WandaVision Episode 8 Easter Eggs EXPLAINED - What's The Real Meaning Behind MCU Scarlet Witch?

3. Wanda's Hex Powers

WandaVision 4
Marvel Studios

Shortly after the first flashback we get of Wanda's childhood, which ends in just about the most sudden and traumatic way imaginable, we're shown the story Wanda first told in Avengers: Age of Ultron - how the bombs that levelled her home were made by Tony Stark, and that she and her brother only survived because one failed to detonate.

Now this is meant to be a mixture of Agatha speculating and actual comics history, but she says to Wanda the only reason she and Pietro survived was because she'd casted a probability hex on the bomb, thus ensuring it wouldn't detonate.

And this is where things get dead confusing, because it means diving into the history of Wanda's powers. Marvel have retconned Scarlet Witch's powers and origins so many times in the comics that the character has only wound up with a somewhat definitive origin story within the last 10 years - that's how long these retcon shenanigans have been going on for.

Sometimes Magneto's involved, sometimes he isn't, sometimes the High Evolutionary is there, and sometimes a little bit of brain leaks out my nose when I try and think about it. The point is we're getting another retcon but for the MCU this time, revealing how the Mind Stone didn't give Wanda her powers, but merely awakened what was already there instead.

That is in itself a funny sort of Easter Egg to the fact the comics have done this multiple times, but in regards to Wanda's sorcery powers specifically, there's another more important reference the episode includes...

Content Producer/Presenter
Content Producer/Presenter

Resident movie guy at WhatCulture who used to be Comics Editor. Thinks John Carpenter is the best. Likes Hellboy a lot. Can usually be found talking about Dad Movies on his Twitter at @EwanRuinsThings.