- NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Scarlet Witch from the Marvel Cinematic film series. The mainstream version can be found here: Scarlet Witch (Marvel).
| “ | Sometimes it's hard, but sooner or later every man shows himself. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch speaking with Ultron. |
| “ | I have what I want and no one will ever take it from me again. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch confronting S.W.O.R.D. |
| “ | Sending those creatures after her instead of myself was mercy. And in spite of your hypocrisies and insults, I have begged you to safely get out of my way. You have exhausted my patience, but I do hope you understand that even now, what's about to happen... this is me being reasonable. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch to Doctor Strange, before her assault on Kamar-Taj. |
Wanda Maximoff, better known as the Scarlet Witch, is a major character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She is a Sokovian native who was born with the power of chaos magic. She was experimented on by HYDRA alongside her twin brother Pietro Maximoff and gained the ability of psionic manipulation.
Wanda and her brother became driven by revenge against Tony Stark after his weapons were used in a bombing that accidentally killed her parents. Eventually, Wanda and Pietro abandon their grudge to stop Ultron's destruction of humanity. Upon these events, she becomes a kind-hearted, yet sometimes destructive, Avenger.
After Vision's death and the defeat of Thanos, however, Wanda takes control of the town of Westview to create her own perfect reality, as a way of coping with her past traumas and depression, but in doing so, also inadvertently traps the town's inhabitants, not letting them escape her idea of a perfect world. Realizing the harm and damage she had done to others, she decided to let her simulacrum family go and put herself in exile.
When she began to study the Darkhold to refine her powers, however, she became corrupted by its dark magic and fell under the delusion that she would find her children in another universe. Learning of America Chavez and her ability to travel across the multiverse, she started a rampage in pursuit of power, in order to find her children and the idyllic life she once had, leading her to come in conflict with her former friend, Doctor Strange, as well as the Masters of the Mystic Arts.
She was portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen, who also played Thérèse Raquin in the 2013 In Secret adaptation and Candy Montgomery in the 2023 miniseries Love & Death. Her younger self was portrayed by Michaela Russell.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
| “ | You break the rules and become a hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn't seem fair. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch to Doctor Strange. |
- Psionic Energy Manipulation: After experiments with the Mind Stone, Wanda gained superhuman psionic capabilities, one of them being the power to generate and manipulate her own psionic energy manifesting in the form of glowing red mist-like trails. Her psionic energy is the basis for accessing her other psionic abilities like telekinesis, telepathy, mind manipulation, etc. Her energy blasts were pretty limited initially, only being able to fend off her enemies at close range, as she did by pushing Captain America down the stairs. After rebelling against Ultron and becoming an Avenger, her power grew exceptionally stronger, as she could easily destroy Ultron's sentinels with just a blast of energy. Over time, Wanda trained at the Avengers base and grew stronger, so much so that in the battle in Wakanda she was able to hold Thanos with five of the six Infinity Stones with just one hand while using the other to release one. energy blast to destroy the gem on the Vision's forehead. In 2023, after her resurrection, during the Battle on Earth, Wanda confronted Thanos out of revenge for killing Vision, releasing powerful blasts of energy at the titan, even managing to destroy the villain's sword with a powerful blast. When all the heroines joined together to help Captain Marvel cross the battlefield, Wanda began the attack by unleashing a blast of energy. Other feats Wanda is capable of with her psionic energy is generating resistant force fields, and even being able to stop the Vision as shown in her battle against Agatha Harkness. After arriving in Westview, Wanda stopped using her psionic energy to use her newfound chaos magic.
Wanda generating psionic energy in her battle against Thanos.
- Mental Manipulation: Wanda is able to use her psionic energy through a form of neuro-electrical interface, invading and manipulating people's minds for various purposes such as mind control, generating hallucinations, and causing her victims to relive past memories. Initially, she needed to get close to her target to be able to cast her psionic energy traits under their head and thus be able to manipulate their mind, but as time passed, her power evolved to the point that she could manipulate minds from long distances and even more than one mind at once. As much as her ability has gotten stronger, Wanda still needs to get close to users with mental defenses to be able to use this power on them, as it was with Agatha Harkness.
- Telekineses: Wanda can use her psionic energy to envelop matter and thus manipulate its movement. She began to practice her telekinesis by lifting wooden cubes in the air. Over time, her mind grew stronger to the point where she could stop a runaway train and even hold a Leviathan. Wanda showed that she was able to move more than one object at once, for example: when she cooked dinner for guests at her home in Westview; when she held off S.W.O.R.D. in mid-air in her battle against Agatha Harkness and in her confrontation with the sorcerers at Kamar Taj when she levitated several enemies into the air flinging them away along with the rubble of the destroyed attack turrets.
- Telepathy: Along with her mental manipulation, Wanda is also able to use her powers telepathically, being able to read, enter and feel the minds of others. She has demonstrated that she can use telepathy even with non-organic organisms like Vision, using her telepathy focused on the Mind Stone on the Syntosoid's forehead. When she came under Westview's rule, Wanda ended up generating a telepathic link with all residents of the city and automatically with all those who entered her reality dependencies. To a certain degree, Wanda cannot use this power with certain individuals, such as Agatha Harkness who stated that her thoughts were not available to her. Wanda has also shown that she can physically harm others through what happens to her telepathic self, as she was able to physically break Professor Xavier's neck by breaking his neck when he was inside Wanda's mind from Earth 838.
| “ | "The Scarlet Witch is not born; she is forged. She has no coven, no need for incantation." (...) Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme. | „ |
| ~ Agatha revealing what the Darkhold knows about Wanda. |
- Chaos Magic: Wanda is the living myth of the Scarlet Witch, as such, she possesses the powerful magic of chaos, which manifests itself in the form of a bright red fog and a little dark and dense. Through this powerful form of magic, Wanda is capable of spontaneous creation, casting spells without enchantment, rewriting reality, among other abilities. According to the Darkhold, her destiny is to destroy the world. Agatha Harkness said that thanks to this magic, the Scarlet Witch's power is superior to the power of the Sorcerer Supreme. Wanda had no knowledge of her magical origins, so after defeating Agatha, she kept the Darkhold book for herself and said she would try to understand it.
- Reality Manipulation: With her chaos magic, Wanda can rewrite the fabric of reality and alter it to suit her wishes and thoughts, interfering and controlling together the elements that make reality such as time, matter, weather, etc. Without even knowing that she possessed this power, Wanda ended up releasing a great wave of her chaos magic, which was able to envelop the entire city of Westview and in this way, change the entire reality of the city in the shape of a hexagon, so much so that the name of the anomaly became known as Hex. Within her new reality in Westview, Wanda changed the era, removed the colors from reality, the design of buildings and automobiles, created an entire house to be her new home and was able to generate life out of nothing as she did to create a copy of the Vision, as well as being artificially pregnant with his twins Billy and Tommy. In addition to creating life, Wanda can also grant powers to her children, Billy with psionic powers like his mother and Tommy with super speed equal to his "uncle" Pietro. A limitation that her power has is that what Wanda creates must necessarily stay inside her reality, because when she leaves, it will start to be erased, as was happening with Vision and his children when she opened Hex. Wanda has shown that she can expand her reality as much as she apparently wants, as she did to save her husband when he was about to die while trying to get out of the Hex, transforming the S.W.O.R.D. into a circus and its agents into clowns. After having already turned into Scarlet Witch and having spent some time studying the Darkhold, when Dr. Strange went to visit Wanda, she was able to alter the entire field around her very easily, turning the sky red, the trees dead and changing her attire into the Scarlet Witch attire.
- Conjuration: Using Chaos Magic, Wanda can conjure objects at will, which also means of her recreating her deceased lover Vision.
- Limited Life Creation: While inside areas under her control, Wanda can create living organisms, like her twin sons Billy and Tommy, though they would be destroyed if they left the areas in question.
- Limited Time Manipulation: While in areas under her control, Wanda can control the passage of time within not unlike Doctor Strange with Eye of Agamotto-powered Time Stone albeit pale in comparison.
- Teleportation: Wanda can teleport at will.
- Transmutation: Wanda can also transmogrify things into other objects she desires.
- Elemental Manipulation: Wanda demonstrates that she can manipulate elements with Chaos Magic, though elements she can manipulate so far are electricity to affect electronics, fire, and water.
- Weather Manipulation: Wanda can also use her Chaos Magic to influence the weather in the way she desires.
- Protection Spell: A spell she learned from Agatha. Wanda used a protection spell via magic runes on the walls of the Hex that neutralized Harkness's magic, and revitalized her own, even after having been drained of it.
- Energy Absorption: During their confrontation, Wanda displayed the ability to absorb Agatha's Dark Magic and alter it at the same time to improve her own Chaos Magic. Unlike Harkness, who also needs to absorb life force in order to absorb magic from others, Maximoff is capable of absorbing magic and energy without killing her target.
- Astral Projection: Wanda demonstrates a peculiar take of astral projection ability. Unlike other magic users whose physical form remains unconscious due to their astral form entering the astral dimension, Wanda simply projects her Scarlet Witch half while her normal self maintains control over her body.
- Reality Manipulation: With her chaos magic, Wanda can rewrite the fabric of reality and alter it to suit her wishes and thoughts, interfering and controlling together the elements that make reality such as time, matter, weather, etc. Without even knowing that she possessed this power, Wanda ended up releasing a great wave of her chaos magic, which was able to envelop the entire city of Westview and in this way, change the entire reality of the city in the shape of a hexagon, so much so that the name of the anomaly became known as Hex. Within her new reality in Westview, Wanda changed the era, removed the colors from reality, the design of buildings and automobiles, created an entire house to be her new home and was able to generate life out of nothing as she did to create a copy of the Vision, as well as being artificially pregnant with his twins Billy and Tommy. In addition to creating life, Wanda can also grant powers to her children, Billy with psionic powers like his mother and Tommy with super speed equal to his "uncle" Pietro. A limitation that her power has is that what Wanda creates must necessarily stay inside her reality, because when she leaves, it will start to be erased, as was happening with Vision and his children when she opened Hex. Wanda has shown that she can expand her reality as much as she apparently wants, as she did to save her husband when he was about to die while trying to get out of the Hex, transforming the S.W.O.R.D. into a circus and its agents into clowns. After having already turned into Scarlet Witch and having spent some time studying the Darkhold, when Dr. Strange went to visit Wanda, she was able to alter the entire field around her very easily, turning the sky red, the trees dead and changing her attire into the Scarlet Witch attire.
Abilities[]
- Expert Combatant: Scarlet Witch is a capable fighter, being able to defend herself against Proxima Midnight and Thanos.
- Gifted Intellect: Scarlet Witch is reasonably intelligent, as she thought to line the walls of the Hex with runes to defeat Agatha Harkness and devised a plan to capture America Chavez.
- Multilingualism: Scarlet Witch is capable of speaking both Sokovian and English, Maximoff also knows some words in Spanish.
Appearances[]
| Appearances of the Scarlet Witch |
|---|
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Quotes[]
| “ | I have what I want and no one will ever take it from me again. | „ |
| ~ Wanda Maximoff. |
| “ | I just did. Do you know how it felt? It felt like that... | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch getting her revenge on Ultron. |
| “ | Scarlet Witch: You took *everything* from me! Thanos: I don't even know who you are. Scarlet Witch: You will. |
„ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch confronting Thanos. |
| “ | We are an unusual couple, you know? | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch to Vision. |
| “ | Ultron can't tell a difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that? | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch to Captain America. |
| “ | This will be your only warning. Stay out of my home. You don't bother me. I won't bother you. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch threatening Tyler Hayward. |
| “ | 'In a given space, only the witch who cast them can use her magic.' Thanks for the lesson. But I don't need you to tell me who I am. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch to Agatha Harkness. |
| “ | I'm still me, I think. But... that's not what everyone else sees. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch speaking with Vision about her powers. |
| “ | I can't control their fear, only my own. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch to Vision. |
| “ | Then it won't be Wanda who comes for her. It will be the Scarlet Witch. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch. |
| “ | Run. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch manipulating a sorcerer. |
| “ | This isn't a tomb. It's a throne. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch. |
| “ | Scarlet Witch: Is their mother still alive?. Mister Fantastic: Yes. Scarlet Witch: Good. There will be someone left to raise them. |
„ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch just before brutally murdering Mister Fantastic. |
| “ | What have you done?! | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch as America exposes her in front of her kids' alternate selves, causing them to run scared from her. |
| “ | STOP IT!!!!!! | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch's villainous breakdown as she snaps at Billy and Tommy. |
| “ | I opened the Darkhold. I have to close it. No one will ever be tempted by the Darkhold again. | „ |
| ~ Scarlet Witch to Doctor Strange after finally realizing her terrible mistakes and decides to destroy the throne. |
Trivia[]
- She is played by Elizabeth Olsen who already starred in Godzilla (2014) alongside with Aaron Taylor-Johnson as wife and husband, while in the MCU they are twin siblings.
- She is based on Scarlet Witch of the Ultimate Marvel Universe rather than the mainstream one. But unlike the former, she does not have incestuous feelings for her brother.
- Wanda is younger than Pietro by 12 minutes and is implied to be around college student age (most likely in her early twenties) during Age of Ultron and Civil War. However, Wanda was born in 1989 which puts her at age of 26 during the events of Ultron and 27 during the Avengers Civil War.
- She is indirectly responsible for the creation of Ultron, since she placed the spell on Tony Stark that provoked his paranoia and fear enough to drive him to restart the Ultron program, which lead to Ultron's sentience and escape.
- Wanda's feelings for Vision were implied since Avengers: Age of Ultron, as she normally is seen staring at him every time he's around, and she looks at him in amazement when he rescues her. At the time, it was confirmed by the writers that this was a nod to her relationship with him in the original comics, hinting at their romance in future films. This is further expanded in Civil War, where they have developed a strong interest in each other. In Infinity War, they did become a couple once Vision decided his feelings for her overshadowed his loyalty towards Tony. Furthermore, his death at Thanos's hands is the reason she became angry enough to almost kill him. Inside Wanda's reality in the WandaVision series, they are married and have two twin children.
- It is implied that Ultron truly cared for her, as he was completely aware that she was going to destroy him, yet was still concerned that she would die if she stayed here. This is because he considered her the ideal "evolved human", which is what Ultron had been striving to create in the first place. Therefore, it's possible that he had some fondness towards her.
- Just like Pietro, her alias "Scarlet Witch" was never mentioned in the film, however, she is called a "witch" by Tony Stark. In fact, WandaVision was her first time being referred to as the Scarlet Witch.
- Elizabeth Olsen and Joe Russo have stated that Scarlet Witch is the most powerful of the Avengers, bar none, and has only barely scratched the surface of her potential. Even Paul Bettany (Vision's actor) admits that she is probably the only one who can defeat Vision.
- As a reflection of her corruption, when her astral form appears in 838 Wanda's mind to kill Professor X, Scarlet Witch appears deathly pale, with her eyes complete red and glowing along with her blackened fingers turned into claws.
- Wanda's psychotic breakdown and her destroying Vision as mentioned in the film are a throwback to the events of the 2004 Avengers Disassembled storyline from the comics.
- The conversation between her and Doctor Strange at the beginning of Multiverse of Madness, particularly the line "You break the rules and become the hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn't seem fair." has become an internet meme.
External Links[]
- Scarlet Witch on the Heroes Wiki
- Scarlet Witch on the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki
- Scarlet Witch on the Marvel Wiki
- Scarlet Witch on the Marvel Movies Wiki
- Scarlet Witch on the Disney Wiki
- Scarlet Witch on the VS Battles Wiki
- Scarlet Witch on the Wikipedia
