Scarlet Witch (Joint Venture)

Scarlet Witch (Joint Venture)
Real Name	Wanda Maximoff
Current Alias	Scarlet Witch
Relatives	Erik Magnus Lensherr (father), Magda Lensherr (mother, deceased), Anya Lensherr (sister, deceased), Pietro Maximoff (brother), Lorna Dane (sister)
Affiliation	X-Men
Base Of Operations	1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, New York
Alignment	Chaotic Good
Universe	Joint Venture Universe
Gender	Female
Eyes	Brown
Hair	Auburn

The Scarlet Witch is a superheroine, a mutant and sorceress, and frequent member of the Avengers. This is the Joint Venture Universe version of the character.

History

Early life

Little is known of how, or even when, Wanda and her brother Pietro were born. It is known that Erik Lensherr, and his wife, Magda, had one child, Anya, in the late 1950s, more than 10 years after their esape from Nazi concentration camps. Yet, when Magda ran away from Magneto following Anya's death, and his subsequent destruction of the village of Vinnitsa, she was not pregnant.

Yet, in the modern day, shortly after Magneto awoke from a decades-long slumber, the performing troupe of mystics known as Margali's Traveling Circus had two star attractions: The Quicksilver Man and the Lady of Luck.

All Wanda herself remembers is being raised by Django Maximoff, the circus' caretaker, and Margali Szardos, the mistress of the traveling troupe. She was raised alongside Margali's children, Jimaine and Stefan Szardos, and their foster brother Kurt Wagner, with whom she shared a very special connection, despite his seemingly demonic appearance.

Mystic training and abduction

The five children -- Wanda, Pietro, Jimaine, Stefan, and Kurt -- were raised to believe wholeheartedly in the mystic arts, with Wanda and Jimaine becoming adept practitioners under the watchful eye of Margali and her adviser, Agatha Harkness, who took special interest in Wanda's tutelage, foreseeing that the young girl would gain immense power and a chance to do great good -- or greater evil.

Upon her sixteenth birthday -- a birthday of special occult significance -- Wanda's non-magical, mutant power for controlling probabilities awakened. This power interacted unpredictably with her mystic arts and sent "Chaos Ripples" through their reality, which would cause unexpected things to happen across the globe. These ripples did not go unnoticed; many mages, from the Sorcerer Supreme to the least practitioner...and one in particular was drawn to them. She caught the attention of Nathaniel Essex, a scientist and sorcerer adherent to Cyttorak, God of Destruction, who was better known by the name "Mr. Sinister." Taken with her power, and the notion of harnessing it, Essex sent his Marauders to slaughter the camp and retrieve her. In the ensuing fight, Django Maximof and Agatha Harkness lost their lives, and Jimaine and Kurt were scattered to the winds by Margali Szardos' final spell before she was struck by one of Harpoon's energy weapons and she, too, vanished, leaving Pietro and Wanda to fend for themselves. Stefan Szardos, whom Pietro had loved, had previously died in an incident in Winzeldorf.

Ordering Quicksilver to find help, the more powerful Wanda tried to cover his escape, but even her enhanced powers were no match for Sinister's Shard of Cytorrak, and she was captured.

Rescue and Choice

For several years, Pietro would search for his sister, falling in with Exodus' Brotherhood of Mutant Liberation during his efforts, while Sinister used bleeding-edge machinery and dark arts to siphon off Wanda's chaotic energy. He would use this power to ensure the success of his own experiments, as well as boost his own powers on those rare occasions where he had to engage in physical combat. He took special pleasure in using her powers on the young Scott Summers, an orphan in his care in Nebraska, until the X-Men Storm and Phoenix broke him out on their second mission. Wanda herself would be freed days later, when Charles Xavier located her with Cerebro, and the joint forces of the X-Men and Exodus' Brotherhood overwhelmed the Marauders in their first alliance to get her back. However, now finally free, Wanda was faced with a choice: join her brother as a member of the terrorist Brotherhood, or aid the father she had never known, and become an X-Man in defense of humanity. Not bearing humanity any particular grudge as Pietro did, Wanda joined the X-Men and became the Scarlet Witch.

Powers

Possesses the same powers as her Earth-616 counterpart.

Probability Alteration: Wanda's original mutant power, naturally born and without any magical training, was the ability to alter the statistical probability of events to influence the outcome. Before she began applying magical principles to this power, it simply served as a "good luck" ability, granting her and her allies good fortune and "hexing" her opponents with misfortune and bad luck. However, the events that unfolded under the inluence of her original power were all but entirely out of her control.

• Chaos Magic/Reality Warping: Currently, Wanda's pirmary power is the superhuman ability to manipulate and warp reality at will, by combining her mutant power over probability with Chaos Magic, a wild, freeform school of sorcery taught to her by Agatha Harkness. However, using this power on a large scale is dangerous, as it has potentially detrimental effects to both her sanity and her physical well-being.

• Hex Bolts: Because her use of Chaos Magic is so potentially dangerous, Wanda mainly manipulates probability using "hexes" (often manifesting physically as crimson energy "hex spheres" or "hex bolts") which manipulate matter and energy, to varying degrees. These hexes are typically short-range, limited to people, objects, and spaces within her line of sight. Casting a hex requires a gesture and concentration on her part, though the gestures themselves are largely a focus for the concentration. Early in her career, these hexes would only manifest as "bad luck", triggering negative effects. Thanks to Agatha's tutelage, Wanda eventually gained enough control over her powers that they would only work when she wished them to, and are no longer limited to negative effects.

• Teleportation: Wanda has, in extreme cases, the ability to teleport herself and others over short distances. She can also travel to and open portals or gates for different purposes. The full range of this ability is unknown, and she cannot always predict where she is going to land.
• Telekinesis: Wanda has portrayed the ability to manipulate, propel, and levitate things using her mind, as well as fly or hover. Though she is not as proficient in it as her teammate Jean Grey, it is one of her most reliable powers.
• Precognition/Postcognition: Wanda is able to witness past events, or the events of her own future, or the futures of other people, due to a combination of her mutant powers and the use of a deck of tarot cards given her by Margali.

Weaknesses

Unpredictability: Originally, Wanda's power over probability was all but completely out of her control, as she had no direct influence over, or even insight into, the outcome of its use."Hexing" an arrned attacker, for example, might cause his weapon to break or for him to lose his footing, or it might do nothing at all in the short-term, but curse him with a debilitating disease or to suffer a disastrous accident in the future. Only after her training from Szardos and Harkness did Wanda gain any real control over her power, and even to this day, its use is not 100% guaranteed to deliver the result she wishes, even with the application of her magical training.

Mental Illness: Although she is usually relatively sane, Wanda's mind is uniquely fragile. Due to the nature of her power, she often has difficulty discerning what is real and what is not, and can sometimes suffer traumatic breakdowns if she overexerts herself, with potentially devastating results.

Emotional Influence: Wanda's abilities are affected by her emotions; hence, if she does not maintain a modicum of self-control, her powers run the risk of behaving unpreditably, or even running counter to her will. As a result, Wanda struggles to keep a tight rein on her more extreme emotions.

Physical Condition: Wanda's powers possess a degree of unreliability, chich can be further affected by her physical condition: when well rested, in good health, and mentally and emotionally alert, the Scarlet Witch can cast numerous hex-spheres in rapid succession, and attain desirable results, for almost an hour. However, the more tired or upset she is, the more difficulty she has concentrating, and the more likely it is her powers will run wild, or abandon her altogether.

Overextension: Despite enhanced precision due to her magical study, the Scarlet Witch's powers are not necessarily guaranteed to work, or at least not the way she wants them to, particularly if she has been straining herself or using her powers excessively. If overextended, her hexes can backfire, causing probability to work against her wishes, to undo previous hexes, or simply to behave in unpredictable, chaotic ways.