Kevin Feige had been touting Scarlet Witch as the most powerful superhero in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, so we’d known for a long time that WandaVision would show how much her abilities had grown in strength, but few fans would have expected the revelation that suburban sitcom housewife Wanda Maximoff had the potential to destroy the entire world if she wanted to.
Of course, things didn’t go that far despite the best efforts of Agatha Harkness, but it’ll no doubt pose some serious problems for Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness arrives next year. We found out more about what makes Wanda tick in nine episodes of television than we did in the previous six years of MCU movies, and it would be an understatement to say that the Scarlet Witch is someone to be feared.
There’s been a lot of speculation that Wanda will turn out to be Multiverse of Madness‘ big bad, something that looked even more likely when we saw her perusing the Darkhold during WandaVision‘s second credits sequence, and in a new interview, showrunner Jac Schaeffer even admitted that one of the ideas being floated for the finale was to have Elizabeth Olsen’s Avenger struggle with deciding whether or not to actually go through with the prophecy.
“The prophecy had to do with her destroying the world. So she’s fighting her identity as the Scarlet Witch because she doesn’t want to be the person who destroys the world. That was the thing that she was really, really afraid of… It just got very restrictive… The prophecy would be part of her trajectory and the next piece of her story.”
In the end, Wanda never really considered fulfilling the prophecy, but it would have been an interesting storytelling wrinkle to at least see her giving it some thought and wrestling with the decision. Instead, WandaVision‘s finale saw her embrace her role as the Scarlet Witch and wielder of Chaos Magic, which might not be good news for those closest to her as Phase Four progresses.
