Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness might be a sequel in the Doctor Strange franchise, but it’s also a story where Marvel will pair the titular hero with another well-known Avenger. Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) will work with Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) in the film, or so would a recent misleading trailer might have you believe. But fans have also been wondering whether Wanda is a villain in Doctor Strange 2 ever since that troubling Super Bowl trailer.
Many MCU fans will have to wait until May 6th to learn the answer to that question. But anyone who follows Doctor Strange 2 leaks already thinks they know the answer.
Interestingly, Elizabeth Olsen is already teasing what can be expected from the Scarlett Witch in the upcoming movie. Mind you, some spoilers might follow below.
Doctor Strange 2’s Scarlett Witch
If you’ve followed the MCU closely, then you can already figure out what Wanda’s next move might be even without seeing any Doctor Strange 2 spoilers about the film’s villain.
Doctor Strange 2 will be placed on the MCU timeline after the events in WandaVision (fall 2023) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (winter 2024). That seems almost a certainty given what we’ve seen in Phase 4.
Also important to the story are the events in Loki that really introduced us to the multiverse. Thanks to the demise of Kang (Jonathan Majors), the TVA isn’t managing the timeline anymore. And when the TVA is gone, all sorts of multiverse madness can happen. Like traveling to other realities without instant repercussions.
To get back to the MCU timeline, the action in Multiverse of Madness will likely take place in early 2025. That’s well over a year since Wanda started learning the magic in the Darkhold book at the end of WandaVision.
Villain or not, Wanda’s Scarlet Witch that we’ll see in Doctor Strange 2 will be a lot different than the Wanda in WandaVision.
She’s had time to master the spells in that book of dark magic. And maybe the book started corrupting her mind. What’s clear is that the Scarlet Witch is an even more formidable adversary than what we’ve seen so far.
Is Wanda a villain?
A plot leak that seems genuine says Wanda will be a villain in Doctor Strange 2. Other insiders said the same thing.
Wanda being an antagonist has been the anticipated premise of the movie since early 2020, according to those early leaks. No matter how heartbreaking that might be, the Scarlet Witch will face off against Strange, the Avengers, and anyone else ready to oppose her.
Marvel already teased her motives in the clip that was released instead of a trailer 3 last week. Wanda is still looking to save her children, even if that means traversing the multiverse. And it so happens that Elizabeth Olsen’s latest remarks on the superhero she plays tease her descent into madness.
“It’s not the most fun, in my mind, to always play the hero of a story where they do no wrong,” Olsen said in a statement for the film’s press release.
She continued, “I don’t find that interesting. I think the reason why I really enjoyed Wanda from the beginning is that she’s very clear in her beliefs. They just don’t align with others, and that’s okay. She’ll have her own realizations and admit when she makes mistakes.”
Wanda villain evolution in Doctor Strange 2
Olsen’s statements imply that fans might not necessarily like what they see in Doctor Strange 2.
She’s saying that Wanda can be a villain because of her beliefs. And let’s remember that many villains think they’re not the villains of their story. They probably think they’re right to act the way they do.
Wanda began her MCU journey as an antagonist in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where she managed to put up a massive fight against the Avengers. But she realized she had made mistakes. Then in Captain America: Civil War, her actions led to the death of innocent civilians, something that Wanda tried to take responsibility for.
Then, in WandaVision, she subjugated an entire town, advancing several levels on the villainy scale. Thankfully, she saw the manipulation along the way and corrected her course. But she never suffered any consequences for that mistake.
All of that leads us to Doctor Strange 2, where Wanda will seemingly become a bigger, stronger villain than ever before. And that’s what makes Multiverse of Madness so exciting.
Yes, we fully expect her to realize that she made a mistake again. After all, Olsen’s remarks also tease that there might be a happy end for Wanda’s story in Doctor Strange 2, no matter what horrors we’re about to witness.
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