Many Marvel fans know about the Scarlet Witch‘s famous House of M breakdown, but fewer know that even before she rewrote reality to favor mutants, she experimented with a world much closer to Game of Thrones, transforming some of the world’s most famous heroes into sword-and-sorcery characters who’d fit in beside the Starks (no relation) and White Walkers of HBO’s mega-hit.
Wanda’s ability to mess with reality is soon to be on show in the off-kilter WandaVision TV show, in which Elizabeth Olsen will reprise her role as the Scarlet Witch, but Marvel’s heroes lived through a very different drama when they found themselves in a medieval setting, having lost all memory of their former modern lives.
In the opening story arc of Kurt Busiek and George Perez’s Avengers run, the Scarlet Witch was forced by the evil sorceress Morgan Le Fay to create a new world to imprison the Avengers; her ultimate endgame was to use the Witch’s reality-warping powers to obtain and use the Twilight Sword, and her plan almost succeeded! The story, part of Marvel’s 1998 initiative Heroes Return, where a large number of Marvel heroes returned to the mainstream Marvel Universe after being seemingly killed by Onslaught, was an early indication of what Wanda’s immense power could do to the world around her.
After former Avengers all over the world are attacked by demonic forces, Captain America assembles an army of Avengers past and present, the Scarlet Witch among them. Morgan Le Fay makes her move in response, using the Witch’s powers to create a medieval fantasy world, complete with false memories which make each of the Avengers believe they’ve always lived in this Westeros-style setting. Le Fay imprisons Wanda, continuing to use her reality-warping powers to try and harness the Twilight Sword.Le Fay’s plan hits a stumbling block in the form of Simon Williams, AKA Wonder Man, raised from the dead in energy form by the Scarlet Witch. When the fake medieval reality begins falling apart, a desperate Le Fay tries to kill Wanda, only to be attacked by Wonder Man. The Avengers, now free from the reality warping, are easily able to take down Le Fay, despite having picked up a few cuts and bruises in their Game of Thrones adventures.
While this instance of reality manipulation had a relatively happy ending, others, such as House of M, did not. The end of that event saw all but 198 mutants on Earth lose their powers. The Scarlet Witch’s reality manipulation powers have been used to badly warp reality for Marvel’s assembled heroes on at least two occasions, and Busiek and Perez’s opening Avengers arc showed just how powerful and convincing her illusions are. While matters ended much more happily than House of M, this glimpse into the dark side of the Scarlet Witch set the stage for things to come.
