When Scarlet Witch was revealed as a new character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, she was far from the ‘traditional’ kind of magic being. There were mixed reactions to Marvel’s decision to change Scarlet Witch from an all powerful mutant-power-wiping sorceress (House of M) to your average out of control mutant.
The Marvel films focus on Scarlet Witch coming into being from a Hydra experiment. This makes her a telekinetic. For those unfamiliar with the comics, Elizabeth Olsen’s rendition was pretty bad-ass. But comic traditionalists may have taken the change from ‘chaos magic’ to ‘science’ to be too great, even if Thor insists: “Your ancestors called it magic, and you call it science. Well, I come from a place where they’re one and the same thing.”
Yet this may be about to change. Via Moviepilot, MCU head honcho Kevin Feige‘s comments on the upcoming Avengers movie suggest that Scarlet Witch is magic after all. When talking about the conclusion to the saga, which is to be split into two parts, Feige compares what Scarlet Witch does with energies to that of Doctor Strange and the Masters of the Mystic Arts:
“I’m talking about Scarlet Witch. She never had any training; she’s figuring it out. Arguably, you could say that that’s why her powers are much more chaotic and much more loose in the way that we showcased those light effects. In [Doctor Strange], some of what you might see today, even the cover of Entertainment Weekly, it’s much tighter. It’s all about focus. It’s all about pulling energies from other dimensions in an organized and purposeful fashion, which is why they can do a lot more than she can in, at least, a much more precise way.”
Scarlet Witch may be on her way to more awesome things and this is a great move for women in comic book movies. This suggestion that she only needs training and Benedict Cumberbatch recently mentioning the “logistical challenge of aligning his schedule with… Elizabeth Olsen” may mean that Scarlet Witch will train under Doctor Strange.
Do you love or loathe the MCU Scarlet Witch? Do you have any Infinity War theories? Please drop us a comment.
