Scarlet Witch May Be Sorcerer Supreme, but These 5 Moments Are Hard to Forgive

Scarlet Witch has been creeping on the come up for decades (but not doing it for the love of money) and has finally become popular in a way that she wasn’t before. A lot of that is the MCU; she’s developed a, let’s say, devoted fanbase. I think everyone who has talked about comics online have had to deal with Wanda stans and their… lets call it “knowledge” of the character. Marvel is quick to notice things like MCU popularity (and not any other kind), so they’ve pushed her harder than ever in the last few years, making her into the Sorcerer Supreme. She’s become a higher statured hero than ever before, but there are a lot of skeletons in her closet.

Wanda stans will give you excuses for all of her actions, painting her as someone who has always been a victim and there’s some truth to that. However, if you actually look at her actions, it’s plain to see that she was more than a victim of the actions of others. She made those choices to do those things and even taking into account the trials of her past, it’s very hard to look past some of her actions. These five moments represent Scarlet Witch going too far, unforgivable acts that show her for who she really is.

5) Teaming Up With the Apocalypse Twins

Uncanny Avengers (Vol. 1) is one of the best Avengers series of all time (just ignore Havok’s “I’m Alex” speech) and Scarlet Witch’s sins against the mutant race play a huge role in the book’s narrative. This left her and the team open to the machinations of the Apocalypse Twins, who wanted to destroy humanity and move mutants to their own planet. They fooled Scarlet Witch into powering their Ark by telling her that Red Skull was going to use his new telepathic powers to make her help him destroy mutantkind in the future. Wanda, of course, knew that she was being manipulated to an extent and made her owns plans, but here’s the thing – the Apocalypse Twins were smarter than her and knew she would try something, making contingency plans for her plans. Wanda never should have trusted anything they said, because her role was integral to their plan. They played on her need for absolution and it was obvious they were manipulating her the whole time. She believed her own hype and paid for it.

4) Resurrecting the Dead of Genosha as Zombies

Scarlet Witch is no longer a mutant, but she’ll always be connected with them in a variety of ways. Many of her greatest sins involve the mutant race, but she has also tried to help them in different ways. The destruction of Genosha in the early days of the Grant Morrison’s amazing New X-Men run was the first major mutant tragedy of the 21st century, with Scarlet Witch’s depowering the mutant race being the next one. Wanda disappeared for a time after House of M, but she would eventually return. At first, she wanted to undo her depowering of the mutant race, but Doctor Strange told her that would be impossible. She next set her sights on “fixing” the Genoshan massacre. She worked for month crafting a spell and then went to the island and used it. However, instead of bringing back millions of mutants, she raised an army of zombies. While this wasn’t her plan at all, Scarlet Witch should have known how dumb what she was doing was. She tried to help and made things worse, leading to numerous deaths in the resulting battle.

3) Her Brotherhood of Evil Mutants Days

The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants has boasted many powerful villains, with Scarlet Witch among its founders. She and her brother Quicksilver were recruited by Magneto to join the group, manipulated by the older mutant into becoming a part of his strike force. Wanda and Pietro would end up leaving the group and joining the Avengers and many fans of hers like to point out that they were being used by Magneto, who played on their need for parental figures. However, here’s the thing – she still chose to use her powers to hurt people. She still went out there and worked with a known mutant terrorist to attack innocent humans. Everyone likes to downplay Wanda’s action when she’s villain, pointing at “manipulation” and absolving her. This argument doesn’t really hold a lot of water when you realize that she definitely killed people and ruined lives for a cause that she didn’t actually believe in.

2) Her Actions Surrounding “Avengers Disassembled: Chaos”

“Avengers Disassembled: Chaos” is the most important Avengers story of the 21st century and it revolved around one of Scarlet Witch’s most unforgivable acts. It all stretches back to her children with the Vision, Billy and Tommy. It was revealed that she used her powers to create them from pieces of Mephisto’s soul, opening up a whole can of worms. The Avengers ended up mindwiping her to protect her from the trauma, but she remembered and went wild. She began by killing Agatha Harkness, then attacked Avengers Mansion, using the corpse of Jack of Hearts to kill Scott Lang. The Vision showed up and was transformed into multiple Ultrons, She-Hulk was driven wild by the situation and tore him in half. Suddenly, more Avengers villains started attacking the Mansion, leading to the death of Hawkeye, before Doctor Strange showed up and told them it was Scarlet Witch’s doing. She went mad and attacked her friends, killing three of them, including her ex-husband. Being angry about having her mind wiped is valid, but she took it too far by murdering friends of hers.

1) Depowering the Mutant Race

After “Avengers Disassembled: Chaos”, Wanda was taken to Genosha by Magneto, where he and Xavier did their best to repair the damage to the young woman. While they constantly failed to make her get any better, the X-Men and the Avengers met to decide her fate, with Wolverine saying they should kill her. Quicksilver heard this conversation and raced to his sister, leading to her creating the House of M world, where mutants were ascendant and Magneto ruled all. She did her best to give her friends lives they would have been happy with, but once they learned what she had done, the Avengers and the X-Men gathered together to attack her at Magneto’s palace. The battled ended with Wanda uttering three words: “No more mutants.” The world went back to normal, unless you were a mutant. All but 198 lost their powers, changing the world for mutants for years to come. A lot of Wanda defenders will try to see that she didn’t kill anyone, but that forgets how many mutants have powers that take the place of their bodily functions or how many people were flying while they used their powers. Thousands died and what she did was a textbook definition of genocide. It also led to years of mutants under even more scrutiny and threat, making the survivors’ lives terrible. It’s ghastly act that she’ll never make up for.