Time to look at some of the darkest versions of Marvel’s most tragic characters, or at least one of them. Scarlet Witch has been through a lot in the comics. And I mean, a lot. But what about alternate versions of Wanda? How have they fared? Well, amazingly, some have got it even worse than Earth 616’s Wanda, if you can believe that. And to prove it, we’ll be exploring the top 10 dark alternative versions of the Spellcaster of Marvel. Well, if you like the Scarlet Witch Jacket from the MCU, then you are in for a treat.
Gypsy Witch
Coming to us from Morgan Lafaye’s warped reality, this alternate version of Scarlet Witch was one of the only people remaining untouched by Morgan’s powers. All the other Avengers involved believing they were actually a part of the Queen’s elite guards. In reality, what appeared to be medieval England. Because Wanda was aware of what had transpired and still had her memories intact, she was locked away. As dark as that is, she would eventually get free and end up saving the day and defeat Morgan le Fay. So this version and story didn’t end up being all dark, at least. You can check out this whole fantastical story in the world in the 1998 run of Avengers.
Marvel Noir
Dark in a very literal sense of the word. We have Wanda Magnus from the Marvel Noir world, which is based on the film Noir crime genre. Here Wanda is the daughter of Eric Magnus. Eric is the Chief of Detectives in the city but also runs a criminal organization known as the Brotherhood. This version of Wanda is very carefree, maybe too carefree. Wanda also has some deep gambling debt that she simply ignores because of who her dad is. Despite the fact that having it puts her life in danger. She’s got a classic femme fatale feeling to her in this world. You can check out this dark spin on Wanda and other classic Marvel characters in the X men Noir series. In fact, I think there’s a whole bunch which is probably the most famous world of it (version of it?).
MC 2
Wanda had a pretty rough time in the MC2 alternate Earth of 9A2. Here she ends up in a coma after attempting to help her fellow heroes. When they confront a very dark and evil alternate Earth led by Dr. Doom. When this mission fails, Wanda ends up being relied upon to close the portal between the two worlds and ends up comatose as a result. But it gets worse even when Scarlet Witch is revived here. It’s only to be manipulated and used by Loki. Fortunately, she ends up breaking free of his influence and coming too. But for a while there, it was looking pretty bleak for Wanda and some of the other heroes as well. You can check out this last story where the Avengers face Loki in the last year of standing, story, and miniseries. Literally, it’s just called the last hero standing.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Well, Wanda Maximoff of MCU fame might not seem like an alternate that is dark, scary, or tragic on the surface. All you need to do is pick a tiny bit below that surface level to see what I am talking about. In WandaVision, we are now getting to explore Wanda’s feelings and see her kind of trying to deal with the fact that she is deeply depressed. So depressed and distraught, in fact, following the events of endgame that she may have seemingly manipulated reality into giving her her own happily ever after. I say may because we don’t know for sure yet if someone might be manipulating Wanda and want to use her powers this way.
Regardless, however, it has been established that she has the ability to warp reality. Add in her tragic backstory with the death of her parents and the death of her brother, her villainous past, her current state of mind, and the fact that she almost single-handedly wiped out Thanos after her return and endgame. Because Yeah, that happened. And Elizabeth Olsen, Scarlet Witch is still pretty dark and pretty powerful.
Age of Apocalypse
Everything is pretty dark in the Age of Apocalypse, Wonda included. Scarlet Witch, in this reality, died the same year that she was introduced. She would then later be resurrected in a sense when the human resistance created a ton of Scarlet Witch clones. The purpose of doing so was to try and use her abilities to depower mutants in a similar way to what 616 Wanda had accomplished following House of M. You see; they found out that in 616 reality, that’s the thing that happened. In the end, Aoa Magneto heard about all of this and, instead of anger, destroyed all the clones. Except for one because, you know, sure he misses his daughter.
Marvel Zombies
No one escapes the dark touch belonging to the reality of Earth 2149, that of Marvel Zombies, and I mean no one. Here Scarlet Witch ended up zombified by Frank Castle and later allied herself with a zombified Kingpin. Dominated by hunger zombie Scarlet Witch uses her husband, Vision’s parts, to block radio signals of the survivors. She used visions undying love for her to make him do what she wanted pretty dark. And then she wouldn’t even give him a zombie kiss, poor Vision.
Days of Future Past
In this reality, Wanda ended up being plugged into a machine basically and used as an energy source. She is left completely drained and looking and probably feeling really rough. When it does end up getting rescued by Wolverine, Jubilee, and Magneto but kind of dies in the process. I personally think Days of Future Past is one of the darkest alternate realities, period. Especially in Scarlet Witch’s case where she was like, uses of all of her energy, and then even when she gets saved, she dies. There’s a lot of alternate realities where Wanda just dies and dies kind of brutally.
Weapon Hex
Weapon Hex comes to us from Gomorrah’s infinity stone-created warp world. Warp world was created when Gomorrah contained the souls of the universe inside the soul stone. Folding the world in half and thereby combining souls together to create new beings. In an alternate reality made up of combinations of Marvel’s famed characters. Weapon hex is a combination of Laura Kinny’s X 23 and Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch. Weapon hex has a tragic backstory wherein she was born to become the host for the Eldritch god Mephicthton in Warp World. Her father attempted to weaponize her and use her in this way. But her mother actually ended up having second thoughts about all of this. Leaving her father to manipulate weapon hacks into killing her own mother.
Ultimate Scarlet Witch
One of the darkest versions of Scarlet Witch around has to be the ultimate Scarlet Witch from Earth 1610. Why? Well, because this version of Wanda had a much too close relationship with Pietro. In the alternate universe of Earth 1610, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were together romantically, despite still being brother and sister. Yeah, there’s still brother and sister in that reality, in case you’re wondering. They did their best to keep their relationship on the down-low, but some still ended up uncovering their secret. The ultimate universe was also at one point in competition to take over as the main continuity competing with Earth 616. You can think of everyone’s favorite big green lawyer Jennifer Walters of 616, for preventing that from happening. In Wanda’s case, it would have definitely been pretty awful if that had happened.
Scarlet Warlock
This version of Wanda is a gender band that happened to be on the side of the baddies at the time. Allied and working alongside Magneto and his Brotherhood of evil mutants. Scarlet Warlock, as we know him, attempted to work his hex magic to transfer the captured Wolverine of their world adamantium skeleton to a female Magneto. Because in their reality, Magneto is a lady. However, being that even in this reality, Scarlet’s magic is highly unpredictable, Scarlet Warlock spell misfired. Instead of combining Magneto, Quicksilver, Wolverine and Mesmero, and himself all into one being. Who later becomes known as the Great villain brother mutant. Brotherhood Mutant’s goal is to kill all non-mutants on Earth. You can check out this alternate version of Scarlet Witch and exiles 85 and 86. Where a team of alternate universe versions of Wolverine team up to try and take him down.
For certain, Scarlet Witch has more shades in her personality than any other character.
