Wandavision: 10 Powers That You Didn’t Know Scarlet Witch Had

As WandaVision has shown, the Scarlet Witch’s powers and abilities are growing exponentially. While her powers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been considerable, they haven’t lined up with her reality-smashing potential in Marvel Comics, at least not yet. And her power set extends far beyond that.

The Scarlet Witch has grown over time from one of the most powerful Avengers to one of the most powerful beings in existence, with the ability to alter reality with only a few words. Her talents don’t stop there, unfortunately for friend and foe alike.

10 Affecting Probability

It’s clear from the first five episodes of the series that WandaVision is going to have a big impact on the future of the MCU. Part of that lies in Wanda’s power, which is rooted in her ability to affect probability. This wasn’t exactly clear when she debuted as part of the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants in Uncanny X-Men #4 in 1964 when she and her brother Quicksilver debuted thanks to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Her ‘hex powers’ could cause random events to take place, so long as they were in her line of sight.

9 Sorceress

Despite her name, the Scarlet Witch wasn’t actually a witch until much later. Her powers derived from her being a mutant. Writer Steve Englehart, who wrote the 1985 The Vision And Scarlet Witch mini-series that serves as a major comics inspiration for WandaVision, made her a true sorceress.

She studied under Agatha Harkness, another Marvel sorceress (and who may or may not be Agnes in the series) and learned to augment her talents with mystical energy.

8 Chaos Magic

Wanda’s powers really kicked up a notch with the discovery of chaos magic. In “Pomp & Pageantry” from The Avengers #10 in November 1998, writer Kurt Busiek and artist George Perez revised her powers again so her major feats were explained by her abilities being rooted in chaos magic, which essentially incorporates a variety of magical, mythical, and theoretical traditions to create something unique.

In the comics, this was retconned to be the result of the demon Chthon changing her mutation at birth into an ability to wield and control magical energy.

7 Hex Bolts

One of Wanda’s most basic powers on display in the MCU is her use of kinetic energy. She frequently fires kinetic blasts of scarlet energy or erects kinetic shields. This ability makes her one of the most powerful offensive and defensive weapons in any battle. In the comics, this manifested early on as ‘hex bolts.’

These hexes were relatively short-range and again limited to her line of sight (she couldn’t affect anything beyond her field of vision). Casting a hex requires a gesture and concentration from her, which manifests in the unique hand gestures of the character in the movies and series.

6 Electrical Disruption

Originally, her hexes weren’t something Wanda could control. This didn’t make her a liability though, but a huge threat, especially to major Avengers foes like Ultron.

She short-circuited the android with a hex in one of their early battles and disintegrated numerous Ultron drones in Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Some fan theories speculate about Ultron’s return to the MCU in the future, but he would be at an even greater disadvantage against an even more powerful Wanda.

5 Telekinesis

Though not a major feature of her powerset, Wanda can levitate and manipulate objects and matter with her mind. The full extent of this ability isn’t known. Some of the most powerful mutants in the Marvel universe are telekinetics, like Jean Grey and Franklin Richards.

This ability, on top of her other extraordinary talents, makes Wanda incredibly dynamic in any battle. Her MCU abilities have been somewhat vague on this front, but she clearly displays the power to levitate objects in the early episodes of WandaVision.

4 Teleportation

Another unexpected power that Wanda has is teleportation. She is actually one of the most powerful teleporters in the Marvel universe. She proves this when she teleports back through time and space to save the life of Scott Lang, Ant-Man, after it appeared he died as a result of her actions in Avengers: Disassembled.

This is part of her escalating power set in the comics, which evolves out of her natural mutant ability and her tremendous ability with magic and sorcery.

3 Martial Artist

As if her extraordinary abilities weren’t enough, Wanda is also an accomplished martial artist. If it comes down to her fists, it’s still going to be a long day for supervillains. Wanda was trained in hand-to-hand combat by some of the best Marvel combatants, Captain America and Hawkeye.

Wanda has provedn her talents against several prominent villains and heroes, including Cable, who is easily one of the most powerful mutants in the comics.

2 Immune To The Phoenix Force

Wanda has proven her might on a few occasions, but she may have set the bar for all-time during the epic Avengers vs. X-Men event. During that storyline, the Phoenix Force inhabited several X-Men, including Cyclops, Magik, and Emma Frost. Scarlet Witch proved immune to the cosmic power of the Phoenix Force, one of the most powerful entities in all of Marvel.

She also denied the Phoenix the possession of Hope Summers when she said ‘No more Phoenix,’ and also undid her own actions in eliminating mutants in House Of M.

1 Reality Alteration

Wanda is mostly defined now in the comics by her ability to alter reality, which feeds into her circumstances in WandaVision. She infamously changed reality to maintain the illusion that her children Thomas and William were still alive, and when that crumbled, she lashed out and erased all but a few hundred mutants from existence.

She has since put that right, but her powers remain unpredictable and uncharted. It’s not clear if she has any limits, or any could ever be put on her. In the MCU, it seems likely that her ability to alter reality will lead in some way to how Doctor Octopus and Electro will fit into Spider-Man 3.

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