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thespectralvision · 2 years

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Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (Part 1)

So after a number of discussions about where Wanda (and Vision) are likely to appear post Multiverse of Madness in the MCU, a lot of rumors and ‘leaks’ are pointing to a likely Young Avengers Children’s Crusade adaptation. I’ve not read the run in some time, and decided to refresh myself and do a breakdown of it for those not familiar with the story. I’ll be including my commentary about how I think they could adapt this for the MCU.

This series of posts WILL HAVE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS SPOILERS. If you have seen MoM or don’t mind, feel free to keep scrolling. It will also obviously have spoilers for the comic stories Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and Children’s Crusade.

You can find a complete listing of my Comic Breakdown posts HERE

Background:

Ok, first off I’m going to be honest - I have not read a lot of Young Avengers stories. I like the team well enough with one exception - I hate Vision 2.0. The fact that he’s treated like normal Vision and the stuff with Cassie Lang is a big squick for me, even though I am aware he is technically a different entity than the original Vision. For those who don’t know, Vision was killed by Wanda during her breakdown in the Avengers Disassembled story arc. Vision’s operating system back ups were uploaded into Iron Lad’s (Nathanial Richards) Neurokinetic armor and became sentient. He retained memories and has a similar personality to the original Vision, but it is very clear he is NOT the same entity, as his brain patterns are based on Iron Lad’s where the original Vision’s were based on Simon William’s (Wonder Man). He’s essentially a ‘teenage’ Vision, and does not retain any feelings for The Scarlet Witch and falls in love with Cassie Lang (Stature). This story arc is not appealing to me since I love the orignal Vision so much, and as such I have not gone and read a lot of stories featuring Vision 2.0. If I get details wrong, please let me know - I try to research context if I don’t have it but there are a lot of comic books out there and sometimes things are missed.

I am familiar with Scarlet Witch stories, however. There is quite a bit of background leading to where we find Wanda, and I would like to do a breakdown of those stories eventually too, but I’ll summarize the important bits below.

Pre-Avengers Dissassembled/House of M:

Wanda Maximoff, aka The Scarlet Witch, fell in love with and married her fellow Avenger The Vision. They decide they want to start a family, but due to Vision’s biology as a synthezoid that is not a possibility - unless you are The Scarlet Witch. In The Vision and The Scarlet Witch (1985) #3, a vision of Agatha Harkness tells Wanda to channel magical energies through herself to fight off the coven of New Salem.

It works, and Wanda uses her abilities to use this power and impregnates herself. Dr. Strange confirms this, and then 9 months later in The Vision and The Scarlet Witch (1985) #12 Thomas and William are born.

There isn’t much to say after this until the Vision Quest arc beings a few years later, in 1989. I’ve done a detailed break down on Vision Quest in my White Vision series (Links found HERE), but the important part is the reveal that William and Thomas were never real. While Wanda’s powers are great, she is not able to create life from nothing. To make the boys, she stole pieces of Mephisto’s soul. In order to defeat Mephisto, Agatha Harkness removed Wanda’s memories of the boys to break the link between her and the demon.

Avengers Dissassembled (Avengers #500-503, Avengers Finale):

About 15 years later (real-world years, it’s a little ambiguous in comic timelines), Wanda finds out about her boys and what happened to them. Until that point she had been oblivious to their existence after the spell Agatha cast, and when she learns that all of the Avengers have been hiding the fact that she was a mother from her she seeks revenge. She attacks the team in a series of seemingly unrelated events, including turning Vision into an army of Ultron-bots, leading to She-Hulk rampaging and tearing Vision in half (hence his death and the eventual creation of Vision 2.0).

Spectral’s Commentary: Wandaattacking the Illuminati in Multiverse of Madness feels like the MCU take on this particular storyline, with Wanda attacking the ‘heroes’ because she wants her children back. Not an exact adaptation obviously, but I enjoyed the nods to the comics.

Doctor Strange confirms the attacks all have a magical origin and asks about Wanda and her children, suspecting she or one of them may be the one behind the attacks.

Spectral’s Commentary: So not going to lie, the fact that Doctor Strange somehow missed the memo regarding everything that happened with Vision Quest is hilarious to me. Isn’t keeping track of witch-android babies created with magic and monitoring hell dimensions his job as Sorcerer Supreme?

Steve Rogers even tries to speak with Wanda, finding her creating illusions of her happy family and attempting to convince her it isn’t real. It doesn’t end well for him.

After this, Wanda joins the fight and attacks the gathered heroes. Strange manages to defeat her using the Eye of Agamotto to show her the truth, which ‘snaps’ Wanda’s ‘fragile mind’ (I never said this was good writing for our beloved Scarlet Witch). Meanwhile another team who went to find Agatha for help find the witch dead, murdered by Wanda. The story ends with Magneto arriving and asking that Wanda be put in his care. The list of casualties from this run is Vision, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man, which will come into play in the Young Avengers.

House of M (House of M #1-8):

Avengers Disassembled is followed up with the often discussed House of M arc. Now, I’m going to be honest - I don’t love House of M either (I liked how the MCU handled the concept more, where she created the reality to get Vision AND her kids, but I’m also biased because Vision is my favorite character. That said, I understand that in context it had been a long time since Wanda and Vision were together in the comics which is likely why he was not involved in her false-world.)

House of M is an 8 issue series, and I’m going to skip over the non-Wanda relevant parts. I recommend reading it just because it is one of those Marvel stories anyone wanting to get familiar with the comic-verse should be aware of.

The run starts with a recap of Wanda giving birth to the twins, but Charles Xavier shows up and tells her they aren’t real.

It works to pull Wanda back into reality for a moment, and she realizes what she’s done and is distraught.

Spectral’s Commentary: I find it interesting that she says she killed her “husband” here, since she and Vision have not been together since Vision Quest. There were pushes that they may get back together in the 1998 Avengers run, but Avengers Dissassembled happened before it ever actually happened.

We then move to Charles and Erik (Magneto) discussing the conversation with Wanda. They are keeping her sedated as her mental state continues to fracture. We also get a nice little monologue from Magneto, talking about how he regrets what he did to his children (this is before retcons that Wanda and Pietro are not his) and how he’s lost both his fight against the humans and his family.

The Avengers have a fancy new tower since the Mansion blew up a few months ago, and they call in the X-Men. Turns out everyone is going to decide what Wanda’s fate will be. The scene changes to Quicksilver watching Wanda sleep, and Magneto asks him what is wrong. He tells his ‘father’ that the X-Men and Avengers are discussing what they are going to do, and that he believes they plan to kill Wanda. Magneto tells him that may be the right thing to do.

Sure enough that’s the main plan. Some want to save Wanda, namely Wonder Man and Captain America, and the others want to put her down. Both sides have good reasons for their feelings. Xavier and Dr. Strange say they have done everything they can for now, and Strange is looking into further ways to help her but needs more time. A group of them decide they want to speak with Wanda for themselves before making a decision, and a Quinjet heads to Genosha. Only when they arrive, Wanda and Magneto are gone. They go looking, and we follow Spider Man as he encounters a glowing white light - then wakes up back at home.

The next several issues I won’t get into too much detail because they don’t directly involve Wanda, and instead focus on the characters who start to realize something is wrong. Peter Parker is married to Gwen Stacy, Steve Rogers is an old man who never became Captain America, Wolverine is part of SHIELD’s special Red Guard team, etc. They have weird partial memories of their former lives however, which leads Wolverine to remember Genosha. He starts piecing things together, finding out that in this reality Mutants run all existing countries, and the world has been united under the House of M, by Magneto.

Wolverine ends up with a group of enhanced humans running an underground resistance movement including Hawkeye (no longer dead), Luke Cage, Cloak, and a few other familiar faces. Wolverine starts explaining he remembers a world where Magneto and his children were a problem, specifically Wanda - and the others tell him she’s “the human one.”

Logan fills them in on what Wanda in his world was like, and a rundown of the events in Avengers Disassembled. The resistance movement are skeptacle at first, but Luke Cage believes Logan, because a little girl (Layla) showed up the day before and told him the same thing, which triggered his memories from before too. After talking with her, everyone realizes they have gotten everything they ever wanted. They realize Magneto in the original reality had Wanda give everyone what they always wanted, so he could get what he always wanted.

They all go to find Emma Frost, and Layla uses her power to unlock memories on her. She remembers Genosha, and decides they are going to go back and kill Magneto for what he has done. Logan agrees, but reminds Emma they need more people to pull this off.

They put together a team, using Layla’s powers to unlock memories of heroes to help them including Scott Summers (Cyclops), Peter Parker (Spider Man), Kitty Pryde, Dr. Strange, Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel), Tony Stark, Matt Murdock (Daredevil), and Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk). While they are deciding what to do, the team is attacked by SHIELD’s Red Guard team, but Layla’s powers remind them who they were in the real world too. They decide they all need to go to Genosha, to try and find Charles Xavier. Only...the final panels of Issue #5 reveal he sacrificed himself so Genosha could survive.

We move to Genosha, and the House of M Gala. The X-Men and Avengers who have had their memories restored attack, creativing a diversion so Emma Frost and Layla can find Xavier. They find his memorial and nearly give up - but Cloak arrives and tells them there is no coffin.

Doctor Strange finds Wanda by Astral Projecting, playing with her children. He tells her he knows she created Layla to help them come here and stop Magneto. Wanda denies this, saying she doesn’t know who Layla is. Strange pushes her and Wanda continues to deny knowing what is happening. Strange manages to get her to explain what happened, leading to the creation of this reality.

The story returns to where it begins, with Pietro comforting Wanda as she tells him she won’t fight the Avengers and X-Men coming to kill her, before she created this world. She and Pietro discuss her being too cowardly to end things herself, and how they both liked being Avengers.

Spectral’s Commentary: You know, rereading this run to write this post, I can’t help but wonder if Vision isn’t included - because Wanda thought he would be happier without her. Ouch...something I’ll have to think about. I just always find it strange that she creates this perfect world where everyone is happy, and she has her boys, but NO ONE mentions Vision at all. Yes in the real world he was killed in the previous Avengers Disassembled arc, but when Wanda created this reality surely she would have brought him back in some way? She brought back Hawkeye after all - as we see in the next few pages.

Strange realizes Magneto did not cause this, it was Quicksilver, and Emma asks him to find out where Xavier is. Before Strange can ask Wanda however, she falls over, shot by Hawkeye. This upsets one of the boys, and Clint is taken apart again - by the child. Wanda realizese how far things have gone out of control.

Magneto finds out Pietro is behind all of this, and confronts his ‘son.’ Wanda senses the attack on her twin, and leaves her room at last to find him.

She brings Pietro back with her powers, and lashes out at Magneto for what he’s done to her and her twin. The others are still unsure what to do about Wanda, and by the time they realize what she’s about to do - she says the now infamous words “No more mutants.”

There is another white explosion and Wanda once again rewrites reality.

The final issue (#8) shows our heros back in their old lives. Layla is a girl going to school, Peter Parker wakes up with MJ. The Avengers discuss how things are back to normal - but then we cut to Xavier’s school to find out the mutant students seem to have lost their powers. Emma Frost rushes to use Cerebro, and confirms the worst - that nearly all of the mutant population is simply gone.

The only people who know what happened are those who’s memories were unlocked in the other reality. The arc ends with the remaining X-Men locating Magneto in the ruins of Genosha, asking him where Wanda is. Magneto tells them he doesn’t know.We then see Wanda in what appears to be a small market town, going about her day.

Spectral’s Commentary: Alright, so if you’ve read up to this point, thank you! While this isn’t everything the MCU has thrown at Wanda, it’s pretty clear that WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness have handled the primary plot points of these two big Scarlet Witch stories. They sort of reversed them - WandaVision has more in line with House of M, and MoM has more in common with Avengers Disassembled, but right now our MCU Wanda has done some big, bad stuff. MoM also pulls in a number of the C’Thon stories as well, which I want to explore in a different series. The important thing here is - Where will Wanda go next? I’m going to go into the issues following House of M and into the Children’s Crusade, which was the next big arc featuring Wanda in the 616 Comics in the next post.

#marvel #MCU #multiverse of madness #wandavision #the scarlet witch #wanda maximoff #marvel comics #marvel 616 #house of m #avengers disassembled #The Vision #children's crusade #Spectral's Comic Breakdowns

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