Credit: Inside the MagicElizabeth Olsen and the Scarlet Witch are back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which may or may not be a direct result of the tepid reception to Robert Downey Jr.’s casting as the next MCU Big Bad, Doctor Doom.
Marvel’s Confused Future
Marvel Studios is currently teetering at the precipice of what could be the next big success story for the world’s most commercially successful film franchise or utter disaster. After the box office triumph of Avengers: Endgame (2019), the MCU has been widely perceived as running on fumes.
The franchise weathered a series of increasingly worrying flops in theaters, reaching a nadir with The Marvels (2023), and has become the poster child for the “superhero fatigue” apparently affecting audiences.
Deadpool & Wolverine seems to have given the franchise a much-needed dose of juice, but there is still no indication of how Kevin Feige may try to leverage nostalgia for the X-Men into sustained success. At the same time, the much-touted plans for The Multiverse Saga, featuring Jonathan Majors as cosmic villain Kang the Conqueror, have fallen to pieces under the actor’s legal battles and poor audience reception.
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In response, Marvel has replaced the already announced Avengers: The Kang Dynasty with Avengers: Doomsday, revealing the surprise casting of former Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. as Victor Von Doom, the apparent new central figure of the franchise.
While fans responded with initial positivity, that turned fast. Reports that RDJ was being paid some $95 million for new movies sparked a backlash against Disney’s bloated budget, while other fans were outraged at the ethnic whitewashing of the iconically Romani role and, still others, the potential effects it may have on the canon of the series.
Clearly, the Big Bad replacement that Marvel was counting on may have some drawbacks of its own. However, it seems that Feige is not leaving things solely on the back of Doctor Doom and is quietly prepping audiences for the return of Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff, AKA the Scarlet Witch. If things don’t turn out well for Doom, maybe the massively-powered reality powers of the Witch are the backup plan.
Elizabeth Olsen: Once and Future Villain
The last time MCU fans saw the Scarlet Witch, the character had completed the cycle from Avengers villain to superhero to cosmic entity in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).
After debuting as a villain in a Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) cameo, Elizabeth Olsen served a pivotal role in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Endgame (2019), and, eventually, her own starring series alongside Paul Bettany as Vision, Wandavision.
For a time, Marvel was touting Elizabeth Olsen’s character as the most “powerful” entity in the entire MCU, a characterization that seems to be used for whoever is being test-run as a new tentpole of the franchise. At the end of Multiverse of Madness, the fate of Wanda Maximoff was unknown and Olsen herself has been fairly uncommitted in public statements about the return of the Scarlet Witch.
While all the attention is currently on Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, a number of upcoming elements of the Marvel franchise are indicating that Olsen will soon be back. First up is Agatha All Along, the Kathryn Hahn Disney+ series, which is narratively a direct sequel to Wandavision; at one point, a returning supporting character let it slip that Olsen was “definitely” appearing.
Next is Vision Quest, the upcoming series starring Paul Bettany as the White Vision version of his character alongside a just-announced returning James Spader as Ultron. If there was ever any series that could see Wanda return in some way, it would be this one.
And then there’s the brief glimpse of the Scarlet Witch statue in the Void in Deadpool & Wolverine. Fans have been obsessing about what that could mean for that character and the franchise, considering how unrelated it seemed to that specific story; on the other hand, Marvel rarely includes something like that by accident.
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Another big hint: the Disney Store just added a line of Scarlet Witch-themed items, including a MagicBand+ ($44.99) branded with imagery specifically used by Elizabeth Olsen in the MCU.
The line also includes a Loungefly Ear Headband, a combination of the iconic Mickey Mouse ears and the character’s own Marvel headdress ($44.99 USD), a Loungefly Mini Backpack ($89), a Spirit Jersey ($79.99) and a Stainless Steel Canteen by Corkcicle ($49.99).
While Marvel, like all other Disney subsidiaries, is notorious for its willingness to cross-merchandise virtually every piece of IP it has rights to, it also doesn’t introduce new items willy-nilly.
If the company is abruptly releasing new items featuring a character who has not been seen in two years, what’s more likely: that there is a quiet plan to reintroduce them and marketing got too ahead or that it just was for no particular reason?
Kevin Feige isn’t giving any indication of how Elizabeth Olsen will return to the MCU, but, at this point, all the signs are there. You just have to look for them.
Do you want to see the return of the Scarlet Witch?