My three dads
Wonder Man returns from the dead under mysterious circumstances. (Avengers #151, Englehart, Conway, Jim Shooter, & George Pérez, 1976)
Now Vision has something like a brother, as they share brain patterns. But if they have the same mind and Vision and Wanda are in love… but Wonder Man has a human body… you can see where some tension may set in. (Avengers #157, by Conway & Heck, 1977)
Avengers #158, cover by Jack Kirby (1977).
Wonder Man’s actual brother, the Grim Reaper, is naturally confused about the situation. Is either his brother? Are both? Are you familiar with the Ship of Theseus? (Avengers #160, Shooter & Pérez, 1977)
What do you think? Is that Grim Reaper’s helmet under the floorboard? If so, what’s with the dog bones? (Hint: read to the end.)
A man named Django Maximoff travels from Vladivostok to New York because he believes Wanda and Pietro to be his long lost children Ana and Mateo. So he won’t lose them again, he transforms them into puppets and locks them in cages. It’s called parenting. (Avengers #181, David Michelinie & John Byrne, 1979)
Django had lived in a gypsy tribe with his children, a speedster and a magical girl. Until prejudice against gypsies forced them to flee. Django believed his children died from falling over a cliff pursued by a mob until he read about the exploits of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. (Avengers #182, Michelinie & Byrne, 1979)
The twins return with Maximoff to Transia and Wundagore Mountain to try to make sense of their pasts. (Avengers #185-187, Steven Grant, Mark Gruenwald, Michelinie, & Byrne, 1979)
Bova is able to explain the story of their birth in more detail than the Whizzer had. Their mother was actually a woman named Magda, who was fleeing her husband who had developed strange powers.
Thinking it the only way to keep them safe from her mad husband, Magda fled and left the twins on Wundagore. The Franks came, as the Whizzer had described. He thought his wife had given birth to twins before dying, but really his wife had lost the child, and it was Magda’s twins Bova presented to him.
So the twins were given to the Maximoffs, whose own children (Ana and Mateo) had recently died.
The following month, in X-Men #125 (Claremont & Byrne, 1979), Magneto refers to a woman named Magda who had once been his wife. Could this be the same Magda? Is Magneto the true father of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch?
And that’s why Wanda has three dads… and counting.
We also learn Wundagore had long been the prison of the demonic Chthon, author of the Darkhold, Book of Sins. It was he who imbued Wanda with her magical potential at birth that he may one day possess her. His plan failed.
Agatha showed us the Darkhold in Wandavision, and the series ended with Wanda studying its magic closely.
Django held the key to defeating Chthon, but his heart was too weak and he passed away in the battle.
This is where superhero comics get confusing. It was well-established that their parents were Whizzer and Miss America, and so their names were Wanda and Pietro Frank. Until a later writer comes in and reveals the story was more convoluted than we had learned. That two pregnant women had come to Wundagore Mountain at about the same time, causing confusion about parentages. And it was entirely coincidental that Quicksilver and the man believed to be their father both possess super speed. But at this point, Wanda and Pietro accept their mother is Magda, and assume the names Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, after the parents who raised them.
Moving
Eventually the time comes for Scarlet Witch and Vision to leave the Avengers and focus on their lives together. (Avengers #211, Shooter & Gene Colan, 1981)
In Fantastic Four #240 (Byrne, 1982), the Inhumans decided there is no more place for them on Earth with all its pollution. So they move the entire city of Attilan to the moon. As one does.
Crystal and Quicksilver give birth to a daughter, who will be named Luna after their new home.
Vision and the Scarlet Witch at last get their own series, a 4-part saga by Bill Mantlo & Rick Leonardi (1982), where the couple settles into a quiet life in the suburban community of Leonia, New Jersey. The theme of this series is family.
They have lived in Avengers Mansion since being married, and now have bought their first house together.
Vision and Wanda attempt to help the Whizzer–who still believed himself Wanda’s father–recover his son Nuklo from the government. But his old nemesis Ibisa (remember him from way back in the beginning of this post) had other plans.
After a fraught battle, Nuklo is finally cured of his condition, but Vision is badly injured and Robert Frank, the Whizzer, is dead.
Wanda and Vision travel to the moon, where Wanda meets her niece for the first time.
And Quicksilver at last reconciles with the Vision.
It is on the moon that they learn what we already suspected, that Magda’s husband, their true father, was none other than Magneto.
Absolute Vision
A request for aid by the Avengers brings Wanda and Vision back to duty and leaves Vision in a comatose state. (Avengers #233, Roger Stern & Byrne, 1983)
Starfox helps repair him by calling on ISAAC, the computer that runs his homeworld, Titan, the moon of Saturn. In the process, Vision and ISAAC partially merge, and Vision emerges more powerful, but also changed. (Avengers #238, Stern & Al Milgrom, 1983)
When many superheroes disappear to fight in Secret Wars, this new bolder Vision assumes leadership of the Avengers and begins to form plans. (Avengers #243, Stern & Milgrom, 1984)
Wanda and Vision feel the bigotry of their neighbors, who burn down their Leonia home because they don’t want freaks in their neighborhood. (Avengers #252-253, Stern & Bob Hall, 1985)
This convinced Vision the course of action he had been considering is correct. He devises pretense missions to lure all the other Avengers away and then begins his plans to save humanity from itself.
Vision surrenders his corporeal form to merge with all of Earth’s computer systems in order to make himself the unchallenged ruler of the world.
The Avengers challenge his rule and the issue resolves itself. Vision removes a corrupted control crystal at the source of his breakdown. Vision steps down as Avengers chairman and turns himself over to the custody of the US government. (Avengers #255, Stern & J. Buscema, 1985)
Vision & Scarlet Witch
The Vision and the Scarlet Witch #1-12, by Steve Englehart and Richard Howell, 1985-86.
This is the series Wandavision most brings to mind and the first thing the show inspired me to read.
It begins with conflict between Wanda and the US Government regarding the Vision, conflict echoed in the show. It’s not his corpse, this time. He’s still alive… but under arrest for serious crimes. They argue he should not be legally responsible for his actions under the influence of ISAAC and the control crystal. Peter Gyrich countered that as long as he was an Avenger, the government had jurisdiction. So Vision and Scarlet Witch quit the Avengers officially and returned to quiet suburban life.
There’s no time snafus or magical manipulation going on, but, as in the show, it is the story of Wanda and Vision trying to live nice quiet suburban lives. Some super-villains have their own ideas, as do a few neighbors who don’t like the weirdos in their quiet normal town. (Recall neighbors burned down their first home in town.)
The series plays out over the course of a year, and we see domestic life occasionally punctured by superheroic craziness. Grim Reaper is always scheming to get his true brother restored, while Toad harbors a crush on Scarlet Witch and fails to handle it maturely.
With some prodding from the ghost of Agatha Harkness, Wanda is able to magically conceive children with Vision.
Her belly swells over the course of the series, until in the final issue she gives birth to twins Thomas and William.
Dr. Strange helps attend the pregnancy. Thomas is named for Vision’s father Phineas Thomas Horton, while William is named for Vision’s brother and mother, Simon and Martha Williams. (Less so the other brother, Eric Williams.)
While it’s somewhat rocky, attempts are made to reunite with their father, Magneto. He attends the Thanksgiving dinner and is on hand to protect Wanda during childbirth. It’s going to be a slow path to healing given that he abandoned them as babies, abused them as young adults, and spent many years as a terrorist bent on world domination.
One side effect of Thanksgiving dinner is that Crystal met their realtor Norm and started a secret affair with him.
When Quicksilver found out, he went a little crazy and abandoned his wife. She was granted a divorce by the Inhumans.
Is it coincidence that one of the characters in the show is named Norm? Maybe, maybe not.
Unfortunately, happy endings are just about knowing when to stop telling the story. Keep reading, and learn there is no happily ever after. Not for Pietro and Crystal. Nor Wanda and Vision.
Click through to Page 4 and see how it all went wrong.
