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Multiverse of Madness: Could Wanda's Attempt At Redemption Have Actually Made Things Worse?

What dwells within Mount Wundagore?

By Kristy AndersonPublished 2 years ago 5 min read
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Credit: Disney.

After months of speculation about what her role in the film would be, it is now apparent that the Scarlet Witch is in fact the villain of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, as she seeks to steal the universe-jumping powers of America Chavez in order to regain her lost children, brutally eliminating anyone who gets in her way.. However, in a twist hinted at back in the post-credits scene of WandaVision, it was revealed that her mind has been corrupted by the influence of the Darkhold, an ancient book of dark magic created by the Elder God Chthon.

Forced to confront herself at the end of the film, Wanda shakes the Darkhold's influence, and destroys the evil book in every universe, as well as destroying Mount Wundagore, which had the Darkhold's spells carved into it's walls. While the biggest question for most fans is whether or not the Scarlet Witch survived the collapse of Wundagore, some are now fearing that Wanda's attempt at redeeming herself could have inadvertently made things made things much worse, depending on whether or not the MCU takes into account certain comic book elements relating to the history of the Darkhold's creator, Chthon.

The early days of the MCU's Elder Gods

Credit: Marvel.

In the Marvel Comics version of Earth's history, the sentient life-force of the Earth's bio-sphere, known as the Demiurge, created the Elder Gods soon after the planet's birth. The most notable among them were Chthon and his siblings, Set, Oshtur, and Gaea. While Oshtur departed relatively early to explore other worlds, the rest of the Elder Gods ruled over Earth for millions of years. During this time, Chthon studied mystical forces and became the Earth's first Black Mage. At some point, he created the Other Realm, a world of his own to occasionally escape to.

Over time, the Elder Gods became corrupted and slowly degenerated into demons, fighting to control the planet. During this period, Chthon began writing a series of scrolls that would eventually become the Darkhold, in the location of the future Mount Wundagore.

A Deal is struck, and The Darkhold is born

Credit: Marvel

Gaea, The only Earth-bound Elder God to avoid corruption, feared for the impact the conflict between her now-demonic siblings would have on the new life forming in Earth's oceans.. the very first stages of what would eventually become humanity. To protect Earth, Gaea visits and mates with the Demiurge, resulting in a son, Atum, who soon became Demogorge, the God Eater, and dispatched many of the lesser Elder Gods turned Demons.

With the threat of Demogorge behind her, Gaea negotiated a deal with her remaining siblings. Chthon and Set would each be banished to their own realms, while Earth would belong to Gaea. Unbeknownst to Gaea, Chthon had scattered his scrolls over the Earth before departing to the Other Realm. These scrolls were eventually found and gathered by humans into a single volume, the Darkhold, which allowed Chthon to spread influence on Earth despite is inability to travel there. Any human who used the power of the Darkhold would forfeit their soul to Chthon.

Chthon is bound to Mount Wundagore

Credit: Marvel.

While Chthon himself could not go to Earth, he could send the monsters he created, and his influence continued to grow through the souls that came to him through the Darkhold. During Arthurian times, the Sorceress Morgan Le Fay founded a cult around the Darkhold, and planned a ritual to summon Chthon to Earth under the belief that he would do their bidding. Chthon let them believe this, as being summoned by humans provided a loophole by which he could travel to Earth without violating his agreement with Gaea.

The ritual took place at Mount Wundagore, where the first pages of the Darkhold had been written. However, when Le Fay's cult realised that Chthon could not be controlled, they worked quickly to correct their mistake, performing a spell to bind Chthon to a single location. While Chthon could now technically leave the Other Realm for Earth, he remained trapped within Mount Wundagore when he did. While Chthon has made numerous attempts to bypass this restriction over the years, including possessing Wanda Maximoff, he is always eventually thwarted by various configurations of Marvel Heroes, or most often, Wanda herself, and remains, for the most part, trapped in the Other Realm.

What could all this mean for the MCU?

Credit: Disney.

This brings us, unfortunately, back to Wanda's possible mistake. After being forced to travel to Mount Wundagore with the Scarlet Witch in Multiverse of Madness, Wong briefly mentions Chthon as the being that originally carved the Darkhold's spells into the mountain. However, this reference my not be the last of the character's MCU involvement.

After finally fighting off the Darkhold's influence at the end of the film, Wanda destroys every universe's copy of the Darkhold, as well as Mount Wundagore itself, to prevent others from being corrupted by it. But while the Darkhold might be out of the picture, there is still the matter of it’s creator, Chthon. As mentioned earlier, Chthon is bound to Wundagore when visiting Earth in the comics, but for the most part, exists in the Other Realm. However, storylines are often simplified in the MCU for the sake of more casual viewers. This has lead some fans to speculate that the MCU’s Chthon may simply be trapped inside Mount Wundagore.

If this is in fact the case, then Wanda’s decision to destroy Mount Wundagore, while made with the best of intentions, may have freed Chthon and created an eventual big problem. While this problem may be at least partially Wanda’s fault, the heroes of the MCU better hope she survived Wundagore’s collapse, as they are probably going to need her help.

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About the Creator

Kristy Anderson

Passionate About all things Entertainment!

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