Wanda Maximoff (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Wanda Maximoff, also known as the Scarlet Witch, is a character portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise who is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. In the franchise, Wanda is depicted as a Sokovian refugee who, along with her twin brother Pietro, volunteers to be experimented on by Hydra. The Mind Stone amplifies her natural telekinetic and energy manipulation abilities known as Chaos Magic. Wanda initially comes into conflict with the Avengers but later joins them and becomes one of the most powerful members. 
Wanda was introduced in an uncredited cameo during the 2014 film "" and has since become a central MCU character, appearing in five films within the series . The character also has a lead role in the 2021 Disney+ miniseries "WandaVision", and will also appear in the upcoming film "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness".
Background.
Scarlet Witch debuted, alongside her twin brother, Quicksilver, as a part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in "X-Men" #4 (March 1964). They were depicted as reluctant villains, uninterested in Magneto's ideologies. Scarlet Witch was depicted as introverted and disdainful of her teammates. 
Stan Lee, author of the "Avengers" comic book, composed the team of Marvel's most prominent heroes. However, he eventually altered the team roster, removing all but Captain America, and added villains from other comics: the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver from the X-Men, and Hawkeye from Iron Man's adventures in "Tales of Suspense". The team was known as "Cap's Kooky Quartet." Although common in later years, such a change in the roster of a superhero group was completely unprecedented. Scarlet Witch would now become a lasting member of the team.
Some years later, "Avengers" writer Roy Thomas started a long-running romantic relationship between the Scarlet Witch and the Vision, considering that it would help with the series' character development. He selected those characters because they were only published in the "Avengers" comic book, so it would not interfere with other publications.
Adaptation and appearances.
In the 1990s, Marvel licensed the filming rights of the X-Men and related concepts, such as mutants, to 20th Century Fox. Fox created a film series based on the franchise. Years later, Marvel started its own film franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, focused on the characters that they had not licensed to other studios, such as the Avengers. The main core of this franchise was the Avengers, both in standalone films and the successful "The Avengers" film. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were disputed by both studios. Fox would claim the rights over them because they were both mutants and children of Magneto, the villain of most of their films, and Marvel would claim those rights because the editorial history of the characters in comic books is more associated with the Avengers rather than the X-Men. The studios made an agreement so that both of them would use the characters. It was made on the condition that the plots do not make reference to the other studio's properties: the Fox films cannot mention them as members of the Avengers, and the Marvel films cannot mention them as mutants or children of Magneto. Despite this deal, films in the Fox "X-Men" series did not feature Scarlet Witch.
In May 2013, Joss Whedon considered Saoirse Ronan to be his "prototype" actress for the part, but by August of that year, Elizabeth Olsen had been cast for the role. Olsen has since played Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Olsen noted that when Joss Whedon offered her the role, he said "[wh]en you go home and Google her, just know you will never ever have to wear what she wears in the comics", and, in keeping with this, Maximoff's comic book costume was ignored in favor of more casual clothing. She first appeared, as well as Quicksilver, in a mid-credits scene of the 2014 film ' as a prisoner of Baron Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann). Scarlet Witch became a supporting character in the 2015 film ', where the siblings initially conspire with Ultron (James Spader) but later defect to the Avengers. Quicksilver dies in the ensuing conflict while Wanda goes on to become a member of Captain America's Avengers. She appears in the 2016 film '. Both Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson signed multi-picture deals. Olsen reprises the role in the 2018 film ' and its 2019 sequel "" and will appear in the upcoming film "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness". In the films, her powers are telekinetic and telepathic abilities, which she gained by volunteering as a test subject in Hydra experiments to create supersoldiers, by exposing her to the Mind Stone. Therefore, both she and her brother are described in the films as "enhanced humans", as opposed to the naturally-occurring mutants they are in the comics.
By September 2018, Marvel Studios began developing several limited series for Disney's streaming service, Disney+, to be centered on "second tier" characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe films who had not and were unlikely to star in their own films, such as Scarlet Witch, with Elizabeth Olsen expected to reprise her role. The title of this show was later revealed to be "WandaVision", co-starring Paul Bettany as the Vision. It premiered in January 2021. As the show is premised on Maximoff and Vision appearing in a sitcom (apparently constructed by Maximoff to escape her grief over Vision's real-world death), her appearance throughout the series reflects the clothing styles of sitcom characters across different decades of the genre. By the finale, having fully embraced her identity as the Scarlet Witch, Maximoff gains a new costume reflecting a more modern version of her comic counterpart.
Characterization.
Wanda is first fully introduced in "" as the twin sister of Pietro Maximoff who can engage in hypnosis and telekinesis. Olsen felt Wanda was "overly stimulated" rather than "mentally insane" because "she has such a vast amount of knowledge that she's unable to learn how to control it. No one taught her how to control it properly... she can connect to this world and parallel worlds at the same time, and parallel times." Describing her character's mind control powers, Olsen said that the character is able to do more than manipulating someone's mind, with Scarlet Witch able to "feel and see what they feel and see" by projecting visions that they have never seen. Olsen expanded upon this, saying, "What I love about her is that, in so many superhero films, emotions are kind of negated a bit, but for her everything that someone else could feel—like their weakest moments—she physically goes through that same experience with them, which is pretty cool." Olsen drew on her relationship with her older brother and her sisters to prepare for the role, as well as looking to the comics for inspiration. Olsen revealed that Whedon was inspired by dancers as a way to visually represent how the character moves. As such, Olsen mostly trained with dancer Jennifer White in lieu of traditional stunt training.
In "", Wanda allies with Steve Rogers against the Sokovia Accords. According to Olsen, the character is "coming into her own and starting to understand and have conflict with how she wants to use her abilities." As such, Wanda's costume was "relatively casual" and "more clothes-based than superhero-based" according to Makovsky, since the Russo brothers believed Wanda was not a full-fledged Avenger yet. When asked about the relationship between her character and the Vision compared to the comics, Olsen said, "You learn a little bit more about what connects [Scarlet and Vision] in this film. And I think there's some really sweet moments between Paul and I, and it's more about how they relate to one another and their similarities just based on their superpowers."
In "", Olsen explains that Wanda and Vision have maintained a romance while Wanda remains in hiding and are "trying to within that time find points of meeting in different places in order to try and forward our relationship." Paul Bettany described it as the most emotional arc for the characters. In early drafts of "Infinity War" and "Endgame", the screenwriters had Wanda survive the snap and participate more substantially in the events of "Endgame", while still mourning Vision, but this angle was ultimately dropped because "she'd gotten so much mileage and story in the first movie that she didn't really have anything that equaled that in the second."
In "WandaVision", Olsen said the character is brought more in line with the comic book version, including depicting her mental illness, while introducing the "Scarlet Witch" moniker that was not previously used in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Marvel Studios executive producer Kevin Feige said the series explores the extent and origin of Wanda's powers. Olsen felt her "ownership" of Wanda was strengthened during development of the series, which allowed her to explore new parts of the character's personality such as her humor and sassiness. She was thrilled that "WandaVision" focuses on Wanda rather than making her a supporting character as in the films, and was sold on joining the series when Feige mentioned specific Scarlet Witch comic storylines that inspired "WandaVision". Olsen was influenced by Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, and Lucille Ball for her performance. Michaela Russell portrays a young Wanda.
Fictional character biography.
Childhood and origin.
Born in 1989, Wanda grew up with her twin brother Pietro Maximoff and her parents in an apartment in the country of Sokovia in Eastern Europe during a war. As a child, she enjoyed watching American sitcoms, which her father sold as DVD boxed sets. The family also practiced speaking English in the household, hoping to someday leave their war-torn country and migrate to America. After a missile blew up their apartment and killed their parents, Wanda and Pietro were stuck inside the damaged building for two days after a second Stark Industries missile flew in. However, the missile never went off as Wanda had unknowingly cast a probability hex, turning the missile into a dud. When the twins were young adults, they volunteered as test subjects for Hydra. After being exposed to the Mind Stone, Wanda's powers were amplified and greater enhanced.
In 2014, Wanda is introduced as a volunteer test subject in a Hydra facility in Sokovia commanded by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. She and Pietro are the only survivors of Strucker's experiments using the scepter.
Meeting Ultron and joining the Avengers.
In 2015, the Avengers—Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, and Clint Barton—raid Strucker's Hydra facility and encounter Wanda and Pietro, with Wanda using her telepathic abilities to interfere with their attack. Stark and Banner subsequently use an artificial intelligence within the scepter's gem to complete Stark's "Ultron" global defense program, and the unexpectedly sentient Ultron, believing he must eradicate humanity to save Earth, recruits Wanda and Pietro, who hold Stark responsible for their parents' deaths by his company's weapons. The Avengers attack Ultron in Johannesburg, but Wanda subdues them with haunting visions, causing Banner to turn into the Hulk and rampage through the city. Ultron travels to Seoul and uses the scepter to enslave Dr. Helen Cho, using her synthetic-tissue technology, vibranium, and the Mind Stone to craft a new body. As Ultron uploads himself into the body, Wanda reads his mind and discovers his plan for human extinction. She and Pietro turn against Ultron and join the Avengers at the Avengers Tower. After Stark, Banner, and Thor cooperate to turn the captured synthetic body into the "Vision", Wanda and Pietro join the Avengers to Sokovia, where Ultron has used the remaining vibranium to build a machine to lift a large part of the capital city skyward, intending to crash it into the ground to cause global extinction. Barton befriends Wanda and encourages her to join the Avengers in the fight against Ultron. Wanda senses Pietro's death and abandons her post to destroy Ultron's primary body, which allows one of his drones to activate the machine. Vision rescues Wanda from the collapsing center of the city. Afterwards, the Avengers establish a new team roster at the Avengers Compound led by Rogers and Romanoff, featuring Wanda, Vision, James Rhodes, and Sam Wilson.
Later, Vision visits Wanda in her bedroom and comforts her over Pietro's death.
Avengers Civil War.
In 2016, Rogers, Romanoff, Wilson, and Wanda stop Brock Rumlow from stealing a biological weapon from a lab in Lagos. Rumlow blows himself up, attempting to kill Rogers, but Wanda telekinetically contains the explosion and throws it upward, accidentally killing several Wakandan humanitarian workers, to her dismay. As a result, U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross informs the Avengers that the United Nations (UN) is preparing to pass the Sokovia Accords, which will establish a UN panel to oversee and control the team. Wanda is restricted by Stark to remain at the Avengers Compound, where she is watched over by Vision who attempts to comfort her and the two begin to develop romantic feelings for each other. Rogers and Wilson go rogue to aid Bucky Barnes and send Barton to retrieve Wanda, who rejects Vision's attempts to stop her and goes with Barton. They pick up Scott Lang and meet Rogers's team at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany, but are intercepted by Stark's team where they fight until Romanoff allows Rogers and Barnes to escape. Wanda, Barton, Lang, and Wilson are captured and detained at the Raft, until Rogers breaks them out.
Infinity War and resurrection.
In 2018, Wanda and Vision have begun a romantic relationship while living off the grid in Edinburgh. They are ambushed by Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive, members of the Children of Thanos sent to retrieve the Mind Stone. Rogers, Romanoff, and Wilson rescue them and take them to the Avengers Compound, meeting with Rhodes and Banner. Vision asks Wanda to destroy the Stone, but she refuses. Rogers suggests they travel to Wakanda, which he believes has the resources to remove the Stone without destroying Vision. As Shuri works to extract the Mind Stone from Vision, Wanda is tasked to stay and watch over Vision until the Stone is out. After the Outriders invade and overwhelm the Avengers on the battlefield, Wanda leaves her post to help her teammates, also killing Midnight. She witnesses the arrival of Thanos and is forced to destroy the Mind Stone and Vision, but Thanos uses the Time Stone to reverse her actions. He rips the repaired Mind Stone from Vision's forehead, killing him. Thanos knocks out a horrified Wanda and activates the completed Infinity Gauntlet, snaps his fingers, and Wanda disintegrates while holding on to Vision's corpse.
In 2023, Wanda is restored to life and is brought to the destroyed Avengers Compound to join the final battle against an alternate Thanos. Wanda confronts him directly, being the first one in the battle to successfully overpower Thanos one-on-one. After disarming him of his weapon, she begins crushing him with her powers, leaving him no choice but to order his warship to fire on the battlefield in order to escape her hold. 
She assists Carol Danvers as she tries to charge towards the quantum tunnel, taking out a portion of Thanos' army and a Leviathan. This proves unsuccessful as Thanos destroys the tunnel, though Thanos and his army are ultimately defeated when Stark sacrifices his own life to use the stones. After the battle, Wanda attends Stark's funeral and reunites with Barton, where they comfort each other over the deaths of Vision and Romanoff.
Life in Westview.
Two weeks after being restored to life, Wanda drives to S.W.O.R.D. Headquarters to retrieve Vision's body. After meeting with S.W.O.R.D acting director Tyler Hayward, she is shown Vision being experimented on and realizes she can no longer sense him. She drives to Westview, New Jersey to view a vacant lot Vision purchased for the two "to grow old in" prior to 2018. Overcome with grief, Wanda accidentally unleashes waves of chaos magic that transforms Westview into a sitcom-themed false reality, cut off from the outside world by a hexagonal barrier. She materializes a new "Vision" that lacks any prior memories and starts living in the Hex, where she and Vision are newly-married and try to live their ideal suburban life. A week later, Wanda attempts to befriend her neighbors while occasionally needing to conceal her and Vision's powers. She soon becomes visibly pregnant. As Wanda's pregnancy progresses, she is visited by "Geraldine" (Monica Rambeau) and gives birth to twin boys Tommy and Billy. She mentions that she was also a twin, prompting "Geraldine" to recall Pietro's death. After Wanda sees "Geraldine's" pendant with a sword emblem on it, she casts her out of Westview. When Vision returns in the house, he appears as a corpse before being reset by Wanda. As Wanda's children age rapidly, S.W.O.R.D. sends a drone into Westview and attempts to kill Wanda on the orders of Hayward. Enraged, Wanda walks out of Westview with the drone, warning Hayward to leave her alone. Rambeau, seeing Wanda as an ally, tells her she can help but Wanda says she has what she wants. Wanda leaves them, fortifies the hexagonal barrier, and re-enters Westview. Back in Westview, Wanda and Vision argue about what is really going on, but are interrupted when a man claiming to be Pietro appears. During a Halloween festival, Wanda reveals to "Pietro" that she doesn't know what happened to her, except that she felt alone and empty, which seemingly made her create the Hex. After she learns that Vision had breached the hexagonal barrier, she expands the Hex.
Facing Agatha Harkness.
Due to expanding the Hex, Wanda starts losing control of it and is surprised to see Rambeau again in Westview, who attempts to warn her about Hayward. Before they can talk any further, Wanda's neighbor "Agnes" interrupts them and takes Wanda to her house, only to lure her into an underground demonic lair where she reveals her true identity as the sorceress Agatha Harkness. Agatha then puts her under a trance, leading Wanda through her past. She is forced to relive her memories of trauma and what she had lost throughout her life from her parents' death, her brother's death, Vision, and her new home at the Avengers Compound. Agatha releases her from the trance and Wanda leaves Agatha's house, only to find her holding Tommy and Billy captive on the street. Agatha then tells her that she is a powerful being capable of spontaneous creation who can harness chaos magic, and reveals that she is in fact the mythical entity known as the Scarlet Witch. Wanda attacks Agatha, who reveals that her ability is absorbing magical power, and frees Tommy and Billy. Wanda is then met by the reactivated real Vision who, not remembering who she is, attacks her, but the Hex "Vision" fends him off. She goes into Westview's town square and is attacked by Agatha, who informs her about a chapter in the "Darkhold" devoted to her, and states that she is even more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme, and can destroy the world as the "Harbinger of Chaos". Agatha then frees the Westview residents from the spell, allowing them to reveal to Wanda that her spell has been causing them to share all her repressed grief and nightmares. Overwhelmed by the residents demanding answers, Wanda accidentally loses control of her powers and chokes them. Horrified at the realization of what she has done, Wanda starts bringing down the Hex to free the townspeople, but restores it when Hex Vision, Tommy, and Billy start fading away. S.W.O.R.D. agents and Hayward infiltrate Westview, and after Agatha attacks some agents, Wanda saves them, and pursues her on top of a building. There Wanda tries to trap Agatha in a hallucination of 1693 Salem, but it backfires. Agatha breaks free from the hallucination and Wanda blasts her, but Agatha retaliates by absorbing her magic energy and life force. Taking the fight into the sky, Agatha attempts to kill Wanda, but finds that her powers no longer work. Wanda reveals that she imprinted protection runes on the boundaries of the Hex, rendering Agatha powerless. Wanda ultimately claims her true identity as the Scarlet Witch, and imprisons Agatha in Westview as "Agnes" after informing her that she would be back if she needs her. She takes down the Hex and tearfully says goodbye to Tommy, Billy, and Hex Vision. Standing in the empty house lot, she walks into the town square and meets with a sympathetic Rambeau. Wanda apologizes for the pain she has caused and vows to better understand her powers. She and Rambeau say goodbye and Wanda flies away from Westview.
Exile and the Multiverse of Madness.
After leaving Westview, Wanda goes into hiding, fleeing to live remotely in a mountainside cabin in Sokovia. There she studies the Darkhold to learn more about her powers, but suddenly stops when she hears what appears to be Tommy and Billy calling out for help.
Powers and abilities.
Wanda has the ability to harness chaos magic, which typically presents itself in telekinesis, telepathy, and energy manipulation/projection.
In ", Wanda's powers are mostly telekinetic and semi-telepathic. She is shown moving objects with her mind and engaging in hypnosis, inducing nightmarish-like images into the heads of four Avengers. She also displays moments of energy projection, including when she took out an army of Ultron's drones with a wave of energy and created energy shields to protect herself and Sokovian citizens from the crossfire.
In ", Wanda's powers have advanced and her telekinesis is strong enough to let her hold up the debris of a falling building as well as allow her to engage in hovering in the air. Her energy manipulation now allows her to, in a fight with Vision, forcibly manipulate his density by controlling the Mind Stone. 
In ", Wanda is capable of throwing energy bolts. Vision reveals that due to Wanda's powers being linked to the Mind Stone, she is able to use her powers to destroy it, which she later does. She also is shown to be able to telepathically communicate with the Stone when she tries to figure out why Vision is in pain. In Wakanda, she was able to lift and release large alien threshers with her powers. 
In her brief appearance in ", Wanda is able to lift large pieces of rubble from the destroyed Avengers Headquarters and hurl it at Thanos, as well as breaking his sword in half, which has already been shown to be stronger than vibranium. She is able to levitate Thanos into the air and strip portions of his armor off, until he disrupts her efforts by ordering a blitz. 
The live-action series "WandaVision" explores her ability to warp reality like her comic counterpart. Wanda releases waves of chaos magic which accidentally creates a reinforced CMBR force-field (known as "The Maximoff Anomaly" or "The Hex") over the town of Westview, New Jersey, rewriting everything and everyone inside to be part of her own fictional reality that presents itself as a television sitcom. The rewrite occurs on a molecular level, meaning her powers allow her to manipulate molecules. Darcy Lewis informs Monica Rambeau that her DNA is being molecularly rewritten after she passed through the CMBR field, and Rambeau develops light-related superhuman abilities after entering the CMBR field a third time. Later, it is revealed that Wanda was born as a witch and would unknowingly engage in basic hex magic as a child. During a trip through her memories with Agatha, Wanda's parents were killed by a missile in their apartment, a second one from Stark Industries came in. Wanda used a simple probability hex to turn the missile into a dud, saving her and Pietro. However, the two were unaware this was because of Wanda. After HYDRA testing with the Mind Stone, her powers were enhanced. Agatha tells Wanda that she is the only person who is able to engage in chaos magic, making her the mythical Scarlet Witch.
As she begins to fight Agatha, she embraces her true self, manifesting many new magical abilities such as teleportation, rune-casting and power absorption, with her energy blasts also becoming more concentrated. She has significantly better control over her magic, being able to consciously manipulate reality with ease, such as instantly altering her clothes into her uniform and reverting Agatha back into 'Agnes', this time truly under her will. Wanda is later shown having a secluded life while also using an astral projection of herself studying the "Darkhold" now in her possession.
Differences from the comics.
Maximoff in the MCU initially "possesses a drastically different powerset to her comic book counterpart," having been described less as a wielder of actual magic and more as "a Jean Grey analogue, gifted with both telepathic and telekinetic powers," with her abilities in the MCU being derived at least in part from experiments in which she was exposed to the Mind Stone. , Magneto and other characters from the X-Men franchise have not been introduced into the MCU because Marvel Studios didn't own the rights for the X-Men until early 2019, and therefore no mention has been made of Maximoff's traditional depiction as the daughter of Magneto.
In addition, the Maximoff twins have been depicted as Romani characters in Marvel Comics since 1979. They were ethnically ambiguous for the first 15 years of their publication history, after which they were shown to have been adopted and raised by a Romani couple. It was later revealed that their biological father was Magneto and their mother was Magda Eisenhardt, a Romani woman he met in a concentration camp during World War II.
In a later ret-con, Wanda and Pietro discover that Magneto was not their father after all, and they are not mutants. Their mother was actually Natalya Maximoff, the biological sister of the twins' adoptive father. She passed on the title "The Scarlet Witch" to her daughter, and the biological father is assumed to also be from the Romani community. This makes the twins fully Romani by blood.
However in "WandaVision", she is revealed to be a powerful sorceress, the only being currently capable of wielding chaos magic. The series explores her ability to manipulate reality like her comic counterpart. 
While it is maintained that her abilities emerged from the Mind Stone, she is retconned into having possessed the latent ability to wield Chaos Magic since birth, and the Mind Stone simply unlocked these dormant abilities while giving her the additional powers she has been seen using up until "".
Reception.
NPR described the character as "a confused and grief-stricken product of experimentation, saddled with powers she doesn't understand and struggles to control, becomes the Scarlet Witch - one of the most powerful figures in the Marvel Cinematic Universe"
Following the release of "Avengers: Endgame", Rachel Leishman of the feminist "geek site" "The Mary Sue" wrote that Maximoff "isn't the most fleshed out of characters because she is often tied down to a male character and very rarely does anything but kill people accidentally," but that ' provided "the Wanda Maximoff who understands her placement among the Avengers and her abilities," and by ', Maximoff is "taking on her position as one of the new leaders of the Avengers." A Vulture review of the subsequent television miniseries, "WandaVision" states that "Olsen and Bettany's characters were often treated like benchwarmers on an all-star team in the Avengers movies. Here, they really shine".