So You Want To Talk About Wanda Maximoff

Or rather, I want to talk about her. She's my favorite Avenger after all. I'm used to defending my fav. I want her to succeed. She's a highly powerful witch that has suffered great loses but can use her tremendous power to help now, right? Well, not according to Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Spoilers ahead.

I'm writing this from an MCU perspective. Wanda has a long comic history that is occasionally translated to the films, more so now than in previous years. I've noticed there is sometimes a big divide between comic and movie fans. Those introduced through the films want Wanda to be a hero, as do a sizeable amount of comic fans. There's plenty out there that hate House of M for what it did to Wanda. But others want her to embrace her dark side and "go crazy." I'm firmly in the hero camp. That's what this post is about. I think Wanda in the MCU works better as a hero, and I'm baffled at the way the Multiverse of Madness was so dead set against it.

One of the things I find the most compelling about Wanda is how her character relates to mental illness. You could easily say she's a character that has suffered from anxiety and depression. In Age of Ultron, she frequently looks anxious. She bites her nails, she often lets Pietro speak first. When she accidentally kills several people in Captain America: Civil War she's shaken to the point where she doesn't make a decision on the accords until she realizes she's being treated as a weapon. Depression is a given, Wanda's entire story has been about the she lost. Per parents, her brother, and then Vision, who she was forced to kill to save the world. Her sadness along with her great power causes her to accidentally create an entire alternate realty in Wandavision - while enslaving an entire town into playing their parts in it - where she gets to have a happy family. When she realizes her mistake, she lets them go. She leaves with a quote that I love "I don't understand these powers, but I will."

But the MCU just can't resist. Why have an empowering story about a woman overcoming all of that and turning into one of the most powerful Avengers when you can have her get possessed by an evil book? The thing that frustrates me the most about MoM, is that they had the option to please everyone. If they really wanted a villainous Wanda, they could've easily had a variant from another universe wreak havoc without torching our Wanda. I knew there was room for fuckery with the stinger in Wandavision. She's meditating with the Darkhold, and hears her children call out. I expected some grey areas, but the sadistic nature we see from her in MoM is so over the top that I have a hard time buying that she threw logic out the window and went this hard.

That's my biggest problem with MoM. The writing for Wanda doesn't make sense. The creators admitted to not finishing Wandavision and it shows. There's no excuse why Wanda couldn't just ASK America for help. She says she wants her power for infinite possibilities, but it still doesn't explain why she resorted to sending demons after this kid first. You're telling me Wanda Maximoff, who was herself orphaned, would immediately jump to killing another (possibly) orphaned girl? Biiiiiiiiiitccchhhh.....

I know the movie can use "because Darkhold" as an excuse all day long, but it isn't satisfying. It's even weaker after Wanda horrifyingly corrected her mistakes in Wandvision. Wanda, if anything has always tried to correct her mistakes. And she made a huge one in Wandavision that she needed to atone for. Bloodthirsty Wanda ain't it. In a better version, our Wanda's curiosity could've gotten the better of her. She could've looked into another universe and found a grieving, OP Wanda who dreamwalks into ours and becomes the show's main villain. Our Wanda could eventually break free with the help of Strange and America, and destroy all Darkholds just like what happened in MoM without it being another Wandavision redux.

Turning Wanda into a mass murder not only harms her, but retroactively ruins her relationship with the Avengers. Steve stuck his neck out for her in Civil War when Tony called her a weapon of mass destruction. Hawkeye deemed her an Avenger. Vision would've lost his damn robot mind to see her take innocent lives like this. Wanda may have mind controlled people in the past, but she never directly murdered anyone. She didn't even kill Agatha Harkness. (and as an aside, where the hell is Vision in all of this? You're telling me Wanda only looked for her kids, but never a reality where she's raising them with Vision? What about Pietro? Oh wait, that would involve actually knowing Wanda's character...) 

I know House of M fans are probably eating this up, but to me, I don't see it as a compelling villain origin story. I see it as the writers shitting all over my favorite character. I want Wanda to be an Avenger. Not...this. The fact that she brings the Darkhold castle down on herself is another slap in the face. I don't truly believe she's dead, but the series could very well say she is. If she isn't, I don't see how she came come back from this any other way than a sacrificial death somewhere down the line. It's such a waste of one the coolest female characters Marvel has to offer. And yes, I am focusing on her being female, because let's face it; Male characters breaking bad are much easier to forgive than women. Society has shown us time and time again that's what happens. Wanda has now been made "too powerful" and must be stopped. It's Jean Gray all over again.

I wanted Wanda to atone for her crimes in Westview. I wanted her to use her newfound powers for good. I wanted to see her team up WITH Doctor Strange. They make a compelling pair. Wanda can be the terrifying Scarlet Witch to her enemies and still be one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. This movie disappointed in me more ways that I could've imagined and I just had to get this off my chest.