In a surprise to even critics who had seen all of VisionQuest‘s episodes early, Disney+ just tacked on a new end credits scene that features a pretty big return. After a final scene featuring Ultron, the action shifts to Mount Wundagore, for a climactic moment from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It’s Wanda Maximoff’s sacrifice, as she brings the temple and the mountain down on herself to destroy the Darkhold and her with it. That much still happens, but then we see her body being unearthed. With a hint of green, and Robert Downey Jr. doing a Latverian accent — one assumes — it can only be Doctor Doom.
He speaks. “Scarlet Witch, awaken. Your power will be mine.” With that, Wanda opens her eyes. In some form, and still played by Elizabeth Olsen, the Scarlet Witch is back. Whether she’ll be in thrall to Doom as a servant of his, or he’ll simply drain her powers for himself and leave her mortal, we don’t yet know, but his word imply either possibility. The official timeline book may have been correct when it said she was dead — if Doom’s power is so great it can do resurrections.
Elizabeth Olsen has officially returned as Wanda Maximoff in the MCU:
“Scarlet Witch awaken, your power will be mine.” #AvengersDoomsday pic.twitter.com/7dIYvZM2G2
When we last saw Wanda, she was primarily an antagonist, trying to steal alternate dimension-variants of her dead children. Revived, she may learn pretty quickly that both are alive in new young adult bodies now, following the events of Agatha All Along and VisionQuest. They’re both also more or less on the side of the good guys; if Wanda is somehow forced to join Doom, she’ll be opposing the side of her own kids, though they are not yet confirmed to be in Avengers: Doomsday yet.
There’s another family detail, due to the worlds colliding. Wanda and her brother Pietro, as both X-Men and Avengers characters, were included in both the Fox X-universe and the MCU, with Evan Peters playing Pietro/Quicksilver, and Wanda’s existence there only implied. In many continuities, Magneto is their father, though the movies never confirmed nor denied that beyond a doubt. Peters then showed up in WandaVision as Ralph Bohner, an actor possessed by Agatha Harkness to pretend to be Pietro. With a lot of characters and a limited amount of screentime, Doomsday probably won’t do too deep a dive into all of that, but Wanda is driven by love for her family…and family’s about to get complicated.
Is there a role for Wanda with the MCU X-Men, when all is said and done after Secret Wars? Will her father be a new actor cast as Magneto, or will Ian McKellen’s version acknowledge her? Kevin Feige is presumably working this out, and it likely depends on how well Wanda’s return is received. Fans generally like the character and the actress, though some may resent being reminded that even in comic-book movies, nobody has to stay dead, which arguably reduces the dramatic stakes. Olsen previously claimed she didn’t know anything about VisionQuest, and she may not have been lying — the credits scene looks like it was shot for Doomsday and added to VisionQuest purely for timing reasons. Speaking of timing: Marvel’s Doomsday clock countdown just turned, well, scarlet…
The ‘AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY’ clock is now glowing red following the Scarlet Witch’s return. pic.twitter.com/5zzQbgaheV
Are you happy to see Wanda come back to life, or does it reduce the impact of her death in an MCU rewatch? Let us know your thoughts in comments.
