Wanda’s Dad Magneto:
Earlier, we have talked about the feud between Marvel and Fox regarding the existence of ‘Mutants’. Back in 2001, Fox sued Marvel over its planned Mutant X television series, even though the series was to be based on entirely new characters with a completely different origin story than the X-Men and already-existing mutants of the world. But that has now changed since Disney has acquired 20th Century Fox. And in the wake of this event, on Disney Investor’s Day held on December 10, 2020, it was announced that Spider-Man director Jon Watts will now be directing the Fantastic Four, and the fans went gaga over it, as it is the first Fantastic Four movie in the MCU. Likewise, things are moving forward with Deadpool 3, with Deadpool being a mutant and previously with Fox. So we can expect our fierce mutants to make a mark for themselves in the Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside our Marvel heroes.
We have seen the first two episodes of WandaVision which premiered on January 15, 2021, on Disney+, and as expressed earlier by Marvel, the show has clearly been on the railroads of the House of M comics. In that story, Scarlet Witch suffers a mental breakdown after the loss of her twins with Vision and, in her grief, starts to warp reality. Though her father (Magneto) and Professor X try their best to help her get over her grief, and Professor X even tries to heal her mind, it remains fractured and reality warps further. When her twin brother, Pietro, a.k.a. Quicksilver, alerts her there are discussions she’s too dangerous to be allowed to survive, he suggests she create a new reality.
This disastrous breakdown and the unintentional power boost from Professor X pushes Wanda beyond her restraints, and she creates an alternate reality so powerful that it supplants the real Marvel universe for a while. In it, the heroes of Marvel are given everything their heart desires and it’s clear this will be played out on a modified scale in WandaVision. In the new reality of the series, Vision is alive again and he and Wanda are living happily ever after, but it’s clear something isn’t right and the reality isn’t, perhaps, actually reality at all.
In an alternate reality, Magneto is ruling the world with his mutants rather than being an oppressed race of humans with amplified strengths. But when Magneto realizes that all this is nothing but a fake reality concept, and all this was Quicksilver’s plan, he sets himself into an uncontrollable rage and kills Pietro. This sets off Wanda so much that she turns against her father because he always chose the mutant kind over his own family. With this, she decides to end what her father loves the most with only three words, “No more mutants.” In a split second, Wanda simultaneously resets reality back to “normal” and wipes out 98% of the world’s mutant population by rendering them powerless in an event that came to be known as the Decimation.
WandaVision can give us two point-explanation as to why mutants are not included in the MCU. One, it could go a modified comic book route in which Wanda accidentally wiped out the world’s mutants but no one in the MCU remembered that reality or that the X-Men had once existed, not even the X-Men themselves. After the events of WandaVision, their mutant abilities, and everyone’s memories, could be restored.
All indications in both the first two episodes and the trailers point to the organization known as SWORD being the ones who help Wanda snap out of it. It looks like SWORD is investigating what’s happening with Wanda, and are already getting themselves involved. SWORD members like Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) will have their work cut out for them if they hope to pull Wanda out of this strange reality. However, it may be that all their efforts will be in vain. It could be that the character who will receive the credit for saving her will instead be Magneto, who for decades was regarded as her father in the comic books. Here’s how that could work in WandaVision, and what it would mean.
For a long time, the comic book versions of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver believed that their parents were Django and Marya Maximoff, two gypsies who lived in Eastern Europe. In the 1980s, the twins were told that they were in fact the children of their foe and former leader, Magneto. He too was unaware of this for a long time. Apparently, he became separated from his lover years ago, who gave birth to Wanda and Pietro on the peak of Mount Wundagore. In the 2010s, Marvel Comics retconned this out of continuity by having them find out that they really were the Maximoffs’ kids all along.
However, it was perceived that this change was made to keep them closer in line with their Avengers: Age of Ultron backstory. Since X-Men characters were off-limits at the time, there was no way that Marvel could reveal or even hint that Magneto was their father. For this reason, their origin stories were rewritten. Instead of being mutants, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were metahumans given superpowers by the Mind Stone. As for their parents, they were killed during a military conflict in their home country, Sokovia.
It could be discovered that the mother and father they lost in Sokovia weren’t their biological parents. She could learn that she and her brother were adopted and that their real parents are still out there somewhere. That would open the door for Magneto to be introduced, and for Wanda to finally be established as one of the MCU’s mutants. She got her powers from the Mind Stone in Age of Ultron, but it could be always be uncovered that what the Stone actually did was unlock latent abilities she already possessed as a result of the mutant gene. Marvel could begin exploring her true origin when it starts explaining why Scarlet Witch has new powers in Phase 4. It could be that he’ll enter the picture toward the end of the series to save Scarlet Witch.
This would be a path that’s consistent with how he’s used in Scarlet Witch stories in the comics. He and Wanda have long had a troubled relationship, but even so, he’s still someone who cares for her deeply. It’s possible that Magneto will make a shocking grand entrance in WandaVision and have a face-to-face meeting with Wanda. It may be that he either recently learned about her being his daughter, or knew about her from the start. Regardless of the reason, he could enter her fake world and try to talk to her. Saving her won’t be easy, considering that Scarlet Witch doesn’t seem to want to be saved. The scene of Wanda saying “No” and rewinding back to before the Beekeeper’s arrival in WandaVision episode 2 suggested that she’s keeping herself trapped there.
She may not be receptive to SWORD’s attempts to stop her but could have an interesting reaction to Magneto if he were to appear. The shock of seeing him and having a father in her life again could be enough to get Scarlet Witch back to reality.
It will be really exciting to see Magneto share the same screen as Wanda, and more than that be her father and save her. I mean, the confrontation alone will be legendary and we will finally get to see Mutants make their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
