MCU: Iron Man Vs Scarlet Witch – Who Made The Worst Mistakes?

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the distinction between heroes and villains isn’t always as obvious as one might think. While some antagonists, like Erik Killmonger and Bucky Barnes, aren’t completely in the wrong, most of the Avengers aren’t ever completely in the right, either. However, while all of the main heroes make some good choices and some bad ones, there are some Avengers in particular who have more complicated pasts and who make worse choices than others.

Tony Stark and Wanda Maximoff are two of these more complex characters. While they have very different life stories and experiences, they do tend to make some questionable decisions. Although they had the best of intentions, Iron Man and Scarlet Witch made many mistakes that caused more harm than good.

10 Scarlet Witch Not Destroying The Mind Stone Fast Enough

Wanda falls in love with Vision, so having to be the one to destroy the Mind Stone is rather tragic. It shouldn’t be a choice that falls to her, but she is the only one who can possibly save the day from Thanos by doing so. It makes sense that she waits as long as she can to keep Vision alive, but her actions can seem a bit selfish and reckless. She knows that the entire fate of the universe is at stake, but she waits until the last possible second to even try to put a stop to this.

However, because Thanos had the Time Stone, it’s clear that it wouldn’t really have mattered at that point. He could reverse any action Wanda could make with a wave of the Infinity Gauntlet. But the fact that Wanda still waited as long as she did seems like a bad judgment call.

9 Iron Man: Walked Away From The Avengers In Endgame

While Tony Stark spent most of the MCU films supporting the Avengers, he abruptly stopped all personal and financial assistance after the Avengers disbanded after Captain America: Civil War. In Avengers: Endgame, he seems to have nearly forgotten about his former friends as he now has his own family with Pepper Potts and his daughter, Morgan.

While Tony does tend to be selfish overall, he did seem to find a connection and to at least care about the other Avengers before. So, his refusal to become Iron Man in the post-Snap world and help his former teammates felt cruel. While they are trying to reverse the Snap and help the world, Tony, with all of his many resources, stops being an Avenger.

8 Scarlet Witch: Her Hypocritical Punishment Of Agatha

In WandaVision, Agatha Harkness is the main antagonist who ultimately tries to steal Wanda’s Chaos energy to use for her own evil purposes. Yet in many ways, Agatha’s crimes and use of her power aren’t that much worse than Wanda’s. While Agatha might not be a heroic character who cares about others, Wanda doesn’t seem that much better.

Despite what Wanda does to the people of Westview and finally seeing how awful mind control over other people is, she leaves Agatha in an ignorant, non-autonomous state, arguably forever. It’s hard to see this as a fitting punishment, and given that Wanda was inflicting a lot of pain on others, too, it makes her seem hypocritical.

7 Iron Man: Acted Like A Hypocrite About The Accords

Speaking of hypocritical behavior, however, Tony Stark is no saint. While Iron Man might have been on board with the Sokovia Accords because of his guilt over Ultron, he never seems to intend to actually follow through with the rules. While the Accords were supposed to provide oversight to the Avengers, Tony showed in Captain America: Civil War that he would do what he wanted anyway.

He quickly ignored his instructions from General Ross and went to the Raft and then to Siberia to find Steve and Bucky. The fact that he was trying to force other Avengers to sign when he didn’t mean to follow the rules was hypocritical.

6 Scarlet Witch: Accidentally Killing Civilians In Lagos

Some of Wanda’s most upsetting actions have more to do with her not being able to completely control her powers or losing focus as she did in Lagos. And, it’s also worth noting that she wasn’t entirely to blame.

Steve Rogers also lost focus on the mission after Brock Rumlow talked about Bucky being tortured by HYDRA, and Wanda was trying to save Steve. She acted quickly, but she wasn’t able to control her magic completely which ended up killing innocent people. Overall, it spoke to Wanda’s lack of experience at controlling her own powers.

5 Iron Man: Tried To Kill Bucky Barnes

Tony Stark’s grief over the loss of his parents, mostly his mother, is very understandable. Seeing his mom be killed on video would be very traumatic, and lashing out at Bucky can be justified to some extent. However, he really did intend to kill Bucky.

He even acknowledged to Steve that he knew Bucky wasn’t in his own mind or making his own decisions, but, instead of seeing the complex reality of Bucky also as a victim, he tried to end his life. Iron Man took things too far, and he and Bucky never got a moment to reconcile on screen.

4 Scarlet Witch: Worked With Ultron And HYDRA

Many fans were upset when Wanda’s backstory in the MCU involved working with HYDRA given her comic book origins. In the comics, she is a Jewish Romani so working with the fascist HYDRA organization felt inconsistent at best and disturbing at worst. In the MCU continuity, Wanda’s anger at Tony Stark for causing the destruction of her homeland made sense, and so working with HYDRA and Ultron was more logical than not.

While it’s hard to completely give Wanda a free pass for siding more than once with rather obvious villains, Wanda did atone for her past mistakes by immediately severing ties with Ultron after she realized the robot wanted to hurt innocent people. She ultimately switched teams to help the Avengers, but her origin story definitely isn’t completely heroic.

3 Iron Man: Not Caring About Weapons Manufacturing

Tony Stark was a rather horrible person in many ways at first, and this is part of his entire character arc and journey. He’s selfish and egotistical, with only easy pleasure and money driving him.

While he spends most of his life after becoming Iron Man trying to make up for his superficial past, Tony’s apathy over creating large, powerful weapons is hard to process. Regardless of who he was selling the weapons to, there was a lot of blood on his hands because those weapons were designed to kill as many people as possible.

2 Scarlet Witch: Holding An Entire Town Hostage

While the ending of WandaVision is a bit vague as to Wanda’s next chapter, the show still presents her in the end as being the protagonist versus Agatha as the villain. However, the Scarlet Witch’s actions weren’t all that heroic, and fans are still wondering if she will be held accountable.

Even if she was motivated by grief, holding an entire town of people physically and mentally hostage is not justifiable. They had no autonomy and were just there to populate her dream world. This might be one of the most upsetting things any Marvel hero has ever done in the MCU.

1 Iron Man: Created Ultron

While Scarlet Witch can be critiqued for joining up with Ultron, Tony Stark was the one who created him in the first place. Tony is someone with an incredible amount of power and privilege as a billionaire genius. As the ultimate act of hubris, he created a self-sufficient AI for the entire world without consulting anyone who could warn him of the potential dangers of such an act.

Just like with many of his other actions, Tony didn’t consult with anyone and didn’t consider the consequences of his actions. While he couldn’t’ have imagined what Ultron would become, his ego got in the way of his judgment. The tragic result was the mass destruction of Sokovia and the loss of many innocent lives.

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