Vision and the Scarlet Witch #4
Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself…
On Wundagore Mountain, a traveler dressed in white comes upon the cottage owned by Bova, the Cow-Woman. With heavy snow falling outside, she invites the weary traveler inside to get him out of the elements. As he sits by the fire, Bova introduces the stranger to Modred, a sorcerer who was driven mad and left in her care.[1]
When asked what brings the traveler to her home, the man tells her that he has come seeking his past and to find a woman he once lost long ago. This reminds Bova of a woman who passed through the area many decades earlier and when asked, Bova says the woman’s name was Magda. Hearing this gets the traveler’s attention.
Bova goes on to explain that Magda had come to the Citadel of Science, the home of her creator the High Evolutionary. Pregnant, Magda sought shelter where she can give safely give birth. The woman was afraid of her husband finding her, and after giving birth to twins, she fled into the mountains where she presumably died.[2][3] Learning that the children are still alive and have grown up to have tremendous powers, the strange demands to know where the children can be found. That’s when Bova remembers how Magda pleaded with her to keep the children safe from their father and finally puts two-and-two together. Lashing out with his magnetic powers, threatens to harm Bova and Modred unless she reveals the truth. She resists but the stranger uses his power to control the flow of blood inside Bova’s body through its iron content and is forced to reveal that the children are Wand and Pietro Maximoff, otherwise known as the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. The stranger then unleashes a powerful burst of energy that leaves Bova wounded and her cottage in ruins before departing. Fearing for the Maximoff twin’s safety, Bova pleads with Modred to use his magical powers to warn them. Surprisingly, the infantile sorcerer is able to do so.[4]
Later, the Vision and Scarlet Witch take an Avengers Quinjet to the Inhumans hidden city of Attilan, located on the Blue Area of the Moon. There they are greeted by Wanda’s brother Pietro, his wife Crystal, their infant daughter Luna, as well as Black Bolt, Medusa, and Karnak of the Inhuman royal family. They have come in the hopes that Inhuman science can help restore the Vision’s left arm, which was seriously damaged and had to be amputated following their recent battle with Isbisa.[5]
The following day, the miracles of Inhuman science succeed in rebuilding the android’s arm. Testing the new appendage out, the Vision confirms that it will become intangible or diamond hard at will just like the rest of his body. With the Vision’s body repaired, Wanda can no focus on spending time with her brother and his family. While this is happening, Bova’s attacker arrives on the moon and erects an impenetrable magnetic force field around the home of Quicksilver and Crystal, keeping the royal family out and everyone trapped inside.
The stranger then confronts the two couples and reveals that he is none other than Magneto. Given their sordid past with the Master of Magnetism, everyone starts attacking him all at once.[6] However, the evil mutant is able to hold his own and the battle carries on until Crystal begs them to stop for fear that baby Luna might get hurt. This reminds Magneto of the reason why he came and he stops fighting, saying he wouldn’t do anything to intentionally harm his granddaughter.
This comes as a shock and Magneto explains that he just learned that Wanda and Pietro are his children. Pietro refuses to believe it, so Magneto tells them about his past. He explains that the root of his hatred for humans began growing up in Germany during World War II. A Jew, Magnus was sent to the the Auschwitz concentration camp.[7] However, his mutant powers ensured that he would eventually fight back against his tormentors. Unfortunately, this power deeply frightened his wife, Magda, and she fled from him. He then recounts Bova’s story for everyone gathered. Concluding his tale, Magneto tells his children that he has now come to re-evaluate his hatred of humans, spurred by the revelation that his mutant son and his Inhuman wife gave birth to an ordinary human child. Now tied to the human race by blood once more, Magneto realizes that he has to temper his anger for his granddaughters sake. Brought to tears by all of this, Wanda wonders what will happen now that they know Magneto is really their father.
Recurring Characters
Vision, Scarlet Witch, Magneto, Quicksilver, Inhumans (Black Bolt, Medusa, Crystal, Karnak, Gorgon, Luna, Lockjaw), Bova, Modred the Mystic,
Continuity Notes
Modred learned the hard way that consorting with the demon Chthon is bad for your health. See Avengers #185-187.
Classic X-Men #12 details the events that led Magda to fear and flee her husband. When their daughter, Anya was trapped in a burning inn, Magnus tried to save her. However, the townspeople kept him from doing so and he lashed out with his mutant powers the first time. Seeing her daughter burned alive and her husband lashing out with seemingly supernatural powers prompted her to flee.
This story states that Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are the children of Magneto. This later revealed to be untrue. The pair were actually the children of Natalya Maximoff and an unidentified Scarlet Warlock. They were then kidnapped by the High Evolutionary who wanted to experiment upon them. In order to cover up his work, the Evolutionary made it so future DNA tests would result in them registering as mutants. See Uncanny Avengers (vol. 2) #4-5 and Scarlet Witch (vol. 2) #4 and 11. This recent revelation leaves unanswered questions, see below for detials.
From here, Modred wanders off into the mountains until his mind is restored and he resurfaces again in Captain America #305-306. Bova doesn’t get off so lucky, as she suffered stroke while dealing with her injuries in Avengers #245. However, she will make a full recovery by issue #247.
The Vision sustained damage to his arm in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #2.
Mention is made how Magneto once saved Pietro and Wanda from an angry mob and used it to force them into joining his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to repay this debt. The pair were members from X-Men #4 through 11. Eventually, they left the Brotherhood and decided to reform by joining the Avengers in Avengers #16.
While Magneto suggests that he used his mutant powers to escape the Nazi concentration camps, this is not the case. As detailed in X-Men: Magneto Testament #1-5, Magneto’s powers did not manifest while he was in Auschwitz and that he escaped during a prisoner revolt in 1944. This raises questions about Magneto’s physical age. See below.
The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver’s True Parents
The sudden decision to change the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver’s origins so that they are no longer Magneto’s children, or mutants, was born from Marvel Comics trying to align their comic books with the films put out by Marvel Studios. At the time, licensing issues prevented them from featuring mutants in their films and the inclusion of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in the Avengers films required them to not be mutants. This resulted in the new origin being written in the second volume of Uncanny Avengers.
However, this explanation doesn’t explain a number of discrepancies with past explorations of the Maximoff twin’s past. For example, Wanda and Pietro were first given an origin in Giant-Size Avengers #1 that stated that they were the children of the Whizzer and Miss America. When this was retconned in Avengers #185-187 and this story, an explanation is made as to how the Whizzer was tricked into thinking the twins were his children. When the new origin for Pietro and Wanda was written in Uncanny Avengers, not much consideration was made for the implications it brings up.
Primarily, that being abandoned by Magda is an integral part of Magneto’s backstory. It is one of the events that had fueled his evolution into the anti-human terrorist he would later become. While the Uncanny Avengers story waves off Pietro and Wanda’s ties to Magneto, it doesn’t raises many unanswered questions.
What happened to Magda Eisenhardt? Did she ever get to the Citadel of Science? Was she actually pregnant? If she was, what happened to that child/those children? What role did Bova play in the High Evolutionary’s cover-up vis-a-vie the Maximoff twin’s experimentation?
If it were up to me, I figure that the story about Magda is at least partially true. Perhaps she did show up at the High Evolutionary’s Citadel to give birth. Perhaps she did give birth to twins, and this inspired the Evolutionary to cover up his experimentation Wanda and Pietro. Perhaps he also swapped out Magda’s children with the Maximoff twins to better sell the lie.
I don’t believe that Bova would have been in on it. She has always been portrayed as a benevolent creature. I think her gentle nature and her loyalty to the High Evolutionary would make her instantly believe and repeat whatever lies that were told to her.
The only thing that is unexplained is what happened to Magda’s children if she indeed had any to begin with. I suppose a lazy writer could say that they were stillborn (lots of stillbirths going at the Citadel of Science!) but I think a more interesting tale would have Magneto’s children show up.
Magneto’s Physical Age
Another issue with Magneto is that his past is rooted to World War II to the point where it cannot be dismissed as a topical reference. As a result, a the Sliding Timescale moves forward the character is unintentionally aged further as the Modern Age is pushed further away from World War II. While there is a contemporary story where Magneto is regressed to the age of a child and then restored to adulthood in his relative prime (see Defenders #16 and X-Men #104), it doesn’t answer how he could still be relatively youthful in his appearances prior when considering the Sliding Timescale.
One possible explanation comes from Excalibur (vol. 3) #7, in which it is revealed that Magneto was experimented upon by Mister Sinister back in his days in the concentration camps. As Sinister and many of his wartime experiments have survived the ravages of time into the Modern Age, one could assume that Sinister did something to Magneto that made him age slower than normal thus explaining how he still appeared vital enough to engage in his war against humanity at the start of the Age of Heroes.
