Most MCU fans are still unhappy with how the Scarlet Witch was treated in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, though all signs currently point to Wanda Maximoff returning in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.
Today, we have some news on what her role in those movies could look like.
According to scooper @MyTimeToShineH, the Scarlet Witch will be a "main player" in both Doomsday and Secret Wars and is set to share a lot of screentime with Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom... "as his lover."
This has since been corroborated by The Cosmic Circus' Alex Perez who has strongly hinted that Wanda's title will be "Baroness" in these movies. Yes, it appears the Scarlet Witch will be Doom's love interest, likely so he can use her abilities to reshape and traverse the Multiverse
In the comic books, Avengers: The Children's Crusade saw Wiccan and Speed attempt to find their mother, the Scarlet Witch. In the wake of House of M, she'd lost her memory and was found living alongside Victor in Latveria's Castle Doom.
They were very much in love and legitimately happy (the former Avenger had come to him for help; he never forced her to love him), but when Wanda regained her memories, it quickly became clear their relationship was - no pun intended - doomed.
It's revealed that Wanda is a Nexus Being, "a living focal point for Earth's mystical energies," and Doom's attempt to help her get the power she needed to resurrect her children is what led to her going mad years earlier.
In the present, Doom took the Scarlet Witch's reality-altering powers and refused to give them up even for her. Despite his promise to reshape the world, it didn't pan out for the villain, and we're sure you can see how this could be combined with what we saw in Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars series.
On a related note, Daniel Richtman has taken to X to explain, "The reason they decided to drop Kang wasn’t just because of [Jonathan] Majors. When they were looking to recast the role they realized there wasn’t much hype around the character so they went with a gimmick casting of [Downey] as Doom to get people excited for the Avengers [films]."
"To be fair I think it worked. The [Downey] announcement is the most viewed video on [Instagram]."
Are you excited to see Doom and Wanda interact in the next Avengers movies?