Issue(s): Scarlet Witch #1, Scarlet Witch #2, Scarlet Witch #3, Scarlet Witch #4
Cover Date: Jan-Apr 94
Title: "Dark designs" / "The clutch of madness!" / "Scarlet in battle!" / "The witch is mine!"
Credits:
Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning - Writer
John Higgins - Penciler
Mark McKenna - Inker
Nel Yomtov - Editor

Review/plot:
A Scarlet Witch miniseries by Abnett & Lanning, the writers of the upcoming Force Works series. The artist, John Higgins, is also from the UK (i have him on a single epilogue on a Death's Head II issue but he also worked for 2000 AD and was the colorist for a number of Alan Moore stories, including Watchmen).

I used to like Scarlet Witch as a character. I was introduced to her during Roger Stern's Avengers run, and she had a lot going for her. She's a former super-villain and the daughter of Magneto. As a mutant, she creates a connection for the Avengers with what's going on in the mutant world. That plus her "interracial" marriage to the Vision allowed the Avengers to occasionally deal with discrimination issues; without her, the Avengers can seem disconnected from and even oblivious to the kind of persecution that the X-Men deal with regularly. Compared to the Avengers' few other mutant characters, she was a more grounded (sane) character than Quicksilver, and during the Beast's time with the Avengers, his mutant aspect was downplayed in favor of his boisterous side.

Unfortunately, John Byrne did a lot of damage to Scarlet Witch (and it's only going to get worse in the years to come). So at this point i'm already in a mindset where she's a broken character, and the idea of her starring in a miniseries is surprising. Even prior to Byrne i wouldn't have thought of her as an obvious solo character; her powers are so ambiguous that she works better in a team situation. But it's interesting to see her with her own book, and Abnett & Lanning even at this point in their careers were decent writers, so i approached this with some hope.

I should also say that Stern's run downplayed the Scarlet Witch's true magical side. I recognize that that's been a part of her character since the 70s, but it's always felt like an unnecessary complication to her character. She's a mutant with magic-like abilities, but she also has real magic? It's too much. So i never like stories that focus on the Scarlet Witch's magical side.

On that note, this story begins with "eldritch chaos" surrounding a world called Amazar, which is under attack by Gargan the wizard and his witchcraft-powered iron golems.

Gargan conquers Amazar, capturing Eleyn the Witch-Queen, and forces her to "give up your heart to your successor". Eleyn tears off Gargan's mask, revealing the Scarlet Witch's face.

This turns out to be a nightmare the Scarlet Witch is having, but you can be sure that's not the end of the mystical stuff.

Scarlet Witch contacts Agatha Harkness and tells her about her nightmares.

It's a problem when your character has to constantly wonder if she's having yet another breakdown.

Agatha assures Wanda that it's perfectly normal for someone raised by a mutant terrorist and constantly toyed with by the likes of Immortus and Master Pandemonium to have nightmares.

Later, after a morning workout routine with Wonder Man and USAgent...

...the Avengers' West Coast compound is attacked by demons.

USAgent's shield is the only thing that has any effect on the demons, and Scarlet Witch realizes it's probably the iron in the shield. So she transforms War Machine's armor into pure iron. He's able to mop them up. Spider-Woman tries to capture some of the demons to interrogate, but they all disintegrate away. A demonic voice says "The Witch is mine" (repeating a line from the nightmare) as they fade away. Wanda contacts Agatha again. Agatha says that a library in New England might hold some information on Wanda being a "nexus being". So Scarlet Witch takes a leave of absence from the Avengers to meet Agatha at the library. The library is an abandoned town (a dried-up fishing community) called Unity.

Scarlet Witch and Harkness split up to search the library, and Wanda encounters Master Pandemonium, who is sporting a new look.

While Scarlet Witch runs from Master P's demons, someone that looks like her attacks the West Coast compound.

Wanda manages to evade the demons long enough to locate a book that describes her as a nexus being.

The "dark predatory extreme" nexus variant is called Lore, and that's the woman that is attacking the Avengers. After Scarlet Witch leaves the library, she's attacked by demonic versions of the defeated Avengers.

Issue #3 is largely Scarlet Witch running away from the warped Avengers. She's eventually captured and brought to Master Pandemonium.

Master P says that after he died, he was tortured by demons and transformed into his current shape. But what kept him going, apparently, was his love for the Scarlet Witch.

Agatha Harkness arrives to rescue Wanda. Harkness also has a better showing against the demonic Avengers than Wanda did.

They team up to vanquish Master P, and then Lore shows up.

Harkness' magic doesn't work against Lore, and Scarlet Witch reasons that the same will be true of her hex power. She tries to utilize the physical training she practiced with Wonder Man and USAgent earlier, but Lore turns out to be insubstantial. Scarlet Witch asks what Lore is, and Lore says that she's the Scarlet Witch's "fancy", having manifested through her nightmares.

That might have been an interesting twist, that this really is another of the Witch's breakdowns and that all the mystical stuff was part of the delusion. But Lore also continues to talk about the nexus garbage.

Scarlet Witch tries her hex, using it to turn Lore solid. And then she punches Lore in the face.

That should have been the end, but it's not quite. Lore summons up some skeletons for Scarlet Witch to fight.

Then Wanda and Lore fight some more...

...and then Master Pandemonium comes back. But Lore betrays Master P, trying to kill him (for no sensible reason; it's just that betraying is "what I do best"). At this point the other Avengers have recovered. But Lore says that now that the Scarlet Witch has given her a physical form, she has no reason to fight one-on-one. Instead she tries to wipe out the entire dimension or something. But this apparently allows all the other Nexi that Lore has killed over the years to come back in spirit form and destroy her (with Scarlet Witch delivering the finishing blow with a sword).

She later wakes up at the Avengers' compound, and we're told that this is the end of the old Scarlet Witch.

If this really is the start of a new direction for the character, this miniseries did a poor job setting up. The new development for the character seems to be that she punches stuff sometimes. I could maybe like the idea of her developing some kind of Hex Punch (allowing a more direct use of her hard-to-quantify powers), but that's something i'm more inferring from the art/coloring than anything. I guess we'll see what Abnett & Lanning do with her in Force Works. But this mini was a terrible waste. Aside from the weird use of Master Pandemonium (who is not exactly a great character to begin with), there's little here that builds on the Scarlet Witch's rich history. It's a bunch of random mystical gibberish about a Nexus.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The West Coast Avengers are still active, placing this "before the recent break-up" in Avengers West Coast #102. But Scarlet Witch is wearing her new costume. The costume never has a formal debut in the AWC series, but it first appears there in #102 (its first published appearance, where Scarlet Witch shows it off to the Wasp, was in Marvel Comics Presents #143). So (assuming she hadn't been going back and forth between costumes, which isn't implausible) i'm placing this between #101 and #102. This should take place before Wonder Man #26-27, since Wonder Man #26-27 are said to be Wonder Man's last known appearance before Avengers West Coast #102; see Wonder Man #26-27's Considerations for more.

References:

• Master Pandemonium seemingly died in Avengers West Coast #52.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Having an evil version of the Scarlet Witch called Lore is very odd. At this point, there had been an evil-ish version of Data on Star Trek TNG called Lore for years. At least in that case the name sort of made sense (data vs lore).

That might have been an interesting twist, that this really is another of the Witch's breakdowns and that all the mystical stuff was part of the delusion. But Lore also continues to talk about the nexus garbage.

This is of course what can be done with this story anyway after Bendis's later retcons. Agatha Harkness's presence could even support the claim.

I think Dan Abnett is one of Wanda's better writers. I do like the character direction he gives her. I wouldn't call this miniseries great, but I like Wanda's 2016 series a lot more. I am far more interested in the witch aspects of the character than the mutant aspects.

I think one of the things to work against this limited series is that the main character was unrecognizable in appearance!

Kurt Busiek was "impressed" by issues 2-4- he'd never read a 3-issue fight sequence before- poor Wanda couldn't catch a break.

John Higgins & Mark McKenna are a great art team, and they do good work here. I just wish they had been given the opportunity to draw Wanda in an outfit that was closer to her traditional look.

Out of Moore with Swamp Thing I still hadn't seen any other writer deliver an essential change on a character that didn't feel out of place specially with vaguely defined mystical stuff. It reminds me the stuff Marvel will try to set up later with Spider-man being a spider totem in The Other which doesn't add anything useful,quite the opposite, and waste story pages that could have been used for far more important character development.

I just don't understand why this miniseries existed. It feels like something that Marvel Comics Presents would not be interested in lending space to.

Was it an attempt at earning some bucks out of a clearly unnecessary story while claiming that it was character advancement for Wanda? Wanda was sort of testy in WCA #102, but that was hardly reason to publish this.