The MCU & Marvel Comics Both Wasted the Same Incredibly Powerful Mutant

The MCU has a penchant for wasting great characters, partly in service of their main characters or simply through poor creative decisions. It’s always a shame when such an accident happens, but in the case of one incredibly interesting character, the decision to waste him felt almost wilful. When Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Pietro/Quicksilver joined Avengers: Age of Ultron as a secondary villain, he was doomed to never reach his potential, thanks to a surprisingly permanent death. And if you think that was unprecedented, Marvel Comics have repeated the same crime for years.

Quicksilver is one of Marvel’s most storied characters. He started out as a villain, working with Magneto in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and would go on to become an Avenger. Quicksilver’s tenure in the Avengers, along with Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye, changed the Avengers forever, showing the team wasn’t just about putting the best heroes together; it was about giving anyone the chance to become one of the best heroes. Quicksilver’s relationship with Magneto and Scarlet Witch became his defining characteristic, but there’s always been so much more to Quicksilver than just his family. Quicksilver was integral in forging the connections between the X-Men and the Avengers, and has one of the most intriguing histories in the Marvel Universe. However, Marvel has wasted all of that.

When you think of Quicksilver, what do you think of? He’s mostly thought of as part of Marvel’s most popular sibling duo, but there’s so much more to the character than that. Quicksilver is never really thought of as a character first; he’s thought of as Scarlet Witch’s brother, a power set (usually compared to the Flash, although he’s nowhere near as powerful or popular), or just as a generic member of the Avengers’ roster. There’s a lot more to Quicksilver than that, and it’s a shame that so much of the character’s potential has been wasted by Marvel and their pretty blatant mishandling of the character.

Quicksilver Is a Character With More Potential Than Marvel Ever Acknowledged

I think one of the biggest problems with Quicksilver is his relationships. Quicksilver gets overshadowed by Magneto and Scarlet Witch. The question of whether Magneto is a hero or a villain is one of the most popular questions in the history of Marvel, informing stories for decades. Scarlet Witch’s issues with her powers and life have been the basis for multiple stories; she was one of the most important characters in the Marvel Universe for a while.

One of the ironies of that is that Quicksilver was literally the reason behind one of Scarlet Witch’s most well-known actions — changing reality in House of M — but he got dropped into a story that no one really cared about after House of M that went nowhere. Quicksilver is mostly known for one story — X-Factor #87, where he talked about how his powers make him see the world as extremely slow, which annoys him to such an extent that it makes him exasperated with the world around him, giving the origin of his bad attitude — and that’s pretty much the extent of his growth as a character. Every Quicksilver story since then has somehow revolved around that. This ignores everything about Quicksilver that makes him such an excellent character.

Quicksilver is a character who went through nearly everything that Scarlet Witch did, which no one ever digs into it or use it to make excuses for Quicksilver’s sometimes villainous actions. Quicksilver is the least favorite of the Maximoff twins, both to their “father” Magneto and the rest of the Avengers (and the vast of majority of Marvel fans). He married Crystal the Inhuman, forging a connection to the group, and has an Inhuman child. He’s worked with the X-Men and X-Factor, but isn’t really considered to be an icon of either team. I don’t understand why creators would rather build on Scarlet Witch’s experiences rather than Quicksilver’s.

In a lot of ways, Quicksilver is much more interesting than Scarlet Witch; he lives in a world that goes by like a snail for him, yet he’s rarely if ever went back to villainy. How does he keep himself going? How does Magneto’s disdain affect him? Why does he still feel the way he does towards Scarlet Witch? There are so many little parts of Quicksilver that haven’t been looked into in any kind of deep way. We’ve gotten multiple Scarlet Witch series in the last few years (and let’s be real — none of them sell that well, but she’s a popular MCU character), and yet we’ve gotten nothing with Quicksilver.

Quicksilver lost his family as well — Crystal left him, and he hasn’t seen his daughter in ages. He was raised to be a child soldier by Magneto, a man who constantly ignores him and undervalues him. He’s earned the respect of the Avengers’ greatest members and has helped save the world many times. He has stood as a connection between the X-Men, the Avengers, and the Inhumans for years, but he was barely around when the Inhumans had their push. Marvel created an amazing character with Quicksilver and yet never found any way to actually use the character in a way that can make him popular.

Will Marvel Even Let Quicksilver Live Up to His Potential?

There’s a meme going around that takes various characters from comics, movie, anime/manga, television, and more to make the “potential man” joke about characters who have loads of potential, get a chance at stardom, but never really meet their potential. There could easily be one of these memes about Quicksilver, because he is a character that Marvel rarely tries to do anything that isn’t related to his sister or Magneto. Quicksilver is the definition of a wasted character.

Let’s be real for a second — Scarlet Witch only gets the attention that she does because of her MCU popularity. She and Quicksilver are basically the same character, but for some reason, she’s the one who gets all of the attention. Quicksilver is an amazing character, and yet Marvel never does anything with him. I would go so far as to say that Quicksilver is actually more interesting than Scarlet Witch. Scarlet Witch is everyone’s favorite; everyone makes excuses for her actions and tries to redeem her. No one does the same thing for Quicksilver, and I think that makes him a better character to explore. Now, all I need is for Marvel to realize that.

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