Looking back at my WandaVision theory on how Wanda became the Scarlet Witch

Before WandaVision premiered, my theory was that the series would reveal Wanda Maximoff as a mutant whose X-gene the Mind Stone had awakened. I expected her to grow into the true Scarlet Witch with help from Agatha Harkness and Doctor Strange, possibly pushed over the edge by losing her children. Marvel had told us she would finally be called the Scarlet Witch in the series. The open question was how she would get there. I thought the answer involved some mutants, the Sorcerer Supreme, a demon and a lot of chaos magic.

At that point the release date had not changed, and the show was set for January 15. It premiered on January 15, 2021. Ahead of that, the cast, crew and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige were doing many interviews. We were all hoping for another trailer before it came out, possibly in late December or early January.

What Kevin Feige told Empire about Wanda Maximoff's power

The most interesting facts came from Feige in an interview with Empire magazine. The article said that Elizabeth Olsen's character might have proved at the end of Avengers: Endgame that she was more powerful than we were ever aware of. It added that audiences were about to understand her a whole lot better, including what exactly she can do with those Mind Stone imbued powers.

Feige was then quoted saying: "if you look at the infinity saga i don't think any single person has gone through more pain and trauma than wanda maximoff and no character seems to be as powerful as wanda maximoff." To me, that was Feige seemingly confirming that Wanda is the strongest character in the MCU.

He continued: "and no character has a power set that is as ill-defined and unexplored as wanda maximoff so it seemed exploring that would be worthwhile post-endgame who else is aware of that power where did it come from did the mind stone unlock it." I thought those three closing questions were extremely important and revealing, so I took them one at a time.

Who else is aware of Wanda's power: Mephisto, Chthon and Evan Peters

Starting with who else is aware of her power: in the comics, Wanda is an omega level mutant, but her chaos magic powers were given to her by the demon Chthon. Chthon could have shown up in WandaVision, and he could also have appeared in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But the MCU doesn't copy the comics page for page. It likes to change things up.

Many rumors were going around that the demon who would appear was Mephisto. It had been said that Evan Peters was confirmed to have a role in the series, and many people thought that role was Mephisto. He has a big connection to Wanda in the comics. When Wanda magically gets pregnant with twin boys, she finds out they were shards of Mephisto's spirit. He takes them back, she loses her kids, and that sends her down a dark path that ultimately leads to the House of M storyline.

Could Mephisto be responsible for giving her her powers? That was unclear, and I thought it would be an unnecessary retcon. Still, going back to Feige's question about who else knows of her power, it definitely seemed to me like it would be him. That was especially so because, from what I understood, Doctor Strange was confirmed to appear in the series. Dealing with demons is what Doctor Strange does, so it made perfect sense to me that he would come in to help Wanda deal with Mephisto and control her powers.

Did the Mind Stone unlock Wanda's mutant X-gene

The last two questions go hand in hand: where did her powers come from, and did the Mind Stone unlock them? In the movies, it was said that the Mind Stone gave the twins their powers. It didn't say it unlocked anything. Now the president of Marvel Studios was asking, rhetorically, whether it had unlocked them, and where they came from.

He was getting us to question something Marvel Studios had already stated. I read that as Feige saying Wanda didn't get her powers from the Mind Stone, but that it unlocked something. For fans waiting for mutants and the X-Men to come into the MCU, that suggests one thing: the X-gene. Typically the X-gene lies dormant inside mutants until it is awoken, and then they start to exhibit their powers.

So the question Feige was getting us to think about, as I saw it, was whether she had the X-gene all along and the Mind Stone awakened it. This seemed to me to be how Marvel would introduce mutants and the X-Men into the MCU: they had the gene the whole time, and perhaps the snap awoke the X-gene in some people. It looked to me like Wanda was going to be a mutant in WandaVision.

Why I expected Agatha Harkness to help Wanda, not hurt her

So how would the true Scarlet Witch come into play? A couple of characters seemed set to help Wanda develop her powers further. One was Agatha Harkness. Many people thought she would be the villain of the series, perhaps the one creating all these different realities for Wanda and possibly even trapping her inside them.

In the comics, Agatha has warped Wanda's reality a little, but it was for her own good. For the most part, Agatha in the comics is a good person who cares about Wanda. She trains her and teaches her about her powers. She is also trusted by the Fantastic Four to take care of Franklin Richards, the son of Sue Storm and Reed Richards. There was room for her to be a villain, but I thought it was more likely she would be a good witch helping Wanda become a good witch too, a very powerful one: the Scarlet Witch.

Doctor Strange, the Darkhold and Wanda's power boost

Then there was Doctor Strange, the master of the mystic arts. He knows many spells and knows how to help Wanda control and grow her powers. This was where I thought the Darkhold would seemingly come in. Its origin goes back to Chthon, the demon who gave Wanda her powers in the comics. Chthon was a demonic elder god and Earth's first practitioner of black magic. He wrote the book, putting all his collected knowledge of magic into it, and it is so powerful that even the wizard Merlin could not control or destroy it.

Wanda learning that type of magic would definitely give her a huge power boost, in my view. In the MCU she had only played with her own chaos magic. She hadn't used spells. Now I expected Agatha and Doctor Strange to help her learn different spells and ways to control her powers. That alone would give her a big boost, and given that Feige seemed to place her as the most powerful character in the MCU already, I thought it could finally earn her the title of the Scarlet Witch that she holds in the comics.

How I thought losing her children would unleash the Scarlet Witch

But I believed there would be more: something that would send Wanda over the edge and fully bring out the Scarlet Witch in her. Unfortunately, I thought it would probably be the loss of her children. We had seen her kids, Wiccan and Speed, in the trailer. In the comics, Mephisto takes them back, and what follows is a long and awesome story. Put simply, Wanda slowly goes insane until she creates the House of M reality, where mutants rule the world, with Magneto, the Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and her two children ruling it. That is true Scarlet Witch power.

I didn't think she would be ruling the world in WandaVision. I did think she would want and try to get her kids back, and that Doctor Strange would come in to help. From there, devastated at the loss of her kids and absolutely over the top angry, I thought we would see her explode on Mephisto or another villain to get them back. That, I believed, was when we would get the true Scarlet Witch we had been waiting for: the omega level mutant with chaos reality warping magic.