Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver #2: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Caught in a torrential riptide, Wanda’s still under the waves, trying to save her life from drowning, as the Wizard gloats. The people of Lottkill kinda take offense to someone attacking their own, and show Bentley just how much they take offense. Meanwhile Pietro’s able to get rid of the Wiz’s anti-gravity techno bullet, and begins plunging to the ground, towards the Fearsome Four Hundred. He takes care of the mind controlled lot, as he then begins his search for his sister. Along the way he picks up his nephew, Speed, and they rush off to save the day…

It’s the second issue of basically issue twelve from Orlando’s recently shelved Scarlet Witch ongoing, and he’s brought two things to this series that seemed to be lacking: action and Quicksilver. Pietro Maximoff, Marvel’s speedster, and one of the first thirteenth mutants to debut ever, had been sorely missed in the last series, gets second billing in this mini. Orlando’s depiction of Pietro has been pretty one note, but there are glimpses of the layered and complex character we’ve grown to love over the last 60 years. He’s over protective, brash, quick to anger, and he exemplifies all of that here, but it’s lacking the heart of who he is. Hopefully Orlando will better develop Pietro as the series continues.

The other part that had fans in a bit of an uproar from the last ongoing book was the action. Or more importantly, the lack thereof. From the emergence of Ch’Thon, who Wanda has trapped his soul, as well as the pages of the Darkhold, since the end of the Darkhold mini event, so seeing it finally being addressed, and hints that it’s going somewhere was a huge plus this issue. What was most fun was watching the Wizard as the catalyst for Ch’Thon’s return is both unexpected, and delightful.

Speaking of delightful, Vision and Speed joins the fray in this issue. For those not in the know, Speed is the living embodiment of one of Wanda’s twins that was blinked out of existence in the now classic Darker than Scarlet storyline that ran in John Byrne run on West Coast Avengers. The children would be created by Wanda’s probability manipulating powers, and pieces of Mephisto’s soul that would be reabsorbed back into Mephisto once he regained his strength. It would be this story that Bendis would use to form the basis of his notorious Avengers Disassembled, and later House of M, which would result in Wanda wiping out almost all of the mutants in the multiverse. It’s the results of these actions that Wanda has continued to try to make amends for two decades later.

While Vision is in this issue, what his role will be is rather left vague at this point, but with hints from Jed MacKay, who is currently writing both Wanda and Vision over in Avengers, the two might be looking to reconcile their past relationship, and might be reigniting their long past flame. If this comes to pass or not, I am intrigued to see how Orlando handles it here.