Avengers: The Children's Crusade #7

Wikipedia also claims that the Life Force entity *did* reincarnate Wanda's children as Speed and Wiccan, but hid them from her. I can't find any source for this, in this issue or elsewhere. I find it equally likely that Wanda implemented the reincarnations herself as one of her last acts at the end of House of M, alongside depowering mutants and bringing Hawkeye back to life. Either way the reincarnations would require reality-bending to have the new versions born before the old versions died, as I described in my comments on #1. In #4 Doom said that amnesiac Wanda came to him after House of M, asking aid for her gypsy tribe. We now see that scene as Scarlet Witch seeking his sorcerous help much earlier. Doom also says he found amnesiac Wanda in Transia (and replaced her with a Doombot). This leaves open the question of whether the Wanda that Hawkeye and Beast separately met in Transia was the real one or the Doombot.

This issue gives us a foretaste of Avengers vs X-Men over Hope Summers. Cyclops is already showing his dictatorial side. When does the Scarlet Witch/Dr Doom alliance fit in Wanda's career? Agatha Harkness hid Wanda's memories of her children after she lost them in Avengers West Coast #52. But Wanda got the memories back in #62. So that marks one end of the available timeframe. The first signs of Scarlet Witch's enhanced power are when she temporarily resurrects Wonder Man in the opening story arc of Avengers (1998). In #10 Agatha Harkness claims that Wanda can now use Chaos magic. So that series gives us the other end point. That series followed on immediately from the Heroes Reborn universe. So Scarlet Witch's Wikipedia entry puts Wanda being possessed by the Life Force soon before Heroes Reborn, in the brief period after she led Force Works. However this would be long after AWC#62. And it's also quite a while before Avengers Disassembled.

The Marvel Universe Wiki entry for SW has been updated to include Young Avengers but not yet Children's Crusade. As such it just says that the twins have been reincarnated by unknown means. As for her memories of them, it says Agatha Harkness removed them, Wanda regained them but later suppressed them again (all without saying when these things happened). ******** End of later addition **************

We're also brought back to the question of how and when the twins got reincarnated, if the entity didn't do it. Any idea would involve retrospective changes to reality, having them reborn before they died, as I have already said. But my suggestion that Wanda did it at the end of House of M has the problem that the Young Avengers appeared between Disassembled and HoM. So I'll change my mind and plump for Wanda subconsciously doing it herself in Disassembled. I don't find a problem in the fact Billy Kaplan says in the YA Special that he met Wanda before Avengers Disassembled. The Special happens after Disassembled, so he has the memories there of what happened before. This could be because he was created in Disassembled with all the relevant memories (and the rest of the world was changed to accommodate him too). Or because SW changed the past to have him in it. [Comics published/occurring before HoM with Billy in them militate against the change being made during HoM. Comics published/occurring after Disassembled with Billy *remembering* the past don't cause the same problem.] Another possibility is that Franklin created Billy and Tommy during Heroes Return. But I don't see him doing that *and* removing Wanda's memories so she wouldn't look for them. Another possibility is that the twins recreated *themselves*.

I must confess that the question of whether SW got her memories back in AWC#62 isn't as clear cut as I made out. Although I don't think she was showm remembering then in the immediately succeeding issues of AWC, she certainly remembered the twins and how she lost them in her 1994 Scarlet Witch limited series. And there may be other instances If this is so the question is, when did she lose the memories again? I don't remember it happening in any actual issue. However I also don't recall any mention of her children in Avengers (1998) before Disassembled. So maybe she lost the memories before Avengers v3. A possibility springs immediately to mind:- Maybe Franklin Richards did it in Heroes Reborn/Heroes Return? After all he changed other stuff.

The actual contents of the 3 issues referenced don't actually support this theory. 1) In AWC#62 Scarlet Witch is in a trance under the control of Immortus. Agatha Harkness tries to shock her out of the trance by reminding her of her lost children. But it doesn't work. I don't think there is any indication that her memories actually *are* returned, there or in the following issues. 2) In Av#503 Wasp accidentally mentions the children, and Wanda goes to Agatha to ask *who* these children *are* that people seem to think she had. This suggests that SW still didn't know she's had children, and the other Avengers were usually careful not to say anything. We are left to infer that Agatha spilled the beans. 3) This current issue says that SW went to see Dr Doom after she learned about her dead children. The entity-possessed Wanda then went off to wreak havoc. No mention is made of the kids being reincarnated, or of chaos magic. To my mind this fits a a shorter scenario. Wanda only gets her memory back once, after Wasp's slip in Av#503 flashback. She goes to see Agatha, who tells her the truth. She goes to see Sr Doom and gets possessed by the entity. Avengers Disassembled happens (including killing Agatha). The downside is that this doesn't help explain chaos magic, which Dr Strange says doesn't exist in Av#503.

***** Later addition ******** I've just looked in more detail at some of the comics relevant to Scarlet Witch's story. I've come to the conclusion that whoever updated the Wikipedia entry for Scarlet Witch post-Children's Crusade has committed a cardinal sin as Wikipedia would see it:- including personal speculation as facts. Unless of course there's an unquoted interview with Alan Heinberg where he lays out what he meant to have happened behind the scenes. The update was a large one, including lots of stuff not specifically related to CC. But the relevant bits can be summarised as:- 1) A reference is added to Wanda getting the memory of her children back in Avengers West Coast #62. 2) Sometime after that she goes to Dr Doom to get help in getting the kids back, as seen in this issue, and is invaded by the Life Force entity. (This is placed between Force Works and Heroes Reborn.) 3) At this point the entity reincarnates the twins, but hides them from Wanda. 4) The entity is responsible for the Witch's chaos magic after Heroes Return. 5) The entity makes distraught Wanda go to Agatha Harkness (as seen in flashback in Avengers #503) futilely asking where her resurrected but missing children are. Avengers Disassembled, House of M and Decimation follow.