Scarlet Witch

Next up on our list of comic book recommendations is the one, the only Scarlet Witch. Now I really had to narrow this down because if you have followed me for longer than two seconds then you know that Wanda is my favorite comic book character so I have many recommendations for general enjoyment but I will try my best to keep them as MCU related as possible.

Let’s start with her first appearance in Age of Ultron, now I think at this point we can all agree that the MCU completely butchered my poor Wanda’s origin story. We started okay with her and Quicksilver being introduced together, but killing off Quicksilver also killed off a metric fuck ton of her storylines. Anyway let's go with some Ultron featured comics to start, Age of Ultron #1-10, these are absolutely nothing like the movie so expect next to no similarities. Avengers #55 from 1968 contains the first appearance of Ultron and The Avengers #57 contains the first appearance of Vision.

For WandaVision fans I highly recommend Vision and the Scarlet Witch the volume collects Giant Size Avengers #4 from 1974, Vision and the Scarlet Witch all four issues from 1982 and all 12 issues from 1985, as well as West Coast Avengers #2 from 1985. These cover the intimacies and arc of their relationship pretty well. They are a couple that has been through a lot of ups and downs in the comics. Surviving love triangles, Vision having a different family, loss of memory and the Scarlet Witch overpowering Wanda’s goodness. Theirs is actually one of the most intriguing Marvel relationships and more than worth reading about.

Now here are my other recommendations for Wanda Maximoff stories because I think everyone should be reading her all of the time. Let's start with one of the greatest feats in comic book history and that is House of M, perfect for anyone who has regular arguments regarding how powerful Wanda actually is. Another good comic to support those debates is Avengers vs X-Men. Now of course if you want more about her origins and inner thoughts I highly recommend her solo series, both the old and the new. She just got her own (hopefully ongoing) series at the start of this year. Both her solo series published in 2016 and the one that started this year are great explorations of her character. Finally I want to talk about her time on the West coast Avengers. Now this title houses a good chunk of her appearances, she even led the team for a period of time. I’m not telling you to read all of the West Coast Avengers (Or Avengers West Coast as they retitled the series for no reason at all), that would be ridiculous. I would however like to point you towards Darker Than Scarlet which collects West Coast Avengers issues #51-57 and #60-62, this storyline has some great family drama as it also includes Magneto and Quicksilver (Something also present in House of M).

Really you can’t go wrong with Scarlet Witch comics, I am a firm believer that you should read all of them, though that would take you a little while. We are at the point where Wanda has appeared in nearly 1,200 comic books. As the MCU decides to expand on her character I really hope they draw from her rich comic book storylines. As the MCU stands now there are many directions they could go that include storylines that already exist in the comics. As a fan I hope that they stop ruining my favorite character and go back to giving her the respect that she deserves.