A member of the super-hero team the Avengers published by Marvel Comics. She first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #4 and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
The woman who was to become the Scarlet Witch was born raised going by the name Wanda Maximoff. She and her brother, Pietro, who would later go by the name of Quicksilver, have one of the most convoluted parentages in comic books. The two were raised by Django and Marya Maximoff, a gypsy couple from Transia in Eastern Europe. Their actual parents were the gypsy woman Magda and Eric Magnus, the mutant who would later
be the villain Magneto. Fearing Magnus's power, Magda fled while with child to the home of the High Evolutionary and his animal men, the citadel of Wundagore. There Magda gave birth to the twins with the help of Bova, an highly evolved cow. Magda fled the mountain, leaving her children in Bova's care, and she perished in the snow. Bova tried to pass the children into the care of Robert and Madeline Frank, the World War II heroes Miss America and the Whizzer, who had recently lost a child in childbirth. But Robert rejected the children and so the twins were passed to the Maximoffs to be reared. Over the course of her life, the Scarlet Witch has believed her parents to be the Maximoffs, the Franks, and finally her true parents, Magneto and Magda.
Both of the twins were mutants. Wanda has the power to cause highly unlikely events to occur with a gesture which she called her "hex bolts."
Wanda and her brother were attacked by an angry mob due to their abilities and would have been killed had not Magneto arrived.
Not knowing their connection, Magneto recruited the two mutants to join his group known as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. She worked with this group for a time
aiding the plans of Magneto and bringing her into conflict with the mutant team, the X-Men. When Magneto was taken away by the alien being the Stranger, Wanda and Pietro, now known as the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, left the others.
They petitioned for entry into the Avengers and along with Hawkeye were admitted as members of the super-hero team. They were trained by Captain America and the four were often known as Cap's Kooky Quartet.
The Scarlet Witch served as a member of the Avengers for many years. She met and fell in love with the artificial man the Vision while a member of the team. Her romance with the Vision caused a rift between herself and her brother. She eventually married the Vision.
Their marriage lasted many years. During this time, using sorcerous abilities she learned from the witch Agatha Harkness, Wanda became
pregnant and gave birth to twins. The twins it was later discovered were magical creations and not real at all, disappearing when Wanda
became distracted. During this time as well, the Vision was taken by a government agency and dismantled. He was rescued and reconstructed by Henry Pym, but he lost his personality during reconstruction. His original personality was a template of the Avenger Wonder Man, but Wonder Man refused
to allow his personality to be used a second time, as he had feelings for Wanda himself. The couple soon became distant and split. Wanda has since had a romance with Wonder Man even using her abilities to return him from the dead in recent years.
Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff is portrayed by American actor Elizabeth Olsen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She has appeared in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (2022) and the series WandaVision (2021).