In short, Wanda was persona non-grata in the eyes of even her closest friends when Billy Kaplan a.k.a. Wiccan reveals the ability to change reality during a Young Avengers mission. At this point, no one was certain that Billy Kaplan was the reformed Billy Maximoff, but such an incredible feat raised suspicions, not only in Billy, Tommy a.k.a. Speed, and the other Young Avengers, but in the mainline Avengers as well, who did not want to see Wanda’s history repeat itself.
What initially happens is what happened a lot in crossovers involving the Avengers: Captain America becomes an authoritarian cop and he and the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes clamp down on anything that seems like a threat, even when good guys are involved. But for our purposes, the important thing is what Wiccan and Speed decide to do, now that they realize that they’re the reincarnated children of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch: they’re going to find their mother and rescue her.
With the conflicted help of Stature a.k.a. Cassie Lang, who had to work through her resentment at Wanda for killing her father, the twins discover that Wanda is being held by Doctor Doom, who is channeling her magical abilities. Against the wishes of the Avengers, the Young Avengers launch an attack on Doom’s country Latveria, where they manage to find and free Wanda—but at the cost of Stature’s life.
The Children’s Crusade was certainly convoluted, something not helped by its delayed release schedule. But it did manage to begin the rehabilitation of Wanda Maximoff, moving her from the villain she had become in the 2000s back into being a hero. By showing her to be victimized by Doctor Doom, by letting readers see her through the eyes of her sons, and, to be frank, by making the Avengers seem like a bunch of uncharitable jerks, The Children’s Crusade reminded us that Wanda had much good in her, and had done much good. It opened the possibility that she could do good again.
Now that VisionQuest has finished, it’s not hard to see the parallels between the comic book Wanda and the MCU Wanda. The MCU Wanda also went mad because of her children, turning into a full villain in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Yet, as seen throughout Agatha All Along and VisionQuest, Vision, and especially Billy and Tommy see that there’s good in her, that her incredibly difficult life has forced her to make terrible choices. Now that the rest of the family has come together again, it would make sense for them to find her Wanda and free her from whatever suffering she’s enduring.
Where might that place of suffering be? In the comics, that was the court of Doctor Doom in his country, Latveria. The same might be true of the MCU. Not only will Doctor Doom and Latveria figure heavily into the next MCU entry Avengers: Doomsday, but some promotional material has raised our interest. In stills and posters, we’ve seen that Doom has a trio of Latverian witches, all masked but each wearing robes of a different color. One witch wheres purple, another blue, and the last red. Or should we say scarlet?
