Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver #3!Scarlet Witch has always wielded a level of power that has made her perfect for a team like the Avengers, even since the superhero group’s earliest days (indeed, Scarlet Witch joined the Avengers in Avengers #16). However, Wanda Maximoff has just unlocked a new form that’s made her more powerful than she’s ever been. Not only that, but this new ‘ultimate form’ may have even made her the most powerful Avenger in Marvel Comics history.
In a preview for Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver #3 by Steve Orlando and Lorenzo Tammetta, Wanda has gone to stay with Vision after being attacked by the Wizard and his hivemind-minions called the Fearsome Forty-Four. At the start of the series, it’s revealed that the Wizard himself got a massive upgrade courtesy of a mysterious cosmic entity he refers to as his ‘angel’, who has ordered the Wizard to kill Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, as their chaos has the potential to throw the universe out of balance.
The stress of this attack forces Scarlet Witch to unleash a darkness that she’s kept imprisoned inside herself (two ‘darknesses’, actually): Chthon and the Dark Hold. Both the living embodiment of chaos and an ancient text of pure dark magic exist within the Scarlet Witch’s soul, and she unleashed only a fraction of that darkness just to escape the Wizard. Now, safe at Vision’s house, Wanda’s inner demons are raging more than they have since first being imprisoned, giving life to a new form dubbed ‘Unending Chaos’.
While Scarlet Witch alone can reshape reality as she sees fit (to an extent), her new Unending Chaos form has the potential to shatter not just her own reality, but every reality in the multiverse. If what the Wizard’s angel is saying is true, then the chaos Scarlet Witch channels (and Quicksilver’s unique talent in bringing it out in her) alters the ‘grand plan’ of the multiverse. This angel asserts that everything is predestined, except Scarlet Witch – therefore, Scarlet Witch needs to die.
The angel’s logic sounds like the common ramblings of a cosmic villain that Marvel Comics fans have heard many times before – that is, until Scarlet Witch’s Unending Chaos form appeared on-panel. Wanda herself admits in this preview that she doesn’t have a firm grip on the evil residing inside her soul, and now that it’s gotten a taste of freedom, it’s not letting go. Perhaps the angel isn’t exaggerating about the threat-level Scarlet Witch represents, as her Unending Chaos form certainly seems like a danger to all existence.
Whether the angel has a point or not, it wants Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver dead, which means Wanda will have no choice but to battle this cosmic foe in the end – and she’ll need all the power she can muster. Channeling the chaos from Chthon and the Dark Hold may very well mean the end of the multiverse, but it seems Scarlet Witch is running out of options, especially if she can barely handle just a fraction of this angel’s power channeled through the Wizard.
While fans haven’t seen the Unending Chaos form in action quite yet, its appearance and the source of its power alone (not to mention how much this angel seems to fear it) only confirms that it’s a power of multiversal proportions – a power the likes of which has rarely been summoned by an Avenger. In other words, Scarlet Witch’s ultimate form may have just made her the most powerful member of the Avengers, and only time will tell if that’s true.
Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver #3 by Marvel Comics is available April 24, 2024.