The Scarlet Witch’s latest appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe saw the animated Marvel Zombies series copy one of the weirdest parts of her most controversial movie. Three years after Wanda Maximoff’s death in the MCU, Elizabeth Olsen returned to voice a villainous variant of her fan-favorite character in Marvel Zombies. This version was first seen in What If…? season 1, episode 5, “What If… Zombies?!,” but Marvel Zombies revealed that she had learned how to harness her power, despite being zombified, allowing her to become the Queen of the Dead.
Throughout Marvel Zombies, the Queen of the Dead amassed a zombie army – comprising superheroes and gods – that could be strong enough to defeat the Infinity Hulk. She wanted to claim the Infinity Hulk’s power, allowing her to restructure reality and make the world seem ordinary, despite still being infested by zombies. Even though the Scarlet Witch is one of the most powerful MCU characters, she still wasn’t strong enough to absorb the Infinity Hulk’s power alone. She sought Kamala Khan’s (Iman Vellani) help, copying Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness by tying Maximoff’s success to another teenage girl.
After her experience in Westview, New Jersey, in WandaVision, where she alienated an entire town against her, Wanda Maximoff started studying the Darkhold in hopes of finding a way to reunite with her sons, Billy and Tommy. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness revealed that she had learned how to dream-walk, allowing her to spend some time in alternate realities where she could be with her sons. She wanted more, however, so hunted down America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) in hopes of stealing her universe-hopping power to permanently travel to another reality.
It’s curious why Marvel Studios keeps putting the Scarlet Witch’s success in the hands of teenagers – first America Chavez and then Kamala Khan. In Marvel Zombies, the Queen of the Dead needed Kamala Khan’s hard-light mutant powers to help her recreate the world, but even this was unstable, as Kamala managed to see through the illusion created by the Scarlet Witch. Wanda Maximoff is supposed to be one of the MCU’s most powerful characters, a reality-warping Nexus Being, but it seems she can never actually achieve her goals without the help of other heroes.
Elizabeth Olsen hasn’t yet been announced to be returning to the live-action MCU, though there has been a great deal of speculation that she’ll be bringing the Scarlet Witch back to life in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Following on from WandaVision spinoffs Agatha All Along and the upcoming Vision Quest series, it would be great to see the Scarlet Witch back in action. Hopefully she’ll come back strong enough to tackle things on her own, as this weird Marvel Studios trend needs to end.
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