WandaVision spoilers follow.
Wanda Maximoff has been known as the Scarlet Witch since he first appeared in Marvel comics in the 1960s, but you won't have heard any of his fellow Avengers use the moniker on screen. When Agatha Harkness called Wanda a scarlet witch in ``Previously On,'' the eighth episode of WandaVision, she became the first character to mention the name in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, the way she phrased it suggested that she was much more than your average superhero alias. The episode contains strong hints that
Wanda's powers against Thanos they were created by a mysterious entity hidden within one of the Infinity Stones, and that she is one of the few beings capable of using a mythical energy source known as Chaos Magic.
(Image credit: Marvel Studios) Whatever that means, it has huge implications for the MCU. So we dove into the WandaVision and Marvel comics to explain what they could mean.
Scarlet Witch and Chaos Magic for the season finale, Wanda herself and the upcoming Doctor Strange film set in the World's Multiverse. Agatha Harkness used a fake Pietro, 'Fietro' to spy on Wanda as she tried to discover her Scarlet Witch powers from her.
What do we know about the magic of chaos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
While we don't understand much about its mechanics yet, we now know that Chaos Magic is the reason Wanda Maximoff was able to turn the town of Westview, New Jersey into a living sitcom. After spending the entirety of WandaVision trying to figure out how Wanda was able to make an entire city interact in "complex scenarios" over great distances,
the witch Agatha Harkness finally solved the puzzle in Episode 8.
Holding Wanda's twin sons Billy and Tommy hostage, Agatha told Wanda, “You have no idea how dangerous you are. You are supposed to be a myth, a being capable of spontaneous creation and here you are using it to cook breakfast for dinner. Your children and Vision, all that little life you've made... It's the magic of chaos, Wanda. And that makes you the scarlet witch.
Why is the scarlet witch important?
In the Marvel comics, Scarlet Witch is the superhero alias of Wanda Maximoff.
Although they eventually became the Avengers, Wanda and her twin brother Pietro first emerged as members of Magneto's X-Men Brotherhood of Evil Mutants; they later found out that Magneto was their father. This version of Wanda was nicknamed the Scarlet Witch by angry residents of a town she accidentally burned down.
The name has a different meaning in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Although Wanda's on-screen incarnation has long been informally referred to as Scarlet Witch, the name wasn't used in any of the MCU movies or TV shows until Agatha brought it up close. Jimmy Woo assured SWORD director Hayward in episode 5 that Wanda doesn't have a "funny nickname."
(Image credit: Marvel/Disney) The way Agatha tells Wanda that she is the Scarlet Witch suggests that this is a specific, and perhaps unique, entity with immense power in the MCU. Wanda has a vision of the Scarlet Witch in the Mind Stone.
How did Wanda get these Scarlet Witch powers?
We know that Wanda's abilities are a combination of the innate powers she was born with and her exposure to the Spirit Stone, the Infinity Stone found in Loki's scepter. “Previously Us” confirmed that a 10-year-old Wanda used a probability spell to save herself and Pietro from an unexploded bomb in Sokovia. Years later, when she volunteered for HYDRA's top-secret experiments to create overpowered humans, her powers shielded her (almost permanently) from the Mind Stone: her energy had killed all who came near it. to her. The Mind Stone then exponentially increased Wanda's abilities. We don't know exactly how this transfer of power occurred, but it seems likely that the Scarlet Witch was an entity that lived within the Mind Stone. When Wanda looked at the stone, she saw a female figure, wearing the crown-shaped helmet traditionally worn by the Scarlet Witch in the comics; it was also part of Wanda's Halloween costume in the sixth episode of WandaVision, ``All-New Halloween Spooktacular! ''. We assume that
the Scarlet Witch saw Wanda as the perfect vessel for her energy and possessed her, sharing his immense powers in the process. Along with her previous abilities, Wanda now had strong telepathic and telekinetic abilities, as well as the power to manipulate matter, as we saw in WandaVision. This is probably why Wanda is one of the only beings in the MCU strong enough to take on Thanos. (As Captain Marvel, who sits next to her at the top of the Super Hero League, her abilities are the result of exposure to an Infinity Stone.) In fact, the way the Scarlet Witch manifests is reminiscent of how the Phoenix Force appears to the X-Men Jean Grey. In the comics, Wanda and Jean are beings from the Nexus and possess the ability to influence the odds. Knowing that 10-year-old Wanda unknowingly wielded a probability spell and hints from Episode 7 that the MCU Wanda also has connections to the Nexus, suggests that her abilities made her the perfect host for the Scarlet Witch. . reality modification. . The question is: can Wanda control this chaos magic? Jean Gray has always had a problem with the Phoenix, and even a witch as strong as Agatha Harkness believed (and perhaps even hoped) that Chaos Magic was a myth. Traditionally, with great power comes great responsibility, but can Wanda handle it?
What is chaos magic in Marvel Comics?
It's already clear from WandaVision that the MCU strain of Chaos Magic is a ridiculously powerful form of magic that gives its wielders the power to reconstruct reality as they see fit; You're not going to turn an entire city into one. Sitcom with some incantation. delusions. In the comics,
Chaos Magic dates back thousands of years. Chthon was one of the elder gods and a demon who used his chaos magic abilities to subjugate Earth, where he was known as the god of chaos. He was struck down by a group of mages, who managed to trap him inside Mount Wundagore in the Eastern European country of Transia.
(Image credit: Marvel Studios) Thousands of years later, this is where the comic book version of Wanda Maximoff was born and some of Chthon's chaos energy was passed on to the child. This enhanced Wanda's natural mutant abilities, much like the Mind Stone enhanced MCU Wanda's abilities. This means there is a reasonable chance that the MCU's Scarlet Witch entity will play a similar role to Chthon in the comics- How will Chaos Magic play out in the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness?
What does this mean for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness?
In the comics,
Agatha Harkness trained Wanda to make the most of the chaos magic she previously used instinctively.. We're still not sure what the MCU Agatha's motives are, while her efforts to determine the source of Wanda's power seem bleak, there's a chance her goal is to protect Earth from a dangerous magical force, but she does. .You can also offer to take on Wanda. as student. Whether Agatha has a role to play in the MCU beyond WandaVision, the Sorcerer Supreme, aka Doctor Strange, will have a duty to take an interest in Wanda's abilities and make sure they don't threaten her. In the comics, Strange was initially skeptical of the existence of Chaos Magic, but now that a giant energy field has turned the inhabitants of a city into sitcom characters, the MCU incarnation will have to take notice. Perhaps the next Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (which will no doubt include Wanda when it arrives in 2022) will introduce Ms. Maximoff to Sorcerer Supreme training to make the most of her Scarlet Witch abilities? New episodes of WandaVision are available every Friday on Disney Plus.