Marvel has lengthy had a villain downside onscreen. Other than a number of notable exceptions like Loki, Thanos, and Killmonger, MCU villains are usually quite forgettable mirror picture variations of the heroes they combat to conquer. However I would argue Marvel has a good greater villain downside that is far much less talked about, but continues even now in probably the franchise’s darkest outing to this point.
Spinning out of What If…? season one, Marvel Zombies continues the story of a world ravaged by the undead the place only some heroes stay, together with Spider-Man, Ms Marvel, and the Scarlet Witch… Besides, Wanda’s not appearing like her standard self. Like many of the different Avengers, the Scarlet Witch has additionally succumbed to the zombie outbreak. However in contrast to the others, she’s rapidly positioned because the Massive Dangerous of the story, who our faves must combat and cease.
On the one hand, it is sensible that Wanda’s reality-warping presents would possibly provide sufficient resistance for her to maintain some autonomy because the newly topped “Queen of the Useless.” However the identical may be argued for different heroes like Thor, who possess god-like energy of their very own. Nonetheless, it ought to come as no shock that Wanda, specifically, was the one chosen to grow to be a villain once more. Why break the behavior of a lifetime?
Pink alert
Within the early days of Marvel, male heroes outnumbered their feminine counterparts, and the few girls who did exist on this world had been often depicted as weaker too. The Invisible Lady, as she was patronisingly named again then, did not possess the pressure area capabilities she does in the present day, whereas Marvel Lady may barely carry a cardboard field with out fainting. Okay, that is a slight exaggeration, however the fainting was not, as famously depicted (and later memed) within the 90s X-Males animated collection.
When these girls had been finally given their dues and allowed to manifest the complete extent of their energy, they’d inevitably lose management, unable to get a deal with on this newfound energy and descend into villainy. Jean Gray’s downfall because the Darkish Phoenix led to the destruction of a complete planet earlier than her boyfriend, Cyclops, was compelled to kill his “hysterical” girlfriend in an effort to save everybody, together with Jean, from her personal darkness.
Impressed by Chris Claremont’s now iconic saga, Implausible 4 author John Byrne adopted go well with and remodeled Sue Storm into an evil, semi-naked dominatrix known as Malice. As soon as once more, it was the husband who needed to save this ‘Unstable Powered Lady’ from herself.
Nonetheless, no different feminine character in Marvel has suffered as a lot from these tropes as Wanda Maximoff, whose whole journey has been outlined for essentially the most half by a legacy of darkness and her incapacity to manage it. From her breakdown in West Coast Avengers to Cthon’s affect and, in fact, her notorious “No Extra Mutants” storyline in Home of M, the Scarlet Witch has often been pushed insane by energy in ways in which not often, if ever, apply to her male counterparts.
Witching hour
Simply as evil entities sought to manage Wanda, the writers at Marvel additionally handled her as a puppet, one to be confronted and subdued. However after Elizabeth Olsen’s model of the character gained recognition within the MCU, Jac Schaeffer’s WandaVision collection defied conventional notions of “good” and “evil” to discover way more advanced emotions in relation to Wanda.
Did the Scarlet Witch lose management? To some extent, sure. Was her grief comprehensible and even relatable? Very a lot so. As such, followers who perceived Wanda’s position in remodeling Westview as simply one other villainous flip missed the purpose solely.
Throughout an interview with io9 on the time, Schaeffer acknowledged Wanda’s comedian e book historical past and why it was necessary for her to maneuver away from that in WandaVision: “There are plenty of actually terrific comics and tales about Wanda. However I do suppose she is usually used as a instrument, and diving into what’s actually taking place inside her was an actual problem due to the thinness of her characterization in so many storylines.”
The end result was a transferring, poignant reconfiguration of Wanda’s notion within the public eye, additional cementing the Scarlet Witch as a personality who’s able to far higher issues than your common cookie-cutter hero. However then the Physician Unusual sequel Multiverse of Insanity swooped in and undid all that onerous work, taking away the management and company she’d manifested for herself by the top of WandaVision.
Unusual days
The thought was that Wanda had grow to be corrupted by the darkish magics she was entangled with in a bid to deliver her sons again to life. Even inside this, there might need been scope for extra nuance with out additional propagating the sexist tropes this character has endured for many years by this level. However, no. The grief-stricken, morally advanced Wanda we knew from WandaVision was as an alternative remodeled nearly instantly into an unstoppable pressure of rage and evil who casually murdered heroes with no second thought.
Screenwriter Michael Waldron argued on the time that this interpretation was “true to who the comics’ model of the character is and what she does within the comics.” He is technically proper, however that does not make it okay, particularly now on this trendy period when it will have been simple to construct on the redemption that began in WandaVision.
What Multiverse of Insanity did to Wanda is lazy, sure, and in addition a drained, reductive strategy that fails to do considered one of Marvel’s hottest characters justice. And now right here we’re once more with Marvel Zombies the place Wanda’s first look since Multiverse of Insanity continues to madden us.
There isn’t any humanity to this zombie model of Wanda, which is okay, as a result of you recognize… She is a zombie. However why decide her of all characters to be the Massive Dangerous once more? There is not any comedian e book precedent for the Scarlet Witch taking centre stage on this alternate actuality of the undead, so why make her their queen?
It is not like Marvel Zombies is not afraid to change issues up or take some dangers both. For instance, this present’s model of Blade has been amalgamated with Moon Knight for a recent spin on the character, whereas Awkwafina’s Shang-Chi sidekick Katy Chen is remodeled right into a hero who shares joint custody of the ten rings.
If such liberties might be taken so simply with different characters, whether or not they’re new to the MCU or not, Marvel Zombies may have executed the identical and switched issues up with a unique villain.
Think about how attention-grabbing it may have been to decide on somebody like Ms Marvel in that position, for instance. Seeing her mild warped in such a approach would have been way more intriguing and even disturbing to look at, plus the present itself establishes that her powers are a pressure to be reckoned with by the top. Would not it’s good to see Wanda combat as a hero once more?
Wanda is the apparent option to villainise but once more, so that is the one Marvel Zombies went for, demonising her to such a monstrous diploma that she’s now grow to be a full-blown monster in each sense of the phrase.
And sadly, if the collection does proceed, it is greater than probably that the Scarlet Witch will stay the Massive Dangerous of this world, particularly if the top of the ultimate episode is something to go by.
That is unlucky, as a result of in a world the place all the principles are damaged and nothing’s off limits, Marvel Zombies may have taken actual steps to rectify the franchise’s greatest villain downside by redeeming Wanda as an alternative of condemning her additional.
Marvel Zombies is streaming now on Disney Plus. For extra, take a look at our Marvel Zombies assessment, or should you’ve seen the streaming collection and are nonetheless scratching your chin, our Marvel Zombies ending defined.
