The Scarlet Witch reaches a major milestone when she and the Vision get married. This is followed by an extended period of self-reflection during which Wanda Maximoff finally comes to grips with the downward spiral she’s been trapped in for several years. In the run-up to her rather outré wedding, Wanda is sinking under the weight of an intense romantic rivalry, a bitter estrangement from the people she considers her family, and her deep-seated fears and insecurities as both a mutant and a superhero. Before her life can come completely unglued, though, she finds a mentor in the kindly old witch Agatha Harkness, who will eventually grow into a much-needed mother-figure to her. By taking up the study of witchcraft, Wanda discovers a road to recovery.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
Here, then, is the sixth installment of… The True History of the Scarlet Witch!
January 1967 – The Scarlet Witch is proud when the Vision once again steps up to serve a term as Avengers chairman. However, Wanda continues to feel intense jealousy toward Mantis, who makes little secret of her attraction to their synthezoid teammate. Mantis has clearly written off her lover, the Swordsman, as a weakling, despite the rigorous training regimen he maintains in a pathetic attempt to impress her. Wanda worries that the naïve Vision will eventually be ensnared by Mantis’s exotic charms. Vision repeatedly insists that there’s nothing going on between him and Mantis and that Wanda’s suspicions are unfounded. This merely triggers a series of arguments that leave the couple feeling increasingly estranged. To make matters worse, Vision retreats into his role as team leader, leaving Wanda feeling anxious and lonely.
As a result, Wanda spends much of her free time with Robert Frank, a.k.a. the Whizzer, the heroic super-speedster of World War II, whose convalescence at Avengers Mansion continues. Dr. Donald Blake pays periodic visits to the mansion to check in on Frank, who is slowly regaining his strength after undergoing open-heart surgery last month. Wanda enjoys listening to the Whizzer’s tales of his adventures in the 1940s as a member of the Liberty Legion, the Invaders, and the postwar All-Winners Squad, fighting alongside the love of his life, Madeline Joyce Frank, a.k.a. Miss America. Having accepted that the Whizzer and Miss America are her long-lost parents, Wanda considers using the surname Frank rather than Maximoff. She has left messages for her twin brother Pietro, a.k.a. Quicksilver, regarding the matter, but he has refused to respond owing to his objections to her relationship with the Vision.
March 1967 – Wanda celebrates her 17th birthday. Whereas before she’d always claimed to have lost track of how old she is, not wanting the Avengers to treat her as a junior member, her history with the Whizzer has enabled her teammates to figure it out, and they are astonished to realize she was just 13 when she joined the team. Nevertheless, Wanda feels that she’s now old enough that it doesn’t matter as much. Her feelings are hurt when Pietro again makes no attempt to contact her on their birthday, but the Vision tries his best to cheer her up.
April 1967 – When his term as team chairman ends, Vision attempts to convince the Scarlet Witch to assume the role. Wanda declines, though, coming up with a series of excuses that the Vision dismisses out of hand. This leads to a fierce argument between them that leaves Wanda seething. Finally, Vision turns to his other teammates. Captain America flatly refuses to serve, and Iron Man says he’s too busy at Stark Industries right now. Vision is relieved when Thor agrees to take it on again. As a prince of Asgard, Thor seems to enjoy being in charge of the team, though he clearly finds many of the routine administrative duties rather tedious.
The Avengers discuss the ongoing problem of Black Spectre, a subversive organization that keeps getting away with offensive pranks and outrageous sabotage, such as inciting a race riot at the Statue of Liberty, installing a swastika atop the Washington Monument, draping Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in black shrouds, and carving Adolf Hitler’s face into Mount Rushmore. S.H.I.E.L.D., which assists the government with repairing all the damage, assures the Avengers that it’s doing all it can to stop Black Spectre. Vision doesn’t consider the group to be an Avengers-level threat, and Thor concurs.
May 1967 – The Avengers receive a message from Black Spectre claiming that they have an atomic bomb hidden somewhere under Manhattan, which they threaten to detonate if the Avengers interfere with their overthrow of the U.S. government. Soon after, the terrorist group invades Washington, D.C. and storms the White House, only to be defeated by the Black Widow and Daredevil. Wanda is relieved when the bomb threat turns out to be a hoax, but she soon becomes infuriated when the government reveals the two co-leaders of Black Spectre to be mutants, triggering a wave of anti-mutant hysteria.
June 1967 – Wanda returns from an evening out at the theater to learn that Steve Rogers has decided he can no longer continue serving as Captain America, a decision he’s wrestled with for months, ever since his battle with the Secret Empire at the White House. Although the Vision, Thor, Iron Man, and others tried to talk him out of it, Steve has resigned from the team and locked his Captain America costume and shield in a vault underneath the mansion. Wanda is somewhat surprised but knows this isn’t the first time Steve has tried to give up his costumed identity.
Scarlet Witch and Vision are sitting down to dinner at Avengers Mansion with Thor, Iron Man, the Swordsman, and Mantis when the Inhumans Gorgon and Lockjaw suddenly materialize in the room. Gorgon is annoyed that the Avengers are not ready to leave for the Great Refuge to attend the wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver, but this is the first the team has heard of it. Wanda is very upset to learn that Pietro has neglected to invite them but decides that they will attend in any case. Iron Man sets up a video link to the Inhumans’ royal palace so the Whizzer will be able to watch the ceremony, since he now believes Quicksilver to be his son. The Avengers then fly around the world to the Himalayas in a Quinjet while Gorgon and Lockjaw teleport home. When they arrive, they are greeted by the rest of the royal family—Black Bolt, Medusa, Crystal, Karnak, and Triton—as well as the Thing, the Human Torch, Mister Fantastic, and Susan Richards. Mister Fantastic introduces the Avengers to Agatha Harkness, an elderly woman who helps take care of his comatose two-year-old son, Franklin Richards. When Mantis asks about what appears to be a huge, grotesque statue in the center of the city, Medusa explains that it is actually a giant android called Omega, which Black Bolt’s brother, Maximus the Mad, created in order to weaponize the Inhumans’ prejudice against their servant class, the Alpha Primitives. After being deactivated, the android was left in a public square as a memorial. Triton insists that Black Bolt has instituted many reforms since that fateful day.
Several hours later, Scarlet Witch and Vision join the others for a royal banquet in a large stadium, from which Quicksilver is conspicuously absent. To cheer up Crystal and entertain the crowds, Thor, Iron Man, the Thing, the Human Torch, and Medusa put on an impromptu exhibition of their superhuman powers. However, Iron Man and Medusa fall under some form of mind control and attack the section of the stands where the Alpha Primitives are seated. The pair is quickly subdued and then lapses into unconsciousness. The Alpha Primitives start yelling accusations at Black Bolt, only to be shouted down by the Inhumans around them. The Alpha Primitives then leave the stadium in protest, and the festivities are quickly brought to a close. Wanda realizes the situation in the Great Refuge is less rosy than the royal family made it seem. Later, she finally finds Pietro complaining about her to Crystal and is annoyed by his sexist attitude. Not wanting to get in the middle of the siblings’ argument, Crystal goes for a walk. Wanda and Pietro rehash their disagreement about the Vision until they are interrupted by the Swordsman and Mantis, who are raising the alarm that Omega has come to life and kidnapped Crystal.
Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Quicksilver rejoin the others, whereupon Black Bolt suggests, through Triton, that the Avengers, being impartial observers, may have better luck questioning the Alpha Primitives about Omega’s reactivation. Thor concurs, so Quicksilver leads his former teammates into the caverns where the Alpha Primitives live, only to lose his temper and attack the brutes, demanding that they hand over Crystal at once. Mantis forces Quicksilver to stand down, but they both suddenly fall unconscious. Thor quickly determines that their symptoms match those of Iron Man and Medusa and calls for the Avengers to retreat to the surface. The Alpha Primitives become a rampaging mob, but Thor keeps them at bay with bolts of lightning from his hammer. Outside, the Avengers find the other heroes carrying Maximus on a stretcher. Though he appears to be unconscious as well, Maximus leaps up as soon as the Alpha Primitives emerge from the caverns, grabs a blaster, and opens fire on them. In the ensuing melee, Maximus, Gorgon, Karnak, Triton, the Swordsman, and the Human Torch abruptly fall unconscious as well. Finally, Omega strides across the plaza to the remaining heroes and reveals himself to be Ultron-7 in disguise. The murderous robot explains that Maximus brought the severed head of Ultron-6 to the Great Refuge after the Vision defeated him a few years ago and eventually fused his circuits with the Omega android, giving him Omega’s psychic abilities, which he has used to incapacitate the unconscious heroes. Ultron-7 then turns those abilities against all his enemies, intent on destroying their minds. His scheme backfires, though, as his psychic energies inadvertently awaken Franklin Richards from his coma. The boy lashes out at the source of the attack with his mysterious mutant powers, obliterating Ultron-7’s computerized brain. Scarlet Witch and the others then look on happily as the Richards family is at last reunited.
The next day, as heralds fly over the Great Refuge blowing their horns to summon the guests to the wedding ceremony, Scarlet Witch nervously meets up with the other Avengers. She worries that Pietro will make an unpleasant scene and spoil the day. Vision suggests they remain in the back of the venue so as not to draw attention to themselves, and Wanda agrees. She is filled with conflicting emotions as she watches Pietro and Crystal joined in matrimony according to Inhuman custom—hope and pride but also a deep sense of loss. At the conclusion of the ceremony, Lockjaw teleports the newlyweds off to their honeymoon. At no point did Pietro even acknowledge Wanda’s presence. A huge celebration follows, though Wanda’s heart is not in it and she retires early to her guest quarters. Vision follows and does what he can to be supportive.
The Avengers then return to New York, arriving at the mansion shortly before midnight. The Fantastic Four stop by on their way home to say goodnight. However, a sudden storm forms overhead, unleashing a series of deadly lightning bolts that strike the roof. Thor immediately launches himself into the sky and tries to dispel the storm, without success. Wanda is startled when Agatha Harkness reveals herself to be a powerful sorceress by dissipating the storm with a magical incantation. Agatha then informs the Fantastic Four that she will no longer be serving as Franklin’s nanny, for the time has come for her to take on a new charge—the Scarlet Witch. Like the rest of the Avengers, Wanda is shocked but admits that she has long wanted to study true witchcraft and accepts Agatha as her tutor. As the Fantastic Four depart and the Avengers enter the building, Thor authorizes Agatha to take up residence there. Wanda escorts her to an unoccupied room, where they are joined by Agatha’s black cat, Ebony. Vision appears in the doorway and asks for a moment of Wanda’s time to discuss an important matter, but Agatha insists it can wait until morning. Wanda defers to her new mentor, and the Vision, betraying no hint of how he feels about it, turns and walks away.
Agatha immediately closes the door and casts a spell to seal the room, which merely adds to Wanda’s growing apprehension. Ebony hisses loudly as an ugly, hunchbacked little man teleports into the room and introduces himself as Necrodamus, saying he’s come to steal Agatha’s soul. Telling Wanda to keep back, Agatha counters Necrodamus’s initial attack, but he just uses her eldritch energies to transform himself into a larger, more muscular form. Ebony likewise transforms into a panther of monstrous proportions and pounces on the wizard, only to be quickly defeated. Scoffing at Agatha’s bravado, Necrodamus strikes her down, leaving Wanda to face him alone. Wanda tries to use her mutant hex power against him, but he shrugs off its effects and pummels her into unconsciousness. However, she comes to a moment later and finds Ebony staring at her with a strange light in his eyes. Realizing that Necrodamus is kneeling over her holding a small metal box covered with occult engravings, Wanda focuses her hex power on the box, shattering it. Necrodamus screams in horror as all the souls trapped in the box break free and carry him off into another dimension. Wanda is nearly swept away with them, but Ebony holds onto her by the cape until the dimensional portal closes. Seeing that Agatha has fully recovered, Wanda accuses her of setting the whole thing up as a test of her abilities. Agatha denies it with a sly smile. Emerging from the bedroom, Wanda and Agatha are drawn outside by a commotion in the street. Meeting up with the other Avengers, they find an intensely bright light shining down on the mansion from what appears to be a new star in the sky. Suddenly, their old foe, Kang the Conqueror, materializes and announces that the star is a signal indicating that the 20th century is ripe for conquest.
Using 41st-century robots called “Macrobots,” Kang easily defeats the Scarlet Witch, the Vision, Thor, Iron Man, the Swordsman, Mantis, and Agatha Harkness and takes them prisoner. The time-traveling despot then explains that the “newborn star” heralds the appearance of the legendary Celestial Madonna, who is to mate with the most powerful man in the world and produce a child who will conquer the universe. Kang is determined to be that man and to rule the heavens through the child. Due to strange disturbances in the timestream in the late 20th century, he was unable to determine the exact date the star would manifest itself, so he left a temporal monitor behind during his first incursion four and a half years ago. And although the historical records of the 20th century that have survived to Kang’s era are fragmentary at best, the positioning of the star above Avengers Mansion suggests that the Celestial Madonna is either the Scarlet Witch, Mantis, or Agatha Harkness. In order to solve that riddle, Kang teleports his prisoners to a laboratory hidden inside an ancient Egyptian pyramid, derisively leaving the Swordsman behind. He then conducts a battery of medical tests on the women while the Vision, Thor, and Iron Man are held by a paralysis beam that renders them helpless. Wanda assumes that she must be the Celestial Madonna, since Agatha is too old and Mantis could never be worthy of such an honor.
Fortunately, the Swordsman immediately mounts a rescue mission, apparently led to the pyramid by Agatha’s telepathy. Kang dismisses the threat of the Swordsman, though, revealing that he designed the pyramid himself while ruling Egypt as the pharaoh Rama-Tut and left a vampire named Amenhotep behind to guard it. Upon entering, the Swordsman inadvertently releases the vampire, though it soon stumbles out into the sunlight and is disintegrated. Unconcerned, Kang seals the Vision, Thor, and Iron Man inside Macrobot exoskeletons, revealing his plan to send them out to kill key government personnel in the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China, after which a strategically placed neutron bomb will set off a global nuclear war. With that, Kang loads all his captives into his time-capsule and flies to the United Nations building in New York City. With the time-capsule rendered invisible by a cloaking device, Kang dispatches the Macrobot containing the Vision, only to watch him be defeated by the Swordsman, who has been joined by Hawkeye and a mysterious stranger. Deciding to cut his losses, Kang pilots the time-capsule to Peking, China, where he sends out the Macrobot containing Iron Man. Again, his scheme is foiled by the Swordsman, Hawkeye, and their unknown companion, now joined by the Vision. Kang is distracted momentarily when the Scarlet Witch and Mantis start arguing over which of them deserves the Vision’s love. Mantis accuses Wanda of being emotionally abusive and neglectful, but Wanda throws it right back in her face, given her own treatment of the Swordsman. Enraged, Kang tells both women to shut up and decides to abandon his plan to go to Moscow. Instead, he sends the Macrobot containing Thor out to recapture the Vision and Iron Man. As the cloaking device is deactivated, Vision is able to phase inside and free Kang’s trio of captives. Scarlet Witch and Mantis immediately join the battle, though they bicker constantly.
Scarlet Witch slows down Thor’s Macrobot by casting a hex that causes the ground beneath it to erupt with molten lava, allowing her teammates to hit it with a coordinated attack. However, while Mantis is perched on the Macrobot’s shoulders, Wanda casts another hex that draws a meteor out of orbit and brings it crashing down on their foe. Leaping to safety at the last second, Mantis accuses the Scarlet Witch of recklessly endangering her life, but Wanda ignores her. The mystery man is able to open the damaged Macrobot, releasing the thunder god. The enigmatic stranger then confronts Kang, who reveals him to be his own future self, living once again as Pharaoh Rama-Tut. As the two men start fighting each other, a strange wave of hallucinatory images wash over the Avengers—dreamlike images of the past, present, and future. Suddenly, Kang realizes that Mantis is the Celestial Madonna and announces that if he can’t have her, no one will. He fires his ray gun at Mantis, but the Swordsman leaps in front of her and is mortally wounded. Rama-Tut tackles Kang, and as they struggle, they inadvertently activate the time-capsule, which dematerializes. The Avengers are shocked and horrified by this sudden turn of events. The Swordsman dies in Mantis’s arms, cursing himself as a failure. The sorrowful Avengers honor their fallen teammate, then take his body back to New York. When they arrive at the mansion, the butler, Edwin Jarvis, informs them that the Whizzer has moved on, showing them a morose farewell note he left behind. Wanda is very upset by it, feeling completely abandoned by her family. Thor encourages everyone to get some much-needed rest.
July 1967 – Over the next few days, Thor agrees to serve another term as Avengers chairman and Hawkeye continues to hang around, though he won’t commit to formally rejoining the team. He’s not shy, though, about claiming credit for convincing Steve Rogers to adopt a new costumed identity. Mantis requests permission to take the Swordsman’s body to Vietnam for burial, since she has decided to return home rather than remain with the Avengers. Thor grants her request, offering to have the team accompany her and try to unravel some of the secrets of her past. Mantis is touched by such generosity. Scarlet Witch begs off, saying that Agatha is insistent that she continue her education in witchcraft without delay. Vision is also reluctant to go, concerned that he has had panic attacks in the heat of battle a few times now—most recently against Kang—but Thor and Iron Man assure him that they will look out for him. Hawkeye agrees to go along, so the five heroes are soon aboard a Quinjet on their way to South Vietnam. Wanda is worried about the Vision and Mantis being off on a mission together without her, but Agatha tells her they have a great deal of work to do.
Wanda and Agatha again sequester themselves in one of the mansion’s large bedrooms, leaving strict orders with Jarvis that they are not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Under Ebony’s watchful eyes, Agatha spends the following several days tutoring Wanda in the basics of witchcraft and sorcery. Though she gets off to a shaky start, Wanda proves an apt pupil and soon manages to cast a spell, augmented by her mutant hex power, that causes a chair to walk around the room as if it were humanoid. Excited by her success, Wanda loses focus, causing the chair to turn and attack her. Agatha easily breaks the spell animating the chair and admonishes Wanda never to lose control of the forces she summons through magic. The elderly witch is clearly irritated when Wanda reveals that she’s eager to show off her new abilities to her teammates. Agatha mentions cryptically that the Avengers’ investigation into Mantis’s origins has apparently taken them away from Earth, but this only makes Wanda more anxious. Worried that her mentor is finding her to be a disappointment, Wanda redoubles her efforts, though the temptation to use her mutant powers as a shortcut is hard to resist.
As time passes, the tension between the two women grows. Wanda struggles to maintain the intense concentration that Agatha demands, as she frets constantly about Mantis seducing the Vision. Her spellcasting frequently fails due to negative thoughts encroaching on her mind, such as feelings of resentment toward Quicksilver; jealousy of Crystal, who has clearly replaced Wanda in Pietro’s affections; and bitterness toward the Whizzer, the father who has now abandoned her twice. The deeper Wanda digs into her psyche to push away these thoughts, the louder a malevolent voice at the back of her mind becomes. She fumes about the suicide bombers who tried to kill the Vision last year after their romance went public, noting that the Avengers never conducted a thorough investigation into who they were or where they came from. She seethes at the thought of how sexist her teammates are, how excited they are to have Mantis or the Black Widow around while treating her like a pariah, despite her saving them all from Dormammu’s plot to enslave the human race and annex Earth into his Dark Dimension. Even the much-ballyhooed Doctor Strange was no match for Dormammu, but Wanda blew the demon to smithereens without half trying. Strange barely acknowledged Wanda’s victory—perhaps he felt humiliated to be shown up by a woman in front of all his male colleagues. Perhaps, she thinks, when she has mastered the arts of sorcery, she will need to humble Doctor Strange again, to make him pay for his effrontery. But now, her efforts to achieve that mastery are being stifled by a sour-faced old witch, who despite her magical skill, is no Homo superior after all, merely a poor, doomed member of that evolutionary dead end, Homo sapiens. Feeling her face burning with righteous rage, Wanda unleashes a devastating sorcerous attack on Agatha, catching her completely off guard. Within seconds, Agatha has been subdued and Ebony has retreated under the bed. Wanda is about to deal with Agatha’s feline familiar when Jarvis knocks on the door and asks to have a word with her. Wanda roars at the butler to get away from there if he values his wretched life. She is shocked by the strange, demonic quality her voice has taken on but revels in the feeling of utter invincibility washing over her.
Hearing an aircraft landing on the roof, Wanda leaves the bedroom to see if the Avengers have returned. She compels Agatha to follow along in a trance, and in the team’s communications room, she finds Jarvis talking about her with Captain Marvel’s friend Moondragon, whom she met late last year. Wanda castigates the cretinous servant for discussing her affairs with outsiders and threatens to fire him. Moondragon intervenes, suggesting that Wanda accompany her to Vietnam to try to find out where the Avengers disappeared to. Wanda refuses to delay her studies of the occult for such a trivial matter, and when Moondragon insolently tries to read her mind, she uses her magic-enhanced hex power to punish the interloper. Sneering at Moondragon and Jarvis, Wanda goes back upstairs, taking Agatha with her. Shortly afterward, Moondragon’s aircraft lifts off and flies away. For the next hour or so, Wanda tortures Agatha while interrogating her about the Elder Goddess Gaea. Caught in a magical trap, Ebony is powerless to intervene. Finally, having learned what she wished to know, Wanda opens a portal to a distant subterranean cavern and marches Agatha through it. They are greeted by their master, the Dread Dormammu, and his sister, the Unspeakable Umar.
Once Agatha has been imprisoned in a narrow crevice in the cavern wall, Umar chains Wanda to a large slab of rock by the wrists and ankles. Wanda suddenly finds her mind clearing of Dormammu’s malign influence and realizes she’d been possessed. She quickly determines that neither her mutant hex power nor her newly acquired magical skills are effective against Dormammu’s sorcery. Dormammu reveals that he has already imprisoned Gaea to keep her from interfering with the reintegration of his corporeal form. By completing the process on Earth rather than in the Dark Dimension, Dormammu is essentially staking a claim to the planet. He will then be able to wreak terrible vengeance on the Scarlet Witch. Completely helpless, Wanda starts to fear the worst, but her heart soars when the Vision appears in the cavern and challenges Dormammu on her behalf. Dormammu laughs and tries to convince the Vision that Wanda isn’t worth saving, given how easily he could corrupt her spirit. Undeterred, Vision fights his way through a horde of demons that Dormammu conjures up, whereupon the villain releases Wanda from her chains while again seizing control of her mind. Wanda viciously attacks the Vision with her hex power but is unable to counter his ability to vary his density. She then switches tactics and causes all the energy to drain out of the solar jewel on his forehead. Umar laughs with sadistic glee as the Vision quickly grows too weak to stand. He pleads with Wanda to remember the love they once shared, but she remains impassive until he finally collapses at her feet.
Coming to her senses, Wanda recoils in horror at what she was made to do. She surreptitiously reverses the spell, causing the dissipated energy to seep back into the solar jewel, while casting another spell to free Agatha from confinement. Thus, when Dormammu unleashes a magical attack on the defiant mutant, Agatha is able to block it. Wanda then uses her powers to cool down the pool of lava Dormammu is standing in. She’s noticed that he’s stood in that same spot since she arrived and has deduced that he needs the heat from the lava to regenerate himself. Dormammu’s panicked reaction proves her hypothesis was correct. He cries out to his sister for help, but the Vision knocks Umar out before she can do anything. His scheme unraveling, Dormammu surrenders and tells the Scarlet Witch to name her terms. She demands that Dormammu allow her, the Vision, and Agatha to leave without fear of retribution; that he release Gaea from imprisonment; and that he abandon his plans to conquer Earth’s dimension. Seething with rage, Dormammu agrees and teleports the three captives back to Avengers Mansion. Wanda asks Agatha if she can have a few minutes to speak with the Vision before resuming her lessons. Agatha merely chuckles and says that, after twice saving the world from Dormammu, Wanda doesn’t need anybody’s permission to do anything. As she leaves the room, Agatha assures Wanda that, from now on, her magical education will continue at her own pace.
Finally alone together, Vision reveals the true depth of his feelings for Wanda, assuring her that when Mantis threw herself at him, he had no desire to reciprocate. Then, summoning up all his courage, he asks Wanda to marry him. Despite her heart swelling with love, Wanda catches herself and asks for reassurance that he’s not asking just because she’s the first woman he ever had feelings for. He explains in his calm, measured way that he feels such a deep connection to Wanda because she truly understands what it means to be an Avenger, and everything they’ve experienced together over the last three years has forged a bond between them. But more importantly, he says, his most recent experiences have revealed to him facts about his mysterious past that have completely changed how he sees himself. Whereas before, he was merely a being of synthetic flesh and computerized components, he now understands himself to be a man, created by a human father to live a human life. Seeing an uncharacteristic expressiveness in the Vision’s face, Wanda declares that “love is for souls, not bodies” and enthusiastically accepts his marriage proposal. Their passionate kissing is interrupted a moment later when a man in strange but regal clothes materializes in the room. Vision recognizes him as “Immortus” and credits him with providing the new insights into his past. Wanda is grateful to Immortus, who says he has come to take them to their teammates. He invites Agatha to accompany them, and when the elderly witch agrees, he teleports them all to an abandoned temple in the jungles of Vietnam.
There, they find Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Moondragon, Libra (Mantis’s father), and the glowing corpse of the Swordsman, which has been reanimated by an extraterrestrial entity called a Cotati, some kind of plant-based lifeform. They are frantic because Kang has just kidnapped Mantis and spirited her away in his time machine. However, Immortus coolly informs them that he’s tricked Kang by having Mantis swap places with the shape-changing Space Phantom. He then opens a large, ornate box, revealing Mantis within. Mantis steps out of the box and announces that she has accepted her destiny as the Celestial Madonna and will enter into a marital union with the Elder Cotati in order to produce a new lifeform—a hybrid of plant and animal who enjoys the best of both worlds. Wanda is thrilled by this news and announces her own engagement to the Vision. Immortus magnanimously offers to officiate the double-wedding by the power vested in him as the sovereign of the timeless dimension of Limbo. The two couples agree to proceed without delay. Thor, as Avengers chairman, makes a motion that the team officially induct Mantis as a full member, to honor her and their time together. The other Avengers agree, and Mantis is truly touched. Even Wanda is willing to forgive and forget, given the joyous resolution of their rivalry. Everyone then adjourns to the garden, where Mantis presents Wanda with a lovely bouquet of flowers. Wanda notices for the first time the beauty and serenity of the temple grounds. The two couples come together, and Immortus conducts a brief ceremony that Wanda considers to be pitch perfect. Afterwards, Mantis and her husband transform into pure energy and ascend into the sky. Wanda and the Vision decide on a more traditional honeymoon in French Polynesia. Moondragon flies the Avengers to Saigon to pick up their Quinjet, and the Scarlet Witch and the Vision part company with them there. Agatha returns to New York with the Avengers.
Shortly after arriving in French Polynesia, Wanda and the Vision hear reports of weird occurrences all around the world and wonder what’s going on. They worry that their honeymoon will need to be cut short, but then the Fantastic Four announce that it was all part of an alien invasion plot that they have foiled. Relieved, the newlyweds turn their attention to frolicking on the beach.
August 1967 – While they’re island hopping throughout French Polynesia, Vision gradually opens up to Wanda about the strange sequence of events that led him to his new understanding of himself. After transporting the Avengers from Vietnam to the Labyrinths of Limbo, Kang the Conqueror set a gang of undead henchmen on them. Among the group were Wonder Man, on whose brain patterns the Vision’s own artificial mind is based, and the original Human Torch of the World War II era. When the Vision was nearly destroyed in battle with the Ghost of the Flying Dutchman, he was saved by the Human Torch, who was himself an android. In the process, the Torch discovered that he and the Vision were, in fact, the same android at two different points in history. This finally explains the Vision’s recent claustrophobic panic attacks—he’s been reacting to traumas suffered by the Torch during his earlier existence. Kang was finally driven off, but not before the Vision was further damaged at the hands of Wonder Man. Fortunately, Immortus stepped in and restored the Vision to full functionality. Then, as a reward for saving his realm from Kang, Immortus offered to send the team on a trip through the past to learn the secrets of the Vision’s origins as well as the history of the Celestial Madonna. Since the Vision’s story involved very recent events, it was decided that he should travel alone, with the aid of a telepathic device called a synchro-staff, in order to protect the integrity of the timestream. The rest of the team accompanied Mantis.
The synchro-staff led the Vision to New York City in 1939 to witness the Human Torch’s unveiling by his creator, Phineas T. Horton, though he remained in a ghostly state and could only observe. The reaction to Horton’s artificial man was predictably negative, especially as a flaw in the design caused him to burst into flames upon contact with air. Horton was pressured into containing his creation until a means could be found to control his flame, and so the android spent weeks trapped inside a tube submerged in concrete. When he finally broke free, the android inadvertently caused a good deal of property damage as he explored the city. Realizing this, he doused himself in a swimming pool on a large estate. However, he became trapped there while the pool’s owner, a notorious racketeer, tried to figure out a way to exploit him. It was experiences such as these, Vision explains, that triggered his panic attacks while fighting Dormammu, Zodiac, and Kang over the last year or so. Wanda is very sympathetic and glad to finally understand what the Vision has been going through.
After ten years of fighting crime alongside his sidekick Toro, a mutant with similar powers, the Human Torch was ambushed by a gang of mobsters who neutralized his flame with an experimental solution provided by the Soviet Union. Believing the paralyzed Torch to be dead, the criminals buried him in the Nevada desert. He was revived in 1953 by an atomic bomb test and soon rescued Toro from the Soviets, who had brainwashed him into blowing up American ammo dumps in Korea. They then resumed their crime-fighting crusade, but the radiation that had freed the Torch slowly caused him to lose control over his powers. By 1955, he realized he was dying and, after saying goodbye to Toro, retreated to the desert, where he attempted to commit suicide. However, rather than being destroyed, he was merely rendered inert again and remained there, covered by the drifting sands, until being discovered by the Mad Thinker eight years later.
The Mad Thinker used the Torch to attack his namesake, the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four, who was in the area experimenting with his own flame powers. However, when the rest of the Fantastic Four arrived on the scene, the Torch was deactivated again by the Mad Thinker’s A.I. assistant, the supercomputer known as Quasimodo. Unable to resuscitate him, Mister Fantastic decided it would be best to leave the Torch where he was, letting the villain’s secret base serve as his tomb. Unfortunately, five months later, the Torch was found there by Ultron-5, who had learned the location of the base from the Mad Thinker. Back in his own laboratory in Cresskill, New Jersey, Ultron-5 labored for weeks to reactivate the Torch, his efforts always ending in failure. Finally, he tracked down Horton, who was working as a television repairman in Stamford, Connecticut, and forced him to help. Following some of the earliest programming he’d received from his creator, Hank Pym, Ultron-5 was intent on converting the android Torch into a “synthezoid”—a sophisticated synthesis of android and robot—while incorporating density-altering technology confiscated from the evil genius Egghead. However, Horton could not bring himself to erase the Torch’s personality, as Ultron-5 had instructed him to do—after so many years of loneliness, he realized that he thought of the Torch like a son, the only legacy of his wasted life. Thus, when he was reactivated in his new form, the Torch went berserk and drove Ultron-5 away, though not before the murderous robot mortally wounded Horton. In the elderly man’s last moments, he and the Torch were reconciled and regretted their long estrangement. The Torch truly came to see Horton as his father and grieved for him.
Determined to bring Ultron-5 to justice, the Torch chased him down and attacked him, but without his familiar flame powers, he was quickly defeated and deactivated. Ultron-5 then erased the Torch’s mind and replaced it with the brain patterns taken from Wonder Man, which he’d found in Hank Pym’s lab. Thus, when the synthezoid was next reactivated, the Vision was truly born. Having learned all there was to learn, the ghostly Vision was then returned to the present, whereupon the synchro-staff dematerialized. However, he had somehow been diverted to the cavern where Wanda and Agatha were being held prisoner by Dormammu and Umar. Wanda assumes that that’s one more thing they have to thank Immortus for and marvels at what a benefactor he has been to them. Vision concurs, admitting that, now that he knows he wasn’t created out of whole cloth by Ultron-5 merely to serve his evil schemes but has instead an honorable heritage as one of the greatest heroes of World War II, a life defined by courage, camaraderie, and compassion, he finally feels worthy of Wanda’s love. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Wanda kisses her husband and holds him tightly, hoping that one day she’ll be able to honor Horton’s legacy by giving the Vision children of his own.
September 1967 – Having plenty of time to rest and reflect, Wanda comes to realize that, if she’s going to continue studying witchcraft, she needs to purge herself of all the toxic negativity she’s been carrying around the last few years. She sees how Dormammu took all the hatred, bitterness, and resentment in her heart and used it against her. But even before that, she recognizes, it did so much damage to her relationships with the other Avengers. She understands that such emotional baggage will only inhibit her ability to work spells and will ultimately lead her down the road to corruption, as it did Necrodamus. Determined not to fall into that trap, Wanda decides the first step is to forgive Pietro for cutting her out of his life. She hopes that, in time, her brother will overcome his bigotry toward the Vision and see him for the wonderful man that he is.
After spending the last two weeks of their honeymoon in Tahiti, Wanda and the Vision return to Avengers Mansion and settle into their new routine as a married couple. They decide to continue living in their adjoining rooms but install a connecting door between them. Hawkeye and Moondragon have both become active members of the team and have taken up residence in the mansion as well. Furthermore, Hercules has moved back in, along with an Asgardian woman named Krista. Hercules and Krista spend a lot of time together, and Wanda finds them to be enjoyable company. She’s sad to learn, though, that Thor is spending most of his time at the hospital where his former love, Jane Foster, lies dying of a mysterious malady. Wanda starts traveling to Whisper Hill in upstate New York once a week to continue her magical training with Agatha Harkness. She is impressed with Agatha’s creepy old manse, which seems the perfect spot for an exploration of the occult. Pleased with Wanda’s new attitude, Agatha is happy to continue their lessons, and they essentially start over at the beginning.
October–November 1967 – Having taken over as team chairman, Iron Man recruits Krista to provide combat training to the Scarlet Witch and Moondragon. Iron Man makes a point to oversee their sessions personally, though Wanda suspects he’s merely ogling them. He and Hawkeye seem to find Moondragon irresistibly attractive for reasons Wanda can’t understand. Though Moondragon is insufferably arrogant, Wanda isn’t bothered by her too much, especially as she shows no interest whatsoever in the Vision. And Wanda must admit that she enjoys the physicality of such fight training, as well as the positive effect it has on her marital relations.
December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Scarlet Witch and Vision find themselves trapped within force-field bubbles. Try as they might, they are unable to escape. Finally, the force fields vanish as mysteriously as they appeared. The couple then learns that while they were trapped, Loki led an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army. They return to Avengers Mansion, where they find that Krista has gone home and Hercules is off on some kind of quest with Thor’s friend Sif. However, the Grand Vizier of Asgard’s royal court has decided to spend some time on “Midgard,” and he takes a room at the mansion. The Grand Vizier seems genuinely curious about humanity, and Wanda enjoys talking with him.
Steve Rogers shows up at Avengers Mansion one night and retrieves his old costume and shield from the storage vault, ready to take up the mantle of Captain America again. He then sets out to hunt down his nemesis, the Red Skull, and the other Avengers are relieved that their teammate’s identity crisis is over at last. Nearly a week later, Scarlet Witch and Vision attend the Avengers’ Sixth Annual Christmas Charity Benefit with Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Moondragon. Thor puts in a brief appearance, and the Grand Vizier seems to find the whole affair delightful. Wanda feels a tinge of regret that she has not had the chance to even inform Pietro of her marriage, but she’s determined to give her twin brother whatever space he needs to grow up a little.
Notes:
January–May 1967 – Black Spectre wreaks havoc in the United States in Daredevil #109–112 and Marvel Two-In-One #3, during which the Avengers remain behind the scenes.
June 1967 – The Scarlet Witch is behind the scenes when Captain America, disillusioned after the Secret Empire affair, calls it quits in Captain America #176. Scarlet Witch’s adventures then resume in Avengers #127 and following. The battle with Ultron-7 crosses over into Fantastic Four #150, where the wedding of Quicksilver and Crystal is depicted in abbreviated fashion. Kang’s first attempt to capture the Celestial Madonna culminates in Giant-Size Avengers #2. The timestream disturbances in the late 20th century that Kang refers to are the result of the “time bubble” (which stretches from 1995 to 2010) that Thor and Iron Man (among others) will investigate in Avengers #296–297 and Fantastic Four #337–341.
July 1967 – Wanda succumbs to demonic possession in Giant-Size Avengers #3, as Dormammu seeks revenge for the defeat she handed him back in Avengers #118. She and Vision then face down Dormammu and Umar in Giant-Size Avengers #4, which ends with the big double-wedding. On the splash page of Iron Man #74, Scarlet Witch and Vision are erroneously shown instead of Moondragon. Once back in Manhattan, Agatha tells the Avengers that Wanda “will never be a great witch, let alone a sorceress, but she will be very good.” Presumably, Agatha sought out Wanda mainly because she needed her help to fight off Necrodamus and then to rescue Gaea from Dormammu, rather than because she believed Wanda to be a promising student of witchcraft. The way writer Steve Englehart seems to conceptualize witches suggests that Agatha would derive much of her magical power from Gaea. Thus, while Gaea was being held captive, Agatha was unusually vulnerable. However, Agatha unwittingly plays into the hands of the arch-demon Chthon, who has been trying to turn Wanda to the occult for several years in a gambit to escape imprisonment within Wundagore Mountain. This brings us up to the first couple pages of Avengers #137. The Fantastic Four repel an alien invasion in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3, during which the Scarlet Witch and the Vision are behind the scenes.
August 1967 – As revealed in Avengers West Coast #50, the Vision and the Original Human Torch were always two separate entities, at least as far as the Original Marvel Universe is concerned. This means that the events the Vision witnessed in Avengers #133–135 actually occurred in an alternate timeline, one selected specifically by Immortus to convince the Vision that he was indeed worthy of marrying the Scarlet Witch, as part of the scheme to manipulate her that was finally exposed in Avengers West Coast #61–62. With access to innumerable parallel realities as the ruler of the dimension of Limbo, Immortus was aware that, if the Vision did not overcome his insecurities and propose to Wanda at this time, he would most likely lose her to Wonder Man after the latter’s resurrection next year. Sharing the same brain patterns, Vision and Wonder Man both fall in love with Wanda, which will become an ongoing subplot in the Avengers titles. Presumably, a romance with Wonder Man would have precluded Wanda from having the eventual mental breakdown that Immortus is counting on. Therefore, Immortus stepped in to convince the Vision that he had started life as a world-renowned crime-fighter and war hero, as learning the truth of his origins would have had the same effect on the Vision as remaining ignorant of them. For in fact, Vision was created by Ultron-5 out of the remains of another of Phineas T. Horton’s androids—Adam-II, a villain who fought the All-Winners Squad while trying to assassinate congressional candidate John F. Kennedy in What If? #4.
Like the rest of the so-called Legion of the Unliving, the Original Human Torch who appears in Avengers #131–132 and Giant-Size Avengers #3 is not the real one but merely a simulacrum created by Kang using Immortus’s time-manipulation devices. As such, he says what Immortus needs him to say. Immortus’s synchro-staff then takes the Vision on a trip through history to witness events from Marvel Comics #1, Young Men #24, Fantastic Four Annual #4, and Sub-Mariner #14. Vision’s recent panic attacks were actually caused directly by Immortus in furtherance of his master plan, not due to any shared history with the android Torch. The timeline diverges when Ultron-5 discovers the inert Torch in the Mad Thinker’s abandoned laboratory. In the OMU, the Torch had already been buried in Pleasantville’s Quaker Hill Cemetery, as shown in Avengers West Coast #50. As a result, Ultron-5 instead obtained the remains of Adam-II, which Horton had stashed away back in 1946. Ultron had originally been created to assist Hank Pym and Bill Foster with the development of a synthezoid, and Pym had confiscated density-altering technology from Egghead in the aftermath of Tales to Astonish #61. This is what drove Ultron-5 to make the modifications to the android that he did. When Horton, still very much alive, saw the disassembled Vision in West Coast Avengers #44, he did not recognize it as his work due to the presence of robotic components. Horton’s research was limited to androids—beings of synthetic flesh and blood. This was true of both the Human Torch and Adam-II (who was killed in a car crash). Additionally, it would seem that the Horton in the parallel world Immortus chose never became the stepfather of Frankie Raye, as seen in Fantastic Four #238, and lived a much lonelier life.
December 1967 – Vision is among the various superheroes seen trapped within Loki’s magical spheres in Thor #233, though the Scarlet Witch remains behind the scenes. She is still behind the scenes when Steve Rogers becomes Captain America again in Captain America #183.
Jump Back: Secrets of the Scarlet Witch – Part Five
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