hi i've just barely started getting into marvel stuff and i'm kind of interested in reading the scarlet witch comics. where should i start?
This is not a comprehensive reading guide. It is a walkthrough of the various stories that establish who Wanda is, where she’s from, what her powers are, and everything that happened with her children and the Decimation.
Wanda is a particularly fluid character-- various aspects of her backstory have been retconned, and her powers are constantly being altered and reinterpreted. If you’re confused about Wanda’s ethnic and cultural identity, I’d recommend reading this post. I also wrote this breakdown on the Maximoff family’s powers, which goes into detail on how Wanda’s abilities have changed and evolved over time.
Scarlet Witch Reading List
X-Men Vol 1 #4-11; Wanda and Pietro first appear as teenage members of the Mutant Brotherhood.
Avengers Vol 1 #16-27; the twins join the Avengers alongside Hawkeye, a fellow “former villain.” Wanda and Pietro stay on as main Avengers characters for several years.
Avengers Vol 1 #128; Wanda is introduced to Agatha Harkness. This marks Wanda’s first foray into witchcraft and the study of magic.
Avengers Vol 1 #181-183 introduces Django Maximoff, an older Romani man who raised Wanda and Pietro as their adoptive father, and who the twins had previously believed dead.
Avengers Vol 1 #185-188; Django and the twins travel to their homeland, Transia, a Balkan country at the foot of Mount Wundagore. Wanda and Pietro learn that they were born on the mountainside, and that their biological mother, Magda, died shortly thereafter. Wanda discovers that Mount Wundagore is inhabited by an evil chaos god named Chthon, who attempts to possess her via his grimoire, the Darkhold.
Giant-Size Avengers #4; Wanda and Vision are married in a double ceremony with Mantis and Swordsman. This is an important turning point in a crossover event called the Celestial Madonna Saga. Wanda is present throughout this story, but you don’t need to read all of it if you’re just focusing on her.
Vision & The Scarlet Witch (1982), a miniseries, and Vision & The Scarlet Witch (1985), a twelve-issue limited run, explore Wanda and Vision’s married life. Wanda gives birth to twin sons, William and Thomas. Pietro’s daughter, Luna, is also born. The Maximoffs learn that Magneto is their birth father, and it is clarified that Magda was a Romani woman, which finally establishes their full ethnic and cultural identity.
Avengers West Coast #42-62; Vision’s memories and emotions are erased, and Wanda’s children are later destroyed by Mephisto. These events were engineered by the time traveller Immortus, who has identified Wanda as a “Nexus.” By weakening Wanda’s emotional state and artificially enhancing her powers, Immortus sought to transform her into a reality-warping entity under his control. Instead, she suffers a mental breakdown and becomes apparently “evil.” Pietro and their allies save Wanda, and she returns to normal.
Force Works (1994). Wanda was a main character in this 22-issue series, but it has little bearing on her storyline moving forward.
Scarlet Witch (1995); a five-issue miniseries which expands on the concept of Nexus Beings.
Marvel Comics Presents Vol 1 #60-63; these issues feature a four-part story titled Separate Lives. It’s not important, but it’s my favorite.
Avengers Vol 3 #1-3; similarly to Immortus, Morgan Le Fay takes advantage of Wanda’s unique magical properties to power a reality-altering spell. Wanda is able free herself from Morgan’s control and release this spell.
Avengers Vol 3 #10-11; Wanda returns to her magical focus and uses her skills as a witch to resurrect her teammate Wonder Man. Agatha explains that Wanda has a natural affinity for “chaos magic” because of her connection to Chthon. Chaos magic itself is only defined as natural, powerful, and highly volatile, but it clearly allows Wanda to achieve things that an ordinary magician could not.
Avengers Vol 1 #503-507; a storyline called Chaos which acts as the crux of the Avengers: Disassembled crossover. This marks a dramatic turn for the worse in Wanda’s character. You can read more about why it’s not only poor writing, but wildly offensive, here. Wanda is abruptly reminded of her dead children and suffers a mental breakdown. Her powers seemingly escalate to uncontrollable reality-warping. Several Avengers die in the ensuing chaos, and the Avengers organization is disbanded.
House of M; a sprawling crossover event immediately following Disassembled. Wanda’s reality warping powers create a alternate world where Magneto rules a sovereign mutant nation. Wolverine gathers the few “heroes” who remember the true reality and attempts to murder Wanda in cold blood. In the resulting conflict, Wanda suffers another severe breakdown and dispels the false reality, but, in doing so, she transforms the majority of the Earth’s mutants into baseline humans. This is referred to as the “Decimation” or “M-Day.”
Wanda disappears without a trace following HoM. Several characters who appear to be Wanda do appear throughout the mid-late 2000s but they are all impostors.
Young Avengers Presents: Wiccan & Speed; a single issue story which confirms that Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd of the Young Avengers are Wanda’s lost sons, now reincarnated. Billy and Tommy begin looking for clues to their mother’s whereabouts.
Avengers: Children’s Crusade; the Young Avengers find the Scarlet Witch living as an amnesiac in the custody of Doctor Doom. Wanda recovers her memories, and she explains that her mental state and reality-warping powers were brought about by something called the “Life Force,” which she had channelled, using her Nexus properties, in an effort to resurrect her sons. She tries to use the Life Force to heal the mutants who were affected by M-Day, however, Doom steals the power from her. Wanda and Billy are forced to banish the Life Force before they can put it to good use.
Avengers vs. X-Men; a sprawling crossover event. The Avengers and X-Men butt heads over the return of the Phoenix Force. Wanda discovers that her chaos magic can counter the Phoenix’s power. She works with Hope Summers to banish the Phoenix from Earth. The spell they cast together triggers a proliferation of new mutants to develop. For Wanda, this is a step towards making amends for M-Day.
AXIS; a crossover event from 2014. Wanda is one of several heroes to suffer a “psychic inversion.” During a fight with Magneto, Wanda casts a spell which reveals that he is not her father after all, and that she and Pietro aren’t even mutants. This retcon was mandated by a property conflict between Fox and Marvel Studios, and it was, by all accounts, poorly executed. Don’t bother reading this book.
Uncanny Avengers Vol 2; a five issue miniseries following AXIS. Wanda and Pietro learn that they indeed are not mutants-- their powers were granted by the High Evolutionary, a geneticist who used to live on Mount Wundagore. The Evolutionary experimented on them before they were adopted by Django and Marya.
Scarlet Witch (2016); a fifteen-issue limited run. Wanda returns to her magical focus and has henceforth been written primarily as a witch. Wanda learns her “true” birth mother was Django’s sister, Natalya Maximoff. She learns that the Maximoffs practiced ancestral witchcraft, and that Natalya was known as the Scarlet Witch in her time.
Doctor Strange (2016); Wanda appears periodically throughout this series to team up with Stephen and other magicians. Her personality is fun here and she’s shown to have friendships within the magical community.
Uncanny Avengers Vol 3 #26-30; Wanda joins the Avengers Unity Division and begins a romantic relationship with Jericho Drumm, aka Doctor Voodoo. Wanda, Pietro, and Jericho have been listed as Avengers reserve members since the end of this series.
Avengers Vol 1 #675-690; these issues comprise a story event called Avengers: No Surrender. Wanda and Jericho are present and active throughout. In #688, Wanda uses magic to help Pietro defeat a tricky enemy, but he becomes trapped outside of time.
Quicksilver: No Surrender; Wanda and Jericho appear periodically and use magic to help Pietro. There are flashbacks to Pietro’s early life, and the narration features the best writing on his experiences as a Romani immigrant that I’ve ever seen. This is a must-read for Maximoff fans.
Avengers: No Road Home; a sequel to Avengers: No Surrender; Wanda is among a group of heroes who embark on a quest to stop the goddess Nyx from plunging the Earth into eternal darkness.
Strange Academy; Wanda becomes a faculty member at a magic school run by Stephen, Jericho, and a revolving cast of Marvel magic heroes.
Darkhold (2021); a five issue miniseries in which Doctor Doom unearths the long-hidden Darkhold Alpha, which triggers Chthon’s imminent return to Earth. Wanda fights to prevent this, and realizes that her prior experiences have made her strong enough to finally bind Chthon and his Darkhold, ensuring that he will never possess her again.
Trial of Magneto (2021); Wanda stages her own death, on Krakoan soil, in order to gain access to the mutants’ new resurrection technology. Using her mastery of chaos magic, Wanda is able to enhance the resurrection process such that it can be used to easily, and painlessly, reverse the effects of M-Day. This redeems Wanda and Pietro’s relationship with the mutant community. [this story follows the events of SWORD and X-Factor (2020).]
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