The Scarlet Witch is not only one of Marvel Comics’ most powerful characters, but she is also a character who has had her character destroyed more than once over the years. Wanda Maximoff started as a villain and member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, with her twin brother Quicksilver. The two eventually turned good and joined the Avengers, but Wanda’s road after that has been full of twists and turns that saw her turn evil more than once. The Scarlet Witch has completely rewritten time, destroyed the Avengers team, wiped out a majority of the mutant population, and eventually became the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth.
Videos by ComicBook.com
From creating a new world in “House of M” to creating her own twins with magic and then destroying everything when they were taken away, here are the Scarlet Witch’s best Marvel Comics storylines based on how they changed the universe around her.
10) Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (2024)
Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver is a 2024 four-issue miniseries by Steve Orlando and Lorenzo Tammetta. The story focuses on a posthumous letter from Magneto that drives a wedge between Wanda and Pietro, forcing them to confront their identities as siblings and as mutants. This was an important moment for Wanda, as it followed her successful stand-alone series and forced her to deal with her family dynamic with her brother. It is a focus on grief and what it means to be Magneto’s children, if only by name and not blood.
9) X-Men #4 (1964)
Scarlet Witch’s first appearance came in X-Men #4 as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants along with her brother Quicksilver. While Magneto would later claim to be her father, that turned out to be a lie, but it was a part of Marvel lore for many years. Thanks to that, Scarlet Witch debuting with Magneto in this comic was an important moment as it not only introduced her to the Marvel Universe, but it set up the family dynamic that would play into almost all of her later stories throughout the years. This was also the issue where Wanda made it clear she didn’t want to be a villain, while Quicksilver was her protector every step of the way.
8) Avengers #16 (1965)
When Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver decided they didn’t want to be villains anymore, they left the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and joined Captain America’s new Avengers lineup, along with another reformed villain in Hawkeye. This was the first major shakeup of the Avengers lineup in comics, and it was one of the most important because it showed that Captain America was willing to work to rehabilitate villains. This was very important as well because this was Wanda’s road to becoming a hero and a faithful member of the Avengers, something she has attempted to maintain in the years since.
7) Vision and the Scarlet Witch Vol. 2 (1985-1986)
The 1985 series Vision and the Scarlet Witch was a follow-up to the duo’s previous miniseries of the same name. This was a much longer story, running for 12 issues by Steve Englehart and Richard Howell. The series follows Wanda and the Vision as a married suburban couple in Leonia, New Jersey, after quitting the Avengers. This series was incredibly important because it is the one where Wanda became pregnant with Vision’s children, even though that was technically impossible. Since this introduced Billy and Tommy into the Marvel Universe, it is the storyline that led to some of Wanda’s darkest moments.
6) Avengers West Coast #51-62 (1989-1990)
The Scarlet Witch has turned evil more than once, but she broke down completely during her time in Avengers West Coast. John Byrne wrote and drew this run, which included the “Darker Than Scarlet” arc ending with issues #56-57. This was the storyline where Wanda learned that her twins, Billy and Tommy, weren’t real and were manifestations she created from soul fragments of Mephisto. This was also where a multinational group called Vigilance abducted Vision and broke him down, deleting his memories and ending her marriage to him. This was all enough to drive her to evil, where she turned on her teammates. It was the precursor to what came later in “Avengers Disassembled.”
5) Sorcerer Supreme (2025)
The most recent Scarlet Witch storyline has Wanda at the height of her powers. After “One World Under Doom,” Doctor Doom died, and that left the Earth without a Sorcerer Supreme. Instead of the title going back to Doctor Strange, Wanda claimed it as her own after the Cloak of Levitation and Eye of Agamotto chose her. This was a fantastic story because several people didn’t feel she deserved the role, including Agatha Harkness, and Wanda set out to prove to everyone that she was as worthy to serve as the Sorcerer Supreme as anyone on Earth. This was the perfect elevation, from the reluctant villain in X-Men #4 to the strongest magic user on Earth in 2026.
4) Scarlet Witch (2015-2017)
The Scarlet Witch solo series in 2015 did a lot of heavy lifting, as it worked hard to rehabilitate the Scarlet Witch after years of Marvel trying to assassinate her character at every turn. This series, by James Robinson and a rotating roster of artists, took Wanda and sent her on a journey on The Witches’ Road. While on this path with the ghost of Agatha Harkness, she meets her real mother, the original Scarlet Witch, and learns more about her true parents, finally coming to terms with the fact that Magneto was never her birth father. The series deals with grief and coming to terms with oneself, and the Scarlet Witch was never stronger.
3) “The Children’s Crusade” (2010-2012)
Avengers: The Children’s Crusade has Wiccan and Speed realize they are the Scarlet Witch’s twin children reincarnated into other bodies, and they set out to find their mother, who has been missing since “House of M.” What they find is Wanda Maximoff in Latveria, engaged to marry Doctor Doom with no memories of who she is or her own past. This leads her children, along with the Young Avengers, to take the war to Doctor Doom, where they fight for their mother. This was an important storyline because it reveals that Doom had been siphoning Wanda’s power before “Avengers Disassembled,” making many of her actions his fault, and relieving her of some of the guilt. This story started Wanda’s rehabilitation, eventually leading to her 2015 solo series.
2) “Avengers Disassembled” (2004)
“Avengers Disassembled” was a controversial storyline that saw Wanda Maximoff suffer a complete mental breakdown. It all starts with Wanda and Janet Van Dyne sitting by the pool at Avengers Mansion when Jan accidentally mentions how Wanda used to have kids. Agatha Harkness had taken these memories away from Wanda for her own good, and with them flooding back, Wanda snapped. She murdered Agatha and was responsible for the deaths of Hawkeye, Ant-Man, Vision, and Jack of Hearts. By the end, the Avengers were decimated and chose to break up, and Doctor Strange had to come in and shut down Wanda’s mind, only for Magneto to take her to safety.
1) “House of M” (2005)
The most important Scarlet Witch storyline in Marvel Comics history is “House of M,” and this is the story that followed “Avengers Disassembled.” The main story was an eight-issue miniseries by Brian Michael Bendis and Olivier Coipel, but there were dozens of tie-in comics across the entire comic line. After Quicksilver heard the Avengers discussing killing Wanda to stop her from causing more problems, he convinced her to change the timeline, and she created a world where mutants were the dominant species, and Magneto was the ruler. She also made several other heroes’ dream lives occur, but when Wolverine realized something was wrong, he set out to change things back. This showed that Scarlet Witch was powerful enough to change the entire universe, making her a cosmic-tier threat. In the end, she did the unthinkable and devastated almost the entire mutant population on M-Day.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Image Courtesy of Ufotable -
Courtesy of TOHO Animation
