Mad Dogs and Englishmen

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I want to run through a few points about why a character I really rather like in the comics (at least before the garbage that was Avengers Dissembled) became hands down my least favourite character in the MCU, and why the problems with her character can be traced back to the totally tone-deaf translation of Wanda’s story from the comics to the movies.

Now on the surface, Wanda’s MCU story and 616 story are fairly similar. Had bad childhood, joined villain team, defected to Avengers and became good. MCU covers all those beats to a T.

The problem is when we get any deeper than this.

90% of the problem isn’t actually Marvel’s fault at all, it’s 20th century Fox’s and their unwillingness to take their greedy little hands off the goddam X-men franchise. And until they come to their senses and give them back, this is the MCU:

(Bollocks)

Now, that’s a problem, definitely, but it’s not a hopeless one, there’s a lot of ways they could bring Wanda round and give her a great villain to hero redemption arc.

That’s… not what we got.

This brings us to the first big mistake- the villain team. In the comics, Wanda is taken in by the Brotherhood of Mutants. In the MCU, of course, they can’t use the Brotherhood, so instead they use Hydra.

Now, let me illustrate what a huge fucking mistake that was.

The Brotherhood: 

Hydra: 

… are you seeing the same problem I am?

There is a world of difference between siding with a terrorist group who’s goal is the safety and protection of an oppressed minority group (particularly when you are as member of that minority group), and siding with a terrorist group of actual nazis.

(Yes, Hyrda are Nazis, they were created by the Red Skull and led until very recently by Zola. They. Are. Nazis.)

A real life comparison would be like comparing the Nazis to the IRA, one group is, regardless of what you think of their tactics, responding to very real persecution, while the other is… a bunch of genocidal maniacs.

Put it this way, do you think the Red Skull is ever getting his version of these:

Worse, in order to have Hydra take Wanda and Pietro in and not, y’know, just up and murder them, the twins had to be stripped of every shred of representation they offered. This means that a Jewish-Romani mutant woman had to become a caucasian, gentile baseline woman who had no problem in becoming an actual nazi.

One of these is a hell of a lot easier to redeem than the other, just saying.

To pile bad idea onto bad idea, the Brotherhood was fighting for a goal that was (on the whole) bigger than them. The safety of mutantkind. Wanda was there because she felt she had a debt to Magneto, who saved her from being attacked for being a mutant.

So Wanda didn’t like the Brotherhood, but felt like she had to stay. The Brotherhood’s ideals was decent, although the means by which they tried to achieve them were… flawed to say the least. She’s already showing nobility there for her ideals and her determination to fulfill her vow. There’s a lot there to redeem.

Let’s contrast this to MCU Wanda, who chose to join a nazi organisation because… she wanted to murder a guy who was at best loosely connected to the death of her family. Combine that with a complete disregard for collateral damage (the Hulk) and… what? What have we got to work with here? What part of this mess can we redeem?

Then there’s the issue with her powers. In comics, Wanda’s powers focus on the manipulation of reality, she can affect probability, bring bad luck, even create and destroy entire realities.

(this is how Wanda and Ultron fights should play out)

While it’s galling to have a supremely powerful character reduced to this extent so as not to make other (male) characters not look completely superfluous, please note what is NOT in Wanda’s arsenal.

Mind control.

While she does show some level of mind manipulation in the whole House of M debacle, her method of fighting when she was in the Brotherhood was primarily physical, warping reality, throwing hex-bolts, etc.

Now, which would be easier to forgive, this:

Or this?

Which brings us to the next problem. Look at the comic picture above. Who is Wanda fighting? (The X is a bit of a giveaway)

The Brotherhood of Mutants were created as antagonists for the X-men, not the Avengers. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe they ever fought the Avengers at all before Wanda and Pietro left.

It makes sense, after all, if you want to join a superhero team, it would be better to join one you haven’t got bad blood with. Right? Right?

Oh.

So to recap. Wanda in the MCU is a nazi-allied mind controller who’s motivation is murder, who joined the very team she had a grudge against. 

That’s still not impossible, but it means Wanda has a long, hard road ahead of her, dealing with a team that has very good reason to distrust her, and getting over her Hydra conditioning, and needing to prove herself to the very people she tried to kill before…

Did that happen?

Did it heck.

To be honest, I don’t know how the MCU can bring her round, now we’re a film on after Age of Ultron and these issues haven’t been so much as mentioned. They could be, but it would mean giving Wanda her own movie where these underlying issues can be brought to light and dealt with. 

Say Wanda does something bad (probably to Tony, let’s face it, she hasn’t dealt with that disaster at all) which makes the Avengers realise she is still dangerous to them, and making Wanda realise how badly she’d messed up with Hydra, with an overarching plot about her coming to terms with her powers. There could be Wanda/Natasha bonding over making mistakes and redeeming yourself, and Wanda would have this awesome kick-ass third act where her powers come into their own and she totally flattens the bad guy of the day.

But given that that’s never going to happen, we are stuck with a character whose choices have been out and out villainous, and who hasn’t really redeemed herself at all.