Why Doctor Doom Needs Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Secret Wars, and It Isn't Battleworld

Why would Doctor Doom need the Scarlet Witch for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars? My answer is not the theory that has been doing the rounds: I don't think it's simply about using her reality warping powers to build Battleworld. There is one specific thing Doom knows Wanda can offer, and I think that's why he's probably looking for a Scarlet Witch variant somewhere across the Multiverse.

I'll get to that reason and why I think it outweighs the Battleworld theory, but it starts with a comic panel that caused a stir. This piece also loosely references the concept art that leaked about a week and a half before I wrote it, so consider this the lightest of spoiler warnings.

The Scarlet Witch frozen in TVA #3 turned out to be a variant, not Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda

In the couple of weeks before I wrote this, Marvel Comics made quite a splash when TVA #3 revealed a panel that clearly showed what looks like Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch frozen in the TVA. People immediately flocked online to ask the artist, Pere Pérez, about it, and he responded in an Instagram post. He said that yes, this was the same Wanda Maximoff played by Elizabeth Olsen in the MCU films. As for whether that meant the comic was MCU continuity, or how it tied in with the movies or other comics, he told people to ask the editor Jordan White, the writer Katharyn Blair, or "I don't know Kevin Feige."

As it turns out, he had to delete that Instagram post, because the character is not Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch. Rather, it is a variant of Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch that is frozen in the TVA. False alarm.

That didn't mean a return for Olsen's Scarlet Witch in the Avengers films, still to come when I wrote this, was off the table. It had been rumoured in the wake of Agatha All Along on Disney+, and I suspected it would happen, since a lot of characters who hadn't been around for a while were expected to return for those two films. What makes it so interesting is what Doctor Doom specifically needs the Scarlet Witch for in the context of the MCU, looked at under the microscope of those concept art leaks.

The Battleworld theory for Scarlet Witch makes sense, but I don't think it's correct

The theory that had been out there for a couple of months goes like this. Doctor Doom goes and finds a variant of the Scarlet Witch because we've already seen in MCU canon that she's capable of providing the power needed for Battleworld. Look at Westview as an example of a very small Battleworld: she warped the entirety of reality within the Hex and had its inhabitants memory wiped, the same way we expect to see by the eighth year of Battleworld in the comics, going by the leaked concept art.

I don't think the theory is crazy, and the logic is there. The Hex does replicate some elements we would expect from Battleworld. There's also a point I don't see being made: she created the Hex before she became the Scarlet Witch. Now that she is the Scarlet Witch, she's even more powerful, so maybe one of the most powerful reality warpers, save Franklin Richards. We assume he'll still be a child by the time we get to Battleworld and not at his full potential.

But the theory doesn't work for me, and one of the reasons isn't that we have presumably lost Wanda in the 616, until Marvel proves otherwise, because there are variants of her across the Multiverse. What doesn't sit right with me is that being able to create a Hex in New Jersey is not the same as being able to create Battleworld out of the Multiverse. There are also beings out there more powerful than the Scarlet Witch that we assume Doom will have to best to become God Emperor Doom. Wanda could play some small part in that, but in my words, "she is not a One-Stop shop" for Doom to create Battleworld.

Doctor Doom would want Wanda for her use of the Darkhold

That doesn't mean she's not useful to Doom, and I think it's for one specific reason. Doctor Doom's hallmark is not only being a master of technology but also being a sorcerer himself, which means he would be intimately acquainted with exactly what the Darkhold is.

As we already learned with Doctor Strange and the Illuminati, and of course with Wanda's fate, the Darkhold comes at a heavy, heavy cost. That's a cost Doctor Doom would not want to pay when he can simply go and pick up variants who have already interacted with the Darkhold themselves and use them to his advantage, like a variant of our Wanda who has already become the Scarlet Witch.

You might be quick to point out that Wanda isn't the only character we've seen use the Darkhold. Our 616 Doctor Strange, before he took off with Clea, used it at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and we can tell he's now heavily afflicted and cursed because of it. Wouldn't Doom want to reach out to him too? Yes, you're right, and in fact install him as his Sheriff, as he did in the comics and as we saw point blank in the concept art.

Doctor Strange as Sheriff, and why nobody in Battleworld would remember

Of course, this is just concept art. We should not assume any of it will actually become scenes in the film, and that caveat needs repeating every time the concept art comes up, so it's not 100% assured. But Strange being the Sheriff for God Emperor Doom was one of the elements from Jonathan Hickman's 2015 run that might inform his role in the movie.

If you're asking why Wanda, Doctor Strange or anyone would side with God Emperor Doom, remember that by the eighth year of Battleworld, no one remembered their prior lives. It was all as if they had always been there. I suspect that's how the Secret Wars film will pick up, then work its way through as people slowly start to remember their lives and basically wake up from the spell. I know that sounds a lot like the Hex, which was the impetus for that other theory.

But I think more important to Doctor Doom would be an intimate use of Darkhold magic. He himself probably wouldn't want to go under the curse of the Darkhold again when he can just find variants of, say, Doctor Strange, perhaps ours, or the Scarlet Witch across the Multiverse to do his dirty work for him. And because they are the most powerful sorcerers across the Multiverse, he's going to want to make sure they're on his side and under his control. "Classic Dr Doom."

Marvel's variant trick, from Loki to a returning Wanda

Do I believe our 616 Wanda is dead? I'm holding to that until they prove otherwise. But that doesn't mean we won't get a version of her from elsewhere in the Multiverse.

One of Marvel's biggest tricks when it brings back characters, like Phil Coulson, whom I discussed recently, is that it wants fans to actually connect with those versions. So you can assume their backstories, even as variants, will be very similar, so that fans who have been on the journey with these characters can connect with them. Marvel's not stupid; it knows that. As Rick and Morty has shown, you can play with the idea that we haven't been following the same continuity characters in an endless Multiverse with infinite versions, but as an audience we tend to think the ones we're following have been ours all along.

You see that specifically with Loki. The Loki in the TV show, the god of stories, isn't the exact same Loki we saw in Ragnarok, Infinity War and Endgame. It's a different Loki, a variant.

So what do you think: is the 616 Wanda really gone for good, or will Marvel bring her back?