Wrecking Crew’s bodies, incapacitating them with sickness.
- Scanning: She was capable to invoke Thoth's Gaze to examine an area within the Savage Land and see what non-native beings had been there. Also, while using this spell, she could see that she and her teammates were in the middle of an ambush.
- Scrying: Wanda can hear, view, and observe people's location and condition by making projection image that shows event that is happening in faraway place.
- Soul Manipulation: Maximoff has proven to be capable to manipulate soul. She can use her magic to summon spirits from the afterlife and can resurrect the dead and bring them back to life. She was also capable to practice exorcism as well as read other people's aura so that she could determine if they are aligned with good or evil.
- Superpower Manipulation: Wanda Maximoff has demonstrated the power to manipulate superpowers of others by various means. Her magic allows her to control, absorb or steal, and boost or enhance any kind of superpowers that her targets have. Her magic also allows her to cancel, block, or negate the effect of her enemies' powers and reflect or redirect any power that is projected against Wanda herself.
- Telekinesis: Scarlet Witch possesses the power to move, stop, and manipulate objects. She has reacted and stopped Sabretooth who tried to catch her as well as thrown a truck at Thor.
- Telepathy: Wanda has demonstrated the ability to enter, manipulate, and alter people's mindscape with or without the targets' agreement. She was able to take herself and Ka-Zar into Shanna's mind in order to free her from mind control. She was also able to induce other people to sleep, control the minds of others, and create realistic illusions in the minds of others to trick her opponents, like she did to Maynard Tiboldt. And not only that, she was even able to communicate and torture other people mentally, as well as read the mind of other beings.
- Emotion Manipulation: Wanda has demonstrated the ability to affect and control the emotions of others. She is capable of feeling the pain and anger of the Slorenian dead. She is also capable of inducing fear into others.
- Teleportation: Maximoff can teleport herself and others to any place she/they want across large distances. She was able to travel interdimensionally. Also, she can summon/teleport persons or objects to her or any other people's location and can banish/teleport away person or objects from her location.
- Time Manipulation: Wanda Maximoff has proven to be capable of manipulating and controlling time. As a nexus being, Wanda also has the ability to alter the probabilities of cosmic timelines. She was able to stop and slow down time. She once conjured a spell that causes a person’s body to rapidly break down as if it has endured five thousand years of "wear and tear" over a period of a mere five seconds.
- Transmutation: The Scarlet Witch can transform or transmute anything into anything else, such as when she changed her clothes in an instant. She also has transmuted ice and snow into steam as well as transmuted Thor's lightning into butterflies.
- Witch Sight: Wanda can see things beyond what normal humans can. For example, she was able to see an enhanced and invisible Man-Bull. She was also able to see Agatha Harkness's spirit and Moondragon's psychic assault which had been stated that no human eye could.
- Probability Manipulation: Wanda has been stated as a probability manipulator of the highest order. Initially, Wanda had the ability to manipulate probability via her "hexes" (often manifesting physically as "hex spheres" or "hex bolts") which manipulated energy fields and matter to varying degrees, and could disrupt time. These hexes were initially short range, and were limited to her line of sight. Casting a hex would initially require a gesture and concentration on her part, though the gestures were largely a focus for the concentration.[citation needed] Early in her career, her hexes were unconscious, and would be automatically triggered whenever she made a particular gesture, regardless of her intent.[citation needed] These hexes would only manifest as "bad luck," triggering negative effects. She later gained enough control over her powers that they only worked when she wanted them to, and they were not limited to negative effects.[citation needed] Wanda can use her hexes to cause a wide variety of phenomena, including, but not limited to:
- Spontaneous combustion or melting.
- Rapid or spontaneous decaying, breaking, healing, or fixing.
- Molecular destabilization.
- Energy control, transference, disruption, amplification, transmutation, and absorption.
- Inertia redirection, amplification, disruption, and transference.
- Lighting flammable objects.
- Containing or removing air from a particular volume.
- Cancelling others powers and abilities.
- Stopping the momentum of projectiles.
- Blocking, unlocking, closing and opening doors, objects and technological devices.
- Exploding and summoning objects.
- Creating force fields.
- Deflecting normal, physical and magical attacks.
- Negating or distorting physical laws and manipulating physical forces.
- Altering, affecting, and controlling matter, the molecular composition and physical state/form of physical objects.
- Causing various forms of energy to spontaneously appear or disappear.
- Altering size and gravity, as well as manipulating weather and technology.
- Animating things and sustaining the atmosphere.
Her powers, while beginning to unveil a higher potential, appeared capable of prevailing against the mastered mystical power of Dormammu in his own Dark Dimension when she and the Avengers fought against him for Avalon's Evil Eye, albeit indirectly by disrupting the energies of Dormammu and the Eye. She has trained often at using her hexes to deflect projectiles or to cause enemies to stumble or otherwise suffer the effects of "bad luck." This makes her one of the few Avengers that Ultron fears as his adamantium shell cannot repel magic.
Abilities[]
- Occultism & Magical Knowledge: Due to her mystic lore, Wanda is taught magic and witchcraft by Agatha Harkness and Doctor Strange. She also recently learns with her mother. Because of her power, knowledge, and experience, she is often the Avengers' go-to person for all things involving magic or the supernatural. Wanda taught Pixie a sleeping spell and taught the students of Strange Academy about the Elements of Chaos. She is considered to be one of Marvel's most prominent mystics.
- Meditation and Yoga: Maximoff has shown capable of meditating. By doing this, she can develop and train her abilities as well as practice her magic. Through meditation, she is also able to be more focused to cast spell better. The Scarlet Witch also has the ability to utilize Yoga. She can use yoga to help relax herself as well as rein in her darker thoughts.
- Expert Combatant: The Scarlet Witch has been trained in hand-to-hand combat by Captain America, Hawkeye, and Mockingbird. She was able to combine her physical combat with her magic.
- Expert Tactician & Leadership: Wanda is skilled in the planning and execution of tactics, when sane, with this coming from the experience and leadership skills gained through years of active duty as an Avenger.
Weaknesses[]
Mental Illness: Although Wanda appears to be currently sane, her mental stability is still questionable, and after the events of the Skrull Secret Invasion, she still appears quite sane if powerless and lacking her previous memories. And it is unknown of whether or not she truly has any physical weaknesses as of now.
- Formerly
Perception Range: Her range of hex-casting was limited by her line of sight. (She couldn't watch a live television broadcast and cause a hex-phenomenon to occur at its point of origin).
Physical Condition: Hexes had a degree of unreliability, which was further affected by her physical condition: when well rested, in good health, and mentally and emotionally alert, Scarlet Witch could cast numerous hex-spheres in rapid succession and attain desirable results for almost an hour.
Overextension: Despite this enhanced precision, her hexes were not necessarily guaranteed to work, particularly if she had been straining herself or using her powers excessively. If overextended, her hexes could backfire, causing probability to work against her wishes or to undo previous hexes cast by her.
Paraphernalia[]
Equipment[]
- Avengers Identicard
- Crystal Ball: Wanda has used the crystal ball in order to communicate with Agatha.
- Darkhold: Wanda has the true Darkhold inside her, bound to her body and soul.
Transportation[]
- Avengers Quinjet: Maximoff has access to the Avengers Quinjet.
- Flight: Moreover, Maximoff has the ability to propel herself in the air and fly to any destination.
- Teleportation: Maximoff can teleport to long distances using her Magic
Notes[]
- Scarlet Witch was featured in Mystic Arcana.
- Wanda Maximoff suffers from possessions of evil and magic. This means that her body will be evil for a time, while her soul is not. Past possessors include: The Life Force, Chaos Magic, the demon Chthon, and once, accidentally, a spell cast by herself and Victor von Doom.
- Wanda Maximoff herself is unsure how her sons, William and Thomas were reincarnated into Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd.
- In Darkhold Omega #1, Wanda absorbs Chthon into herself and warns that if she were to die he would be unleashed. However, nothing of the sort occurs when Wanda is killed in X-Factor (Vol. 4) #10, which per the recap of Darkhold Alpha #1 is set after the events of Darkhold.
Trivia[]
- Wanda Maximoff is a vegetarian and doesn't drink alcohol.
- In the first flashback to Transia, Wanda receives her codename when an unnamed villager claims that she is "a Scarlet Witch." It is left unclear at the time if she is the only Scarlet Witch, or even the first one which the villagers have encountered (it was later revealed that her birth mother was also known as the Scarlet Witch).
- While Wanda Maximoff agreed to help Magneto in his plans of conquest, she protested against murdering their opponents. She pointed to Magneto that he had never told her that the Brotherhood would ever descend to murder.
- According to Wanda Maximoff herself, there are two other women that happen to share her name living in Manhattan. They sometimes get calls meant for each other.
- Charles Xavier has claimed that Wanda is unable to have children.
- In Tarot #3 the two halves of Scarlet Witch merged with the halves of Doctor Strange and Namor the Sub-Mariner to create Scarlet Strange and Imperius Hex.
- According to Peter Parker, Wanda is lactose intolerant.
- Scarlet Witch is no longer considered a mutant, but in the Age of X-Man (an alternate plane created by X-Man where everyone is a mutant), she is remembered as one. There, all mutants are born in hatcheries. When Magneto and Jean Grey suggested that the X-Tracts might have an immensely powerful reality warping mutant like Wanda Maximoff, Nature Girl replied that the hatcheries do not make "Omega Mutants" anymore, implying she is considered an Omega-Level Mutant (in a world where she is seen as a mutant).