NATALYA MAXIMOFF

Comments: Created by James Robinson and Chris Visions.

    Although the writer and editorial team was constant, there was a different artist for every appearance of Natalya in James Robinson's Scarlet Witch series.

    Natalya spoke in Romani, using words of Spanish or other derivation, such as mulo (mule, or hybrid being), mahrime (unclean and impure in a spiritual way) and rinkini chikni (beautiful daughter)

    Retcons
    Donald Campbell was kind enough to put together a summary of the history of the parentage and nature (mutant or not, etc.) of the Scarlet Witch (and, inherently, Quicksilver)

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver background information

1. X-Men I#4 (March, 1964) – Quicksilver and the Scarlet With made their first appearance. They were part of Magneto's new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. A flashback revealed that they were serving Magneto because he had saved them from a mob of European villagers after Wanda had accidentally set a house on fire.

2. Thor I#134 (November, 1966) – In the same issue that Wundagore was introduced, Wanda and Pietro happen to be in the valley just below the mountain and notice strange lights flickering atop the mountain. This reminds them both of the legends they had been told about how such a light had flashed above the mountains on the night when they were born. For some unexplained reason, this cause Pietro to think about strange tales he had heard of the miracle land of...Wundagore!

3. Giant-Size Avengers #1 (August, 1974) – When the Whizzer appears and tries to obtain the recently-found chronocapsule, Wanda feels drawn to him because his speed powers are similar to those of her brother. When he is injured, she takes care of him and he reveals his past to her. The Whizzer and Miss America (Madeline Joyce Frank) were exposed to radiation in 1949. Madeline was pregnant at the time and “months later” gave birth to a misshapen, glowing baby boy. The government had the baby placed in an experimental time capsule (chrono-module) that would keep him in suspended animation for “precisely a quarter of a century.”

The Franks later traveled in Europe and ended up in Wundagore where they met the High Evolutionary. Madeline was pregnant again so they stayed as his guests. One night, “months later,” after a brilliant flashing light had shone from the mountaintop, a cow-woman midwife came to Robert with twins and claimed that Mrs. Frank seemed pleased with them and had said she wished them to be called Pietro and Wanda. Madeline died a few days later and Robert, dazed, fled, leaving the twins with the High Evolutionary.  Years later, he went back but they were gone. Wanda told Bob Frank that that was because she and her brother had run away from the High Evolutionary’s world of New-Men.

4. Avengers #166 (December, 1977) – First appearance of the white-bearded traveler

5. Avengers #173 (July, 1978) – Second appearance of the white-bearded traveler

6. Avengers #181-182 (March-April, 1979) – The souls of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are stolen by the white-bearded traveler who is revealed to be Django Maximoff and claims that Wanda and Pietro are actually his long-lost twin children, Ana and Mateo. After he's defeated and the souls of the twins are restored to their proper bodies, Wanda announces that she wants to learn the truth.

7. Avengers #185 (July, 1979) – After Wanda and Pietro accompanied Django to Transia to learn the truth about their relationship, Wanda disappears, taken by Modred the Mystic. While searching for her, Pietro is injured while racing up the mountain and awakens in the cabin of the cow-woman (not named until the next issue).

8. Avengers #186 (August, 1979) – Bova tells Pietro that he and Wanda are the children of a woman named Magda who had fled from her husband after he had gained strange powers that had sent him raving with a desire to conquer the world. Magda stayed there for “weeks” before finally giving birth on a night when strange lights shone in the sky above Wundagore Mountain. “Days” later, Magda was gone, having walked out into the snow. She left behind a suicide note that stated that she feared her unnamed husband would be able to force knowledge of their children from her if she remained alive. The High Evolutionary summoned Robert and Madeline Frank from the village below, with the intention of passing off the twins as their children. However, Madeline's baby was stillborn, and Madeline died only moments later. Bova took the twins to Robert Frank and told him they were his, but his grief over his wife's death caused him to flee from Wundagore. The High Evolutionary then took the twins to a nearby Gypsy camp and presented them to Django Maximoff and his wife to be raised as their own. Having recently lost their own (twin?) children, the Maximoff's complied.

Note: Bova is shown holding a newly-born and glowing Wanda while Pietro is seen already lying on a table. Does this mean that Pietro was born first?

9. Avengers I#187 (September, 1979) – While possessing the body of the Scarlet Witch, the Elder God/Demon Chthon reveals that, while battling the High Evolutionary and his Knights above Wundagore on the night that the twins had been born, he had sensed that the newborn girl (Wanda) had a latent science-spawned power that was awesome and so he had imbued her with latent magical potential as well. 

10. X-Men I#125 (September, 1979) – On Asteroid M, a minor computer glitch causes an image of Magneto's wife Magda to be displayed. This prompts Magneto to recall how much it had hurt him when she had fled from him.

11. Vision and the Scarlet Witch I#4 (February, 1983) – On Wundagore Mountain, the White Pilgrim (a disguised Magneto) comes across Bova's cabin during a storm and the cow-woman gives him shelter. Being lonely, she then tells him the story about how a woman named Magda had come to Wundagore during a storm years earlier and had given birth to twins. The White Pilgrim initially assumes that the twins had also died but, once Bova reveals that they had lived, his reaction exposes him as being Magda's husband, the man from whom she had fled, and he then forces Bova to tell him the names of the twins: Wanda and Pietro. Magneto then travels to Attilan on the Moon to reveal to Wanda, Pietro, the Vision, Crystal and Luna what he has just learned.

12. Avengers I#234 (August, 1983) – Wanda reveals her connection to Magneto and how both she and her brother had rejected him.

13. “Evolutionary War” Annuals (1988) – Several chapters of the (unnamed) “The Saga of the High Evolutionary” reveal new details about the events first mentioned in Avengers I#186-187. Unfortunately, they're not entirely consistent with what had been presented in those stories. With regards to the twins, the total time that Magda had spent at Wundagore was massively diminished to less than two days. Further details by Snood...

(Uncanny) X-Men Annual#12 - Having run out of money and left the village inn, Magda sought shelter in the "strange structure," hoping the lord of the manor would take her in. She considered that her water had just broken and that she would be in labor soon. Encountering the New Man Sir Gote, Magda fainted, and he brought her inside where Bova took over her care. The Magnus-possessed Jonathan Drew probed her mind and determined that she was free of the evil presence that he had sensed was coming. As Chthon's elemental Other manifested itself outside, combined assaults from Magnus and the Knights of Wundagore trapped Chthon's essence within Wundagore Mountain. At the same time, Magda gave birth to the children, and Chthon's magic energies reached out and bonded to the newborn girl, enhancing her magical potential (with the intent of using her as a host when she reached adulthood).

Web of Spider-Man Annual#4 - Bova reveals that Magda had departed without notice, leaving a note that Bova should find a good home for the children. The High Evolutionary resolved to have Porga find suitable guardians. Porga subsequently encountered Robert Frank and the pregnant Madeline and brought them to the Citadel of Science, where the High Evolutionary planned to use anesthesia during childbirth to prevent Madeline from realizing how many children she delivered and then adding in Magda's twins. Two days later, Madeline died after 16 hours in labor, delivering a stillborn child. Bova presented Bob with the twins as if they were his own, but when she revealed Madeline's death, Bob fled in grief.
    Soon after, with Porga having found the Roma encampment that contained Django and Marya Maximoff, who had lost their own children, Ana and Mateo, during World War II, the High Evolutionary presented the twins to them to raise as their own. They considered that it was like their own children had been reborn.

14. X-Men II # – 1 (July, 1997) – A retcon reveals that Magneto had recruited Wanda and Pietro before the rest of the Brotherhood, and that the three of them had encountered Charles Xavier before Magneto made his first appearance in X-Men I#1.

15. Avengers & X-Men: AXIS#7 (February, 2015) - While inverted, Wanda casts a chaos curse on her bloodline to kill her brother and father, who had been trying to stop her, but only Quicksilver is affected (killed). This seemingly proves that Magneto wasn't their biological father after all. Wanda comments that Magneto had been used as a pawn in someone's game.
Quicksilver got better--Snood

16. Uncanny Avengers II#2 (April, 2015) – After the Avengers Unity Division traveled to Counter-Earth, the High Evolutionary asked his Master Scientist about “The fraternal twins” who masqueraded as mutants. this prompted his minion into recalling “the old games.”

17. Uncanny Avengers II#4 (July, 2015) – While being held prisoner, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were told by the High Evolutionary that he had taken them from their true parents and made his alterations to them. Then, when they had proven to be disappointments, he had “disguised them as common mutants” and returned them to the care of Django and Marya Maximoff.

Luminous, who possessed both their powers, was created by the High Evolutionary using genetic material taken from Wanda and Pietro.

18. Uncanny Avengers II#5 (August, 2015) – The Vision had seen “the monster's files” and had learned “the hidden truth about the twins and the nightmare Earth yet to come.” He decided to keep that truth from Wanda because it would have crushed her.

19. Scarlet Witch II#3-4 (April-May, 2016) – While walking on the Witches' Road, Wanda (and the ghost of Agatha Harkness) meet another woman who looks somewhat like her and calls herself the Scarlet Witch. After Agatha privately confirms that she is Wanda's true mother, the other Scarlet Witch identifies herself as Natalya Maximoff. Wanda initially attempted to be vague to Natalya about their relation due to the possibility of her being from an earlier era or a ghost but, as she faded from the Witches' Road to return to her own place (and time), Natalya realizes that, even though in her time she has met no man, Wanda must be her (unborn) daughter from the future.

20. Scarlet Witch II#11 (December, 2016) – Researching her past in Serbia, Wanda meets a priest who, twenty-five years ago, had given information -- about a witch who had lived in the area had given her twin newborns to a relative to raise -- to the High Evolutionary to prevent his Knights from causing widespread destruction while searching for special children. The priest didn't recognize the name “Marya” and claimed that he didn't know the relative's name, only her location at that time and that of the witch's children. The priest did tell Wanda about Dasha Kolarov, the witch's best friend. Wanda then finds Dasha who reveals that, after her twins had been taken, Natalya had gone to Wundagore Mountain to get them back and had gone down fighting. Dasha also reveals that, after the High Evolutionary had finished with the twins, he had taken the time to find blood relatives and had given them to Django and Marya Maximoff, Wanda's uncle and aunt. Dasha then reveals that Marya wasn't dead after all.

21. Scarlet Witch II#12 (January. 2017) – While talking with Wanda and Dasha, Marya reveals that Natalya had gotten her magic from her father, who Wanda refers to as the Scarlet Warlock. Marya also reveals that she is sure that the High Evolutionary, even though he had pretended otherwise, had known who she and Django were when he had given the twins to them. Natalya's spirit then briefly took possession of Marya's body so she could speak to her daughter, and then healed Marya of her burns scars as she left.

22. Scarlet Witch II#14 (March, 2017) – Just before she merged with the Goddess of Witchcraft, Natalya reveals to Wanda that she hadn't been killed by the High Evolutionary, it had been Wanda and Pietro's father who had killed her. Agatha Harkness, who was resurrected at the same time that Wanda was rejuvenated, states that Natalya had never told her who the father of the twins was.

I started reading/collecting the Avengers only a few years before the origin of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch was revealed n Avengers I#185-187. I was very impressed by that origin and how it managed to take two different origins and retcon them in a way that made a third origin true without claiming that the events of the first two origins just hadn't happened.

It was because of my fondness for that origin that I was unhappy and disappointed when, after the 2015 Avengers: Age of Ultron movie, Marvel decided to change the comic versions of Wanda and Pietro so that they, like the movie versions, were neither mutants nor the children of Magneto. Since, as far as I know, there was no legal reason requiring this change to be made the versions of those characters who existed in the comics, I can only conclude that somebody at Marvel thought that the change might (somehow) attract movie-goers to the comics.
--I thought the movie decision may have been made because at the time, Marvel did not hold the movie rights to the X-Men or mutants, and so they made them not mutants to use them in the Avengers movie--Snood

Today, almost ten years later, I remain unhappy about the decision to make Wanda and Pietro into mutates instead of mutants. Since they were two of the first thirteen mutants created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for the original X-Men series, retconning characters with such a history for no good reason seems pointless and wasteful. What makes it worse it that, as far as I know, the only in-story evidence against them being mutants is the fact that the High Evolutionary had meddled with their genetic codes and claimed that he had disguised them as normal mutants. Given that he had definitely lied when he told Wanda and Pietro that Django and Marya Maximoff were their true parents, I'm not inclined to take his word for anything. There's also the dropped plotline about the “hidden truth about the twins and the nightmare Earth yet to come” that the Vision had found in the High Evolutionary's computer files.

Plus, if one were to be very particular about exactly what the High Evolutionary told the twins, then one could argue that maybe what he really meant was that the twins were exceptional mutants before he disguised them as “common mutants.”

I've also read online that some people believe that Wanda and Pietro actually were mutants for most of their lives, but that Wanda's "No More Mutants" reality-altering wish also had a irreversible "Mutants No More" effect on she and her brother, making it so that they were no longer mutants once the House of M reality-warp ended. This is an idea that I would find acceptable if it were made canon.

Okay, so much for the mutantcy of the twins.
What about their connection to Magneto? Although I was initially displeased that they were retconned into not being his children, I have come to appreciate that it may well have been for the best. This is because I eventually realized that the Wundagore origin had a fatal flaw in that, while Wanda and Pietro are tied to the present-day MU, Magneto and Magda are tied to the Second World War, just like Bob and Madeline Frank.

This was not a problem when the story was first written or in the years that immediately followed it. In the early 1980s, it made chronological sense that twins who were in their early 20's were supposedly born in 1958. However, as time passed and the twins didn't age much, the idea that they had been born in 1958 became increasingly implausible. For example, by 2008, the twins remained less than 30 years old when they should have been about 50 years old. This meant there was a gap of over 20 years between their apparent age and the age they should have been. The Official Handbook explained this away by stating that the High Evolutionary, instead of giving the twins to the Maximoffs soon after they were born, had instead placed them in suspended animation for a few decades. While this was a plausible explanation for why they remained so young-looking, it did nothing to address the problem that their unaging nature caused for Magneto. Specifically, how could Magneto have ever believed that twins who were less than 30 years old were his children by his wife who he had last seen 50 years ago? It just didn't make sense and no effort was made to explain that aspect of the problem away.

With that in mind, I begrudgingly accepted the idea that Wanda and Pietro weren't Magneto's biological children after all, and I really approved of the retcon by James Robinson that revealed that the twins were the children of Natalya Maximoff, an earlier Scarlet Witch, and that Django Maximoff had been her brother and the maternal uncle of the twins. However, in order to be a good retcon, explanations have to be provided for everything about the earlier origin that was believed to be true when it actually wasn't. Unfortunately, this hasn't been done yet. This means that there are currently huge gaps in the new origin that will have to be filled before it becomes truly viable.

So, what do we know and what don't we know?

We know that Natalya Maximoff was the biological mother of the twins Wanda and Pietro, and that she gave them to a relative in Serbia to raise when they were infants. We also know that the High Evolutionary later had them kidnapped so that he could experiment upon them, that Natalya tried to rescue her children from Wundagore but failed, that Natalya was killed by the father of the twins, and that the High Evolutionary later delivered the twins into the care of Django and Marya to raise.

So, what elements of their origin have been rendered questionable by the retcon?

1. Where were the twins born? Was it in Wundagore or not?

2. If not, then when and how did Chthon imbue the newborn Wanda with great magical potential and/or chaos magic? Or did he?

I'm interrupting my list here to mention that I think there is a way to salvage the idea that Wanda and Pietro were born at Wundagore and that Chthon did imbue her with magical potential during the fight with the High Evolutionary and his forces.

Suppose that a very pregnant Natalya Maximoff had been forced to seek shelter at Wundagore just before the battle against Chthon and that it was during that battle that her infant's daughter's magical potential was secretly enhanced by Chthon. If that had happened, then that would have meant that Natalya had taken her twins with her when she left and had later entrusted them to a female relative to raise. Maybe the High Evolutionary had only learned of her presence after she had already left? Maybe it was by inspecting biological samples left over from the birth that he learned that the children who had been born were special? Maybe it was to find those specific children that he had his Knights begin searching for special children with latent potential that he could augment, first in Transia and then in the neighboring countries?

3. Did Natalya really die at Wundagore?

4. Who is the father of the twins?

5. Given that the twins were apparently not taken from Django and Marya, who was the (female) relative who was Natalya's first choice to raise them?

6. Are the twins really non-mutants?

7. Given that Natalya was the birth mother of the twins, why did Bova claim that Magda was their mother?

8. Did Bova deliberately tell false information to both Pietro and Magneto? Or was what she told them something that she believed was the truth?

9. If Bova was wrong instead of lying, was it because she had been given false memories? Or was she just confused, possibly due to her age?

10. If Bova had been given false memories, was it (as the inverted Wanda claimed) in order to use Magneto in some way? If so, then who was responsible and what did they hope to achieve by this deception?

11. Why did Magneto just assume that Bova was telling the truth about Wanda and Pietro being the children of Magda?

12. Given how opposed they were to the idea of being Magneto's children, why didn't Wanda and/or Pietro seek some way to disprove their alleged biological connection to him? I know that DNA tests to determine a person's relatives wasn't available back when the origin was written, but surely scientists like Reed Richards or Charles Xavier could have whipped up something?

13. Did a woman named Magda ever give birth in Wundagore, with Bova acting as her midwife, and Bova somehow conflated that experience with midwifing Natalya's twins?

14. What really happened to Magda?

15. What were the “old games” that involved the fraternal twins? What was the hidden truth about the twins and the nightmare earth that was to come?

Final notes:

The “Wanda and Pietro born in Wundagore” origin was first told by Bob Frank, retconned by Bova and confirmed by Chthon-possessed Wanda.

The “Bob and Madeline Frank as parents” and “Magneto and Magda as parents” origins were both fatally flawed because they were always going to be wrecked by Marvel’s Sliding Timescale.

     I somewhat begrudgingly agree with Donald that the retcons were appropriate given how convoluted things had become with Wanda and Pietro's origins. I also want to know the deal with Magda and the Franks circa 1958, and I want to know when the battle of Wundagore (against Chthon) took place and how/when Wanda was bonded to Chthon...and what did the High Evolutionary due to Wanda and Pietro. And yes, who was the relative who was initially raising the twins?
    And who is Wanda and Pietro's father????
    And, I would like the see the stories behind all of the being pictured in the flashback page showing some of the beings Natalya had encountered as the Scarlet Witch...especially this house with webbed feet!

    Anyway, a LOT of profiles are affected by this retcon. The only real/certain change is that Wanda and Pietro were not the children delivered by Magda in 1958...they were born like 25 (I think closer to 30, personally, as I thought Wanda and Pietro were supposed to be like 18 in X-Men I#4, and there have been at least 10-12 years, if not 15 in the "modern era") or so years ago and part of the sliding timescale.
    Definitely affecting Magda, Django and Marya Maximoff, and the New Men around at the time (notably including Porga, Bova, Sir Gote), Magnus, Chthon, the Darkhold, Jonathan Drew, Gregor Russoff....and others thus far unprofiled (but likely Appendix targets), including Miss America and the Whizzer, High Evolutionary, Mount Wundagore...

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Natalya Maximoff should be distinguished from:

• MAGDA - the wife of Magneto (Max Eisenhardt), who was previously believed to be the mother of Pietro and Wanda--Avengers I#186
• MARYA MAXIMOFF - the sister-in-law of Natalya, who was also previously believed to be the mother of Pietro and Wanda--Avengers I#182
• MADELYNE JOYCE FRANK - aka Miss America; the wife of Bob Frank (aka the Whizzer); who was also previously believed to be the mother of Pietro and Wanda--Marvel Mystery Comics I#49
• other "Natalya," "Maximoff," "Scarlet" or "Witch" characters, groups, items, events, races or places...
  

First posted: 02/16/2025
Last updated: 02/17/2025

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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