What I Want to See for Wanda Maximoff in ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’

The last we saw of Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she was coming to terms with the fact that her grief held the entire town of Westview, New Jersey hostage. And while Wanda realized that what happened was wrong and that the town didn’t have to forgive her, she left to go and study the Darkhold and learn more about her powers.

From what we do know about her journey in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, we know that she’s still trying to cope with everything that happened to her while still trying to come into her own as the Scarlet Witch. That being said, the world loves to make Wanda their villain, and so I have some hopes (and fears) for my favorite girl as we’re heading into her next adventure with Stephen Strange.

Wanda completely as the Scarlet Witch

By the end of WandaVision, we finally saw the actual Scarlet Witch, after she was introduced to the MCU in Avengers: Age of Ultron in a way that avoided giving her that title. Wanda learned of her chaos magic through Agatha, she knows what she has to do to reach her full power, and we barely got a look into this new version of Wanda. From the trailers for Multiverse of Madness, she does seem to be in her new Scarlet Witch outfit, but I want to see what the Darkhold taught her and how she has gained power through her own self-reflection.

Wanda’s twins

Billy and Tommy Maximoff play an important part of the Young Avengers, and while we got a glimpse of them in WandaVision, I don’t think that’s going to be the end of their journey with Wanda. I hope that we get more of an interaction between her and her boys in the movie, given that we did see her with them in the trailer, but it doesn’t look like much of a reunion.

The twins are complicated. In the comics, she brings them into existence out of her pain of losing the dream life she had made thanks to Agatha. So, it’s not that different from WandaVision‘s journey. It just ties into a bigger problem for the other heroes of the Marvel world, so it would be interesting to see how that translates to the MCU version of Wanda and her boys.

If she’s made to be a villain, I want to see it justified through her pain

This is, sadly, my biggest fear: Wanda Maximoff being made into a villain. While she has had an incredibly difficult journey in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she doesn’t really have a “villainous” story. She started at odds with the Avengers and, as Jimmy Woo said in WandaVision, gained their trust to become an Avenger. Even when she had Westview as her prisoners, she didn’t know the extent of what she was doing, and it didn’t start from a place of malice.

She was trying to fix her own pain, and it, in turn, created the hex. Time and time again, she’s left without anyone to help her and yet made into some kind of villain that she’s not. So if this movie sells her as a villain, I don’t want her suddenly going full tilt into some dark path because that’s not the Wanda I have grown to love. To be quite honest, I don’t think our universe’s Wanda can be a villain. I think if there is an evil Wanda that it comes from a different universe, that could work, and even then, I want there to be a justification for her to turn that way.

Our Wanda being safe

We know there’s a multiverse. It’s in the title of the movie. So, we can assume that there will be Wandas from different universes, and while I will care about every version of her, I want the Wanda we’ve come to know from Age of Ultron on to be safe in the end. She’s still coping with her pain, still trying to understand the trauma she’s been through, and I don’t want her to suddenly be gone for a different, possibly evil, Wanda to take her place.

Look, Wanda going full badass into her witchery is great, but I don’t think she’s a villain, and I don’t want Marvel to turn her into one. She’s a morally gray character, and I like the good parts of her.

Wanda Maximoff continuing her journey of healing

WandaVision gave us a look at trauma and understanding your own pain and breaking down that pain in ways that help you understand what you need to cope. Wanda didn’t fully understand her powers and what happened to create Westview, and she was trying to understand her own pain, her own wish for a family, and had to unpack what was happening to Westview that she didn’t understand.

I want that to continue. I want Wanda to still look at herself and her own pain while also coming to terms with what happened in New Jersey. She deserves to be able to understand her own pain and what caused the hex in the first place, and I don’t think that journey is done for her.

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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes out this week, and I am nervous for my girl, but hopefully we get to see her continue to cope with her trauma and grow.

(image: Marvel Entertainment)