Wanda Maximoff

Wanda Maximoff is a native of Sokovia who grew up with her fraternal twin brother, Pietro. Born with the latent mythical ability to harness Chaos Magic, she developed a hatred against Tony Stark and rallied anti-American protests after the Novi Grad Bombings killed her parents. Years later, in an effort to help purge their country of strife, the twins joined HYDRA and agreed to undergo experiments with the Scepter under the supervision of Baron Strucker, with the Mind Stone awakening and amplifying Wanda's powers. While her brother developed super-speed, she attained various psionic abilities. When HYDRA fell, the twins joined Ultron to get their revenge on Stark, but abandoned him when they discovered his true intentions to eradicate humanity. Wanda and Pietro joined the Avengers during the Battle of Sokovia to stop Ultron; Pietro was killed during the battle but Wanda survived, and shortly after relocated to the Avengers Compound in the United States of America. In 2016, during the Attack on the IFID Headquarters, Maximoff tried to contain an explosion caused by Crossbones, who pulled the cord on his own explosive vest, but failed in her mission and inadvertently destroyed a nearby building with the blast, killing many of its occupants, much to her horror. Maximoff felt responsible for what happened, and since she was unsure of her decision about the Sokovia Accords, she ended up under Vision's watch, who made every effort to make her feel better. However, Clint Barton convinced her to run away and join Steve Rogers in his fight against Tony Stark's team. As a result of her actions during the Clash of the Avengers and her violation of the Sokovia Accords, Maximoff was briefly imprisoned on the Raft before Rogers freed her alongside her teammates. Over the next two years, Maximoff reunited and reconciled with Vision, and together the two started living off the grid in Europe, forming a romantic relationship. In 2018, they were ambushed by the Black Order, who sought the Mind Stone, and rejoined the Avengers to seek refuge in Wakanda. Maximoff took part in the city's defence when the Black Order invaded the city, where she was forced to kill Vision to prevent Thanos from completing the Infinity Gauntlet. However, she witnessed Thanos resurrect and kill Vision before initiating the Snap, which claimed Maximoff's life. After the victims of the Snap were resurrected in 2023, Maximoff was among the many heroes who fought during the Battle of Earth, defeating Thanos and his armies. Soon after, Maximoff became overwhelmed by immense grief from her recent personal losses, unwittingly unleashing her Chaos Magic powers to enthrall the citizens of Westview into creating an alternate idyllic paradise of classical sitcom tropes. With a recreated Vision as her husband, Maximoff lived her ideal life, even producing twin sons, Tommy and Billy. Further complicating the crisis was Agatha Harkness, a fellow witch who sought to understand the nature of Maximoff's new reality, and a S.W.O.R.D. operation led by Tyler Hayward who wished to eliminate her. Maximoff, now knowing her own identity as the fabled Scarlet Witch, defeated Harkness and the S.W.O.R.D. agents, and dispelled her reality, erasing her family in the process. As she was now wanted, Maximoff fled into isolation and began studying the Darkhold. However, during her exile, the Darkhold had been slowly corrupting her mind, causing her to believe that the only way for her to see her children again was to find them in a different universe. In her quest to steal the powers of multiversal travel from a teenager called America Chavez, Maximoff came at odds with her former ally Doctor Strange, and massacred members of the Masters of the Mystic Arts as well as a group of superpowered individuals from a different universe known as the Illuminati. Finally, after realizing that her violent rampage caused her to be rejected by the Tommy and Billy from an alternate universe, Maximoff redeemed herself by destroying every version of the Darkhold within the Multiverse and demolishing the Darkhold Castle atop Mount Wundagore, seemingly taking her own life in the process. Since her young age, Maximoff has developed a tendency towards escapism. She would often engulf herself in the imaginary world of sitcoms as a way to shelter herself from the harsh reality of instability and scarcity that her family had to endure. Due to childhood trauma from seeing her parents killed right in front of her, and the constant war-like state of her home, Wanda Maximoff had developed a very aggressive personality. From being involved in protests to volunteering for Baron Strucker's experiments, and joining the Avengers, Maximoff has shown that she prefers to fight directly for what she believes in. Her passionate nature and willingness to engage in violence to achieve her goals led her to mistakenly side with Ultron, which deeply influenced much of her future actions. Her passion was partly fueled by her hatred of the United States of America and Tony Stark. This hatred was strong enough to have her side with Ultron for what she believed to be the greater good. She was unfazed when Ultron killed von Strucker and was willing to send Hulk on a rampage in Johannesburg, costing the lives of both soldiers and civilians. Fortunately, she was not blinded completely by passion and was capable of reason, clearly being appalled by the level of destruction Ultron was trying to achieve, and promptly sided with the Avengers to make amends. After getting to know the Avengers, she has since let go of any grudge or hatred she previously held against the team as well as the United States. Due to her past affiliation with Ultron and her role in the destruction of Sokovia, Maximoff carried a deep fear of making mistakes and was frequently wracked with guilt and remorse. Her self-doubt and guilt over the mistakes she has made have at times led her to inaction, even though she is generally action-oriented. Despite this, Hawkeye was able to talk her into action, affirming her desire to fight for what she feels is right, despite what others may think of her. In contrast with her brother, Scarlet Witch displays a more serious attitude and direct anger, not only against Tony Stark but against anyone that she perceives as her enemy, such as Klaue and Thanos. Her anger leads her to be vengeful, as demonstrated when she volunteered for experiments to become a weapon against the United States and Tony Stark, seeking out Ultron's primary body in order to destroy him after he caused the death of her brother, and angrily telling Thanos that he could not understand her pain after she was forced to kill Vision in the attempt to stop him. In the past, she had no qualms about manipulating others mentally in order to achieve what she wanted, though she later regretted doing this. Maximoff became considerably more mellow after joining the team, as she is seen to be more compassionate, level-headed, and less inclined to use the manipulative aspects of her abilities, such as fear projection and mind control. Driven by a desire to fight in the front lines rather than as passive support, Maximoff honed her powers to become more combat-oriented, focusing on energy blasts, throws, and barrier projection, relying less on her telepathic abilities. Having become less aggressive and more reluctant to do harm, she has not been seen using her mental manipulation powers since joining the Avengers. Additionally, she rarely uses her powers to deal out lethal force unless completely necessary, using her powers more often to incapacitate her opponents. However, she also is less inclined to hold back in a fight, even against fellow Avengers, as shown when she hurled Black Widow several feet when she attempted to overpower Hawkeye. She has shown a willingness to kill her enemies in extreme circumstances, as shown when she telekinetically threw a carving knife at a perceived assailant before realizing it was Hawkeye, and when she purposefully lifted Proxima Midnight into a Thresher and shredded her to stop the latter from killing Black Widow. Maximoff grew to care for Vision during their time together. However, she was disappointed that he was more loyal to Stark and the people of Earth than to her. However, in the aftermath of Avengers Civil War, she has put the grudge aside and developed strong romantic feelings for him to the point that, after she escaped from the Raft, she went off the grid with him to Europe and was in the beginning stages of starting a new life with him. Her feelings grew strong to the point that she tried her best to protect him from Thanos and the Black Order despite being at a great disadvantage, and refused to kill him until there was no alternative, resisting even when he himself agreed that his death was for the greater good of the universe. When forced to kill him, Maximoff openly wept as she was killing the being she loved more than anything else. Maximoff was horrified when Vision was briefly resurrected and emotionally devastated when he was killed a second time by Thanos, sitting at his side in mourning minutes before her death. While initially hostile during the conflict with Ultron, Maximoff grew to have a strong bond with Hawkeye, who served as a brotherly figure in her life, especially after losing Pietro. Hawkeye was responsible for encouraging her to act in two separate situations where she is overcome by her guilt, that being the attack on Sokovia and his attempt to extract her from the Avengers' Compound. In the aftermath of the Battle of Earth, where Hawkeye was in need of comfort after losing Black Widow, Maximoff was there, by his side, to quiet his worries. Upon coming back to life and returning to Earth to fight against Thanos and his armies, Maximoff displayed an overwhelming vehemence towards the alien warlord, tempered by a subtle confidence. Her presence and movements were more deliberate and forceful, unlike the relative apprehension she displayed in her earlier appearances. This was most evident when Thanos was trying to break through her protections, Maximoff gave him an almost mocking smirk before forcefully swatting away his weapon with relative ease. By the time Maximoff created her ideal alternate reality, her mentality had deteriorated; to the point where she believed that the "Pietro" that showed up at her house, was her actual brother; despite his different appearance. She was incredibly hostile, exiling anyone from the Hex; who directly mentioned her past or disrupted her fantasy and was in complete denial that any of it ever happened. She also developed a prevalent maternal side which she greatly showed with her children that she had created. Maximoff showed great denial and reluctance when facing anything negative while she was still processing her grief and often dismissed or denied any problems even in aggressive ways, showing her declining mental state. Although, Maximoff did show great remorse for her actions when it was revealed to her that she was subconsciously torturing the people of Westview and that she wasn't keeping the civilians safe and at peace like she thought she was. She immediately released the people of Westview upon her discoveries, showing that her morality endured despite her recent selfish and hostile actions. During her final showdown with Agatha Harkness, she displayed much more confidence in her powers than ever before; directly using her mental manipulation on Harkness finally using this power again after years, teleporting in a similar fashion as Harkness, and casting runes as a way to outsmart Harkness. She eventually healed by facing her truth and reverting Westview back to normal and she was determined to master her newfound powers, changed from her experience. But once Maximoff began to study the Darkhold, her mind had become deeply corrupt and twisted, causing her to become so obsessed with finding a way to bring the alternate versions of her children from within the Multiverse into her own universe; in order to finally fulfill her goal of being a mother. This obsession has caused her to lose any sense of reason, driving her into madness; which was seen; when she refused to listen to Stephen Strange who was trying to reason with her and saw him as hypocritical, mercilessly attacked her former allies the Masters of The Mystic Arts, killing many of them in the process, and hunted America Chavez in an attempt to steal her powers for herself, which would have killed Chavez. She possessed a body of her alternate-self and used it as a tool to massacre the Illuminati and ultimately attempted to snatch the alternate versions of Billy and Tommy from their mother, which caused the two boys to hide from her in fear. It was only after she saw the fear in the Maximoff twins' eyes, that Maximoff realized that she had become a danger to her own children, the two people she loved and wanted the most. Filled with remorse for her actions, Maximoff decided to finally end her own violent rampage by destroying every version of the Darkhold throughout the multiverse and demolishing the Darkhold Castle, ultimately sacrificing herself in the process.