Death in the MC2

 

Hopefully you’ve been watching and enjoying the WandaVision spin-off series Agatha All Along on Disney+ as much as I have! In the spirit of the spooky season, lets take a look at the deadly deity Death in the MC2.

 

But first, we need to gain some context by looking at the personification of Death in the Main Marvel Universe. Following a debatable appearance in the main image of a text story in Marvel Mystery Comics #10 from 1940, Death officially first appearing in Captain Marvel #26 in 1973. Death is an abstract being embodying the concept of mortality, acting as one of the great cosmic forces of existence alongside Eternity, Infinity and Oblivion.

 

Often depicted in the form of a purple cloaked skeleton or pale woman, in modern times Death has had direct interactions and relationships with notable characters such as Wade Wilson aka Deadpool and Thanos, the Mad Titan who gathered the Infinity Gems and snapped away half of all life in the Universe in an attempt to win Death’s favour (Deadpool/Death Annual ’98, Thanos Quest #1-#2, Infinity Gauntlet #1-#6).

 

With the bare bones backstory out of the way, lets look at Mistress Death as she briefly brushed against the MC2. During the events of Last Planet Standing, with Galactus poised to destroy the entire universe in an attempt to rid himself of his never-ending hunger, a gathering of the Great Powers of the Universe took place to discuss the threat posed to reality. The cosmic forces in attendance included Master Order, Lord Chaos, The In-Betweener, The Shaper of Worlds, The Stranger, The Gardener, The Collector and of course The Living Tribunal (Last Planet Standing #2).

The Great Powers of the Universe’s attempt to reason with the World-Eater one last time fails. Ultimately deciding they must destroy Galactus using a combined destructive bolt strong enough to wipe out the Earth and the entire Milky Way Galaxy, the Great Powers are halted in their attempt when Reed Richards is forced to use his Transdimensional Cannon's single shot on the cosmic beings (Last Planet Standing #3).

With Galactus enacting his final solution on Earth, the combined forces of the super hero community work to penetrate his force field and combat his doomsday weapon’s launch. When Spider-Girl, Stinger and American Dream manage to reverse the polarity of the device’s flow, the resulting backlash causes Galactus to be overloaded with enough energy to kill him and destroy the entire galaxy. As his end approaches, Galactus perceives the presence of Death coming to embrace him. However, at the last moment, Galactus’ former Herald, the Silver Surfer encases them both within an indestructible ethereal force cocoon.  Soon after the assembled heroes of Earth witness the birth of a new gestalt entity composed of the Silver Surfer and Galactus which could harness a new form of energy known as The Power Essential (Last Planet Standing #5).

 

While it’s a brief appearance, it’s at least one in the flesh…so to speak. Death personified remains in some ways connected to Galactus which is fitting given their status as higher beings. That said, this is one character I don’t mind not seeing more often!

 

Until my live-action (no pun intended) counterpart is portrayed by Aubrey Plaza, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Maximoff Family Tree

 

This post began life originally as a tie-in to the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness movie, but I never completed it. Regardless, with Agatha All Along currently streaming on Disney + I felt it would be a great time to resurrect it and take a look at Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch and her tangled family tree. So, today’s post will be another entry in my MC2 Family Tree series with a look at the Maximoff Family Tree.

 

*Before we dive right in, the usual rules: For the purposes of these family trees, I accept that MC2 characters share their published history (up to a point) with their 616/Main Marvel Universe counterparts. I make exceptions for any retcons implemented after the point the MC2 diverges from the 616 and in cases where it's explicitly or implicitly different (Aunt May really died) or when a writer later introduces a previously unheard of relative (the Pym family) who is never mentioned, seen or heard of in the MC2. With the last exception, I would add them to the family tree in later updates should they be mentioned in MC2 material at any point. Got it? Excellent! *

 

Wanda Maximoff aka The Scarlet Witch made her debut alongside her twin brother Pietro Maximoff aka Quicksilver in the pages of Uncanny X-Men #4 or just plain ol’ X-Men #4 as it was called back then. The siblings served as members of the mutant terrorist Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants after the master of magnetism rescued them from a mob of angry villagers. Eventually the pair find their path with the Avengers and forge long lasting relationships which we’ll delve into where applicable.

Let’s take a detour to discuss Wanda and Pietro’s surname Maximoff. Initially identified only by their first names or noms de super-héros, Wanda and Pietro were supposedly orphans with poor recollection of their childhood, but 1974’s Giant-Size Avengers #1 would be the first to propose the siblings’ parentage, with the apparent revelation that the Golden Age superheroes The Whizzer  (Robert Frank) and Miss America (Madeline Joyce Frank) were their biological parents, with the twins being born at the High Evolutionary’s Citadel of Science in the shadow of Wundagore Mountain. Having accepted this as fact, the twins are referred to as ‘Wanda and Pietro Frank’ for a period until an encounter with a Romani man Django Maximoff leads them to question this (Avengers #182).

Django Maximoff (who first appeared in Avengers #166) believed the twins to be he and his wife Marya Maximoff’s own, Ana and Matéo Maximoff, who had previously died. We learn from flashbacks told by my favourite bovine beauty, Bova (one of the High Evolutionary’s first ‘New Men’ and a jolly good midwife) that a woman named Magda had come to the Citadel and given birth to twins Pietro and Wanda in secret. Shortly after the twins are delivered, Magda disappears, leaving only a note expressing fear that her unidentified husband might force the revelation of her children’s existence from her if she remained alive. We then glimpse the subsequent tragic events involving Robert and Madeline Frank, with the latter dying in childbirth and their infant also dying, unbeknownst to Robert who runs away upon learning of his wife’s death despite Bova attempting to pass off the twins as his, thus explaining his incorrect belief he was Wanda and Pietro’s father. The High Evolutionary would later appear before Django and Marya Maximoff to entrust them with Wanda and Pietro. Having recently lost their own children, the couple take in the twins, loving and raising them as their own (Avengers #185-186).

 

Sadly, this is where the events depicted in flashback from Avengers #182 come back into play. As a result of prejudice against their kind, Django struggled to find employment and was forced to steal to feed his family. An angry mob attacked the Maximoff family, setting Marya’s caravan alight and killing her, while Pietro and Wanda fell into a nearby river and were lost, with the trauma of that night apparently leaving them partly amnesiac and believing themselves orphans, the two children wander homeless across Transia. Unable to cope with the death of his wife and the twins, in his grief Django convinces himself they were his biological children Ana and Matéo and exiled himself in shame. Thus, the twins were raised as Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, the names they would re-adopt following this revelation.

 

As for the unidentified husband of Magda, we learn in X-Men #125 that his identity is none other than the Master of Magnetism himself, when we glimpse Magneto reminiscing about Magda his ‘late wife’ who ‘ran away from [him]’. Magneto first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #1 way back in 1963 as the original and best adversary to the titular team of merry mutants. It is worth noting that due to later retcons, Magneto’s former official name ‘Erik Magnus Lensherr’ no longer applies in the current Main Marvel Universe but nor can we be sure his real name, ‘Max Eisenhardt’ applies in the MC2’s continuity either, given it was only established years after the MC2 began publication. For simplicities sake, I’ve identified Magneto by his oft assumed and first published ‘real’ name ‘Magnus’ in this MC2 Family Tree.

After mentions in Uncanny X-Men #150 and New Mutants #28, it is in Classic X-Men #12 we learn the details of Magda and Magnus’ past together, escaping Auschwitz and surviving after all their family and friends had been killed, after which the pair found their way to a small village in the Carpathian Mountains. There Magnus found work and friends and caught up on life he’d lost, and the couple learned to laugh and love again, marrying and having a daughter named Anya. But driven by his insatiable hunger for knowledge, Magnus moved his family east into the Soviet Union, to the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa. When his boss attempts to deny him much of his pay, Magnus’ mutant magnet ability activates subconsciously, and the man acquiesces. But returning to his family, Magnus finds the building ablaze with Anya trapped upstairs. Not yet able to control his abilities, Magnus is only able to rescue Magda before he is beaten and restrained, having been falsely accused of extortion and assault. Anya perishes in the fire as Magnus is beaten below on the street. Lashing out with his newfound powers, Magnus kills his attackers, causing Magda to flee. While we never see it, Magda is believed to have died soon after giving birth to Wanda and Pietro and disappearing from the Citadel of Science along Wundagore Mountain. Many years later, after learning of her fate, Magneto erects a gravestone monument nearby Bova’s cabin at Wundagore Mountain (X-Men Unlimited #2).

 

Magneto learned of Magda’s fate and that Wanda and Pietro were his children in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4, leading him to confront the twins and their respective partners, The Vision and Crystal on Attilan, the Inhuman’s city on the Moon. There, Magnus would meet his granddaughter, Pietro and Crystal’s daughter Luna for the first time. Let’s briefly touch on these family members now!

 

First appearing in Fantastic Four #45, Crystalia Amaquelin aka Crystal is the younger sister of Medusa and a member of the Inhuman Royal Family who married Pietro Maximoff in Fantastic Four #150 and the couple welcome their daughter into the world in Fantastic Four #240, naming her Luna Maximoff in Fantastic Four #248. The Vision first appeared in Avengers #57, the creation of the villainous Ultron and being part of a rather complicated Family Tree by extension, which along with the Inhuman Royal Family are beyond the purview of today’s post. Perhaps another time. As for Vision, he joined the Maximoff family when he and Wanda are wed in Giant-Size Avengers #4.

 

While we won’t be diving into most of Magneto’s Family Tree, it’s important to mention a few more relatives as they more directly connect to the Maximoff twins, the focus of todays discussion. Firstly, we have the earliest example of someone being established as Magnus’ relative. Lorna Dane aka Polaris. Making her debut in the original X-Men #49 from 1968, Lorna was a latent mutant distinguished only by her green hair which is usually dyed a dull brown, until the villainous Mesmero unlocks her dormant magnetic powers, for the nefarious purposes of his leader, Magneto…or so it appeared. ‘Magneto’ claims the mentally manipulated Lorna is his daughter but Iceman later discovers that Lorna’s biological parents died in a plane crash while she was young, leading to her being raised by her father’s sister and brother-in-law. Previously unaware she was adopted by Mr and Mrs Dane (who’s surnames are confirmed in the Official Marvel Index to the X-Men #3), Lorna turns on ‘Magneto’ and aids the X-Men (X-Men #49-#52).

Here's where things get screwy. X-Men #58 promptly reveals that the ‘Magneto’ allied with Mesmero was a robot when it is destroyed. Further, it’s heavily implied in Captain America #247 and #368 that the Magneto robot was made by Starr Saxon aka Machinesmith, a fact confirmed in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #7, though it remains unknown who commissioned the mechanical Magneto nor how they’d know of Lorna’s previously untapped magnetic abilities before they were unlocked. During an encounter with the X-Men and Mesmero in X-Men #112, Magneto explicitly and specifically states ‘The “Magneto” this fool served—the one who claimed to be the father of Lorna Dane—was a robot.’ This is an odd statement to make considering no one mentioned Lorna and, unless I’m mistaken, Magnus should have no knowledge of the Magneto robot. It’s also not a denial of paternity either…

 

If we accept that Polaris is Magneto’s daughter, then we must also discuss another character, one Zaladane aka Zala Dane of the Savage Land. First appearing in Astonishing Tales #3, Zaladane is a sorceress inhabitant of the Savage Land who clashed with Ka-Zar and the X-Men, formerly acting as the High Priestess to Garokk, the Petrified Man and later serving  as assistant to the High Evolutionary before becoming ruler of the Savage Land. It’s in Uncanny X-Men Annual #12 that Zaladane is first referred to as simply ‘Zala’ and in Uncanny X-Men #249 she claims Lorna is her sister before stealing her powers via a process Moira MacTaggert would later claim was only possible due to their shared genetics (Uncanny X-Men #250, #254). Ironically, Zala would meet her end when a captive Magneto uses his own magnetic abilities to murder her in the pages Uncanny X-Men #274-#275.

 

The excellent fan site uncannyxmen.net has a great article that addresses the various contradictions surrounding Lorna Dane’s heritage and presents a more detailed potential explanation to reconcile things. Go check it out! Do Lorna and Zala Dane count for the purposes of this MC2 Family Tree? For now, I’m going to say ‘maybe’ and include them anyway. Back to Wanda’s family!

 

Now for our second set of twins, William and Thomas Maximoff. In their second series, Vision and the Scarlet Witch discuss the practical limitations of having a child together. When the couple are kidnapped for sacrifice by the Salem’s Seven, the combined magical energy of the population of New Salem is unleashed. Wanda attempts to contain it and, with guidance from the spirit of her mentor Agatha Harkness, she manages to do so and, in the process, uses the magical energy to conceive (Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #3). Visiting Doctor Strange to confirm it, he reassures Wanda everything appears fine, though notes to himself that it truly is a miracle to create new life (Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #4). After an eventful pregnancy, Wanda gives birth to not one, but two baby boys, despite there being no trace of a second foetus medically or magically beforehand (Vision and the Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #12).

 

Things would take a bad turn after Vision is kidnapped in Avengers West Coast #42, leaving Wanda distracted and distressed. At the same time the twin babies begin to ‘disappear’ while being cared for by their governess, and Vision is found dismantled (Avengers West Coast #43). When Wanda races home panicked, she finds William and Thomas are perfectly fine and dismisses the governess (Avengers West Coast #44). Making matters worse, the Vision returns rebuilt but stripped of his human personality including his feelings for Wanda, and two newly appointed governesses each discover the twins have ‘disappeared’ in Wanda’s absence (Avengers West Coast #45, #47).

 

Shortly afterwards the villainous Master Pandemonium, an agent of the demon-lord Mephisto, claims the twins are pieces of the demon’s soul and essentially reabsorbs them. After the Avengers West Coast team defeat the evildoer, an apparently resurrected Agatha Harkness explains that Wanda had created William and Thomas using her powers, the spell snaring two pieces of the then-weakened Mephisto to serve as souls for her two boys. In defeating Mephisto, Agatha had to erase Wanda’s memories of her children for a time (Avengers West Coast #51-#52).

 

Immediately afterwards, the Vision returned to the East Coast Avengers team and Wanda would fall under the control of Magneto (Avengers West Coast #53-#56, #60) and then Immortus (Avengers West Coast #61-#62), further contributing to her decline in mental state, only for the now memoryless, emotionless and colourless Vision to essentially dissolve their romantic relationship via a phone call in Avengers West Coast #63. In time, Wanda would regain her memories of losing her children, recalling them on occasion and, having glimpsed another universe where she and Vision live happily with their twins, she finds some solace (Avengers West Coast #71, #75, Avengers West Coast Annual #7).

 

The final part of today’s family tree is also the earliest chronologically. When Wanda’s spirit is sent back in time to 1587 by the magic using Past Master, she inhabits the body of her ancestor, the infamous pirate captain Lucy Keough better known to the world as Red Lucy. The two women eventually work together and with the help of a seeress named Valmoora manage to send Wanda back to her own time and body. Afterwards Lucy retires from piracy, resolving to raise her children, Quentin and Lenore Keough, safely to ensure her descendants future. Notably, the druid seer Valmoora sees glimpses of Lucy’s descendants which include Magneto, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, further confirming them as blood relatives (Marvel Comics Presents #60-#63).

 

Over in the MC2, it seems Wanda and The Vision never fully reconciled their former relationship. Both Avengers joined the team on what would be its final mission, and they were among the very few to return alive from a dark alternate Earth ruled by Doctor Doom. After mourning their fallen comrades, Iron Man and the Scarlet Witch worked tirelessly for months to seal the portal permanently against future attacks. Unfortunately, to achieve this the Scarlet Witch was sealed within a stasis pod, holding the aperture shut but leaving her comatose (A-Next #7-8).                                                                 

 

It takes a very long time to see The Vision in the synthetic-flesh, with him finally appearing in the pages of Last Hero Standing #3. It’s here we get the explicit mention of his current occupation as a special advisor to President G.W. Bridge. In this role, Vision is sent to investigate the possibility the disappearances present a threat to nation security. Having been awakened from her coma by the morality-altering magics of Loki, Wanda and Vision’s only interaction speaks volumes (Last Hero Standing #1-#3).

 

I have omitted some characters from this Family Tree as they don’t appear in stories published prior to the likely divergence point for the MC2 or for reasons I’ll elaborate on separately. Here they are for the sake of completeness:

 

·         Various members of Magneto’s family aren’t included as this Family Tree is focused on the Maximoff’s and it’s better suited to it’s own separate post. Additionally, many did not properly appear or went unidentified until after the point of the MC2’s divergence.

·         Magnus’ wife Magda didn’t have a known last name until later retcons assigned her ‘Eisenhart’, evidently her married surname.

·         Simon Williams aka Wonder Man’s brain patterns and personality were used as the basis for The Vision, the latter of whom came to view Simon’s family as his own prior to his dismantling mentioned above. The Williams family include parents Sanford and Martha, and older brother Eric Williams aka the villainous Grim Reaper.

·         Also noted above, The Vision has his own tangled family tree of sorts, including Ultron and arguably Hank Pym, which would require a separate Family Tree.

·         The Inhuman Royal Family would require their own tangled Family Tree too.

·         William and Thomas Maximoff are later ‘reincarnated’ as the teenaged heroes Billy Kaplan aka Wiccan and Tommy Shepard aka Speed of the Young Avengers despite the inexplicable age discrepancies. Both characters debuted after the MC2’s divergence and are not known to exist in the MC2, though their ages would make more sense in the MC2 as its set roughly 15 years ahead of the Main Marvel Universe.

·         Thanks to some corporately driven and heavily reported behind the scenes shenanigans, Wanda and Pietro were retroactively revealed to not be the children of Magneto, altering over 30 years of established continuity in the process. As noted above, Last Planet Standing #1 indicates this retcon does not apply to the MC2 version of the characters.

·         As a result of this revelation in the Main Marvel Universe, Wanda and Pietro’s birth mother was recently revealed to be a Romani woman Natalya Maximoff, the previously unrevealed and never-before mentioned sister of Django Maximoff (rendering him the twin’s uncle as well as foster father). Additionally, Natalya is said to come from a long line of magic users named either Scarlet Witch or Scarlet Warlock.  

·         Not strictly relevant but I have to note this raises further questions about Magda and her own pregnancy and suggests even more babies were delivered or cared for by the doe-eyed Bova on Wundagore Mountain…

 

 

A special thanks to arias-98105 for helping with this long-gestating post, the uncannyxmen.net fan site for having already done all the X-Men related research I felt daunted by and the Official Marvel Index for helping me with my late-night quibbling.

 

Until the Marvel Offices finally, permanently commit to definitive Maximoff lineage, I remain

 

frogoat