Scarlet Witch

Now that the MCU has finally discovered (and wasted) the power of Scarlet Witch the comic book world has caught back up. Her newest solo series is releasing and the world will hopefully get to see the power of the Scarlet Witch again. As far as we know this is going to be an ongoing series, the first granted to miss Wanda Maximoff. Up until now she has only received a limited solo run and a joint solo series with The Vision. We could certainly talk about why it took so long for Wanda to finally get her own ongoing series but I feel like we all know the answer already.

Despite not having a series of her own she has been the center point for plenty of team stories including House of M, Avengers vs X-Men and The Children’s Crusade and the latest arc The Trial of Magneto. The latter being where her solo series is going to pick up. Now it's no secret that the Scarlet Witch is my favorite comic book character of all time, but I promise to be objective in my review of this series, if anything I will be harsher on this series then the other female led outings Marvel has coming up.

The Scarlet Witch has been through a lot in the world of comics, being labeled a villian, being depowered and joining a long list of women that fall under the “overpowered women” trope. That said the MCU had done a reasonable job of breaking her of those tropes at least until Multiverse of Madness where Waldron went full sexist and demonstrated that he absolutely and fundamentally does not understand the characters he's writing for. Because let's be clear, all current comic book writers and screenwriters SHOULD be at the mercy of the characters. The characters have been established for decades therefore it is very obvious when they make something happen outside of the characters personality and motivations. Waldron doesn’t know or understand these characters and therefore he destroys them in order to fit his terrible story ideas (another reason why plot driven stories written by bad writers are garbage).

Hopefully we will avoid these problems in her new series. Wanda will pick up where we left off after The Trial of Magneto. Comic book writers have a very good way of making each new series not rely on a past series, however if you feel the need to get caught up then one should read Hellfire Gala and the Trial of Magneto. That said, a quick recap is that Trial of Magneto opens with the autopsy of the Scarlet Witch who was seemingly killed by her father, Magneto. This of course causes deeply emotional responses from Magneto, Quicksilver and all of her teammates. Honestly a lot happens but really you should buy and read this one because it features some truly beautiful art by Lucas Werneck, and David Messina as well as wonderful storytelling from Leah Williams (we all know I like it when women centered stories are actually written by women).

I hope this series runs for much longer than her previous solo outings, especially considering that we have no idea when we are going to see her on the big (or small) screen again. That said, I truly hope this run doesn’t fall into some of the same mistakes, tropes and problems that Wanda has been shoved into in the past. She deserves better than what a lot of her appearances consisted of. It looks promising, story wise at least and it does start with Wanda at peace, but writers just love that overpowered women trope so we will see how long that actually lasts.