Wanda goes to college!
Not just college…HARVARD!
When her plane lands, she’s mobbed by reporters and puts on a show.
When your powers have, by their nature, a random effect that seems pretty irresponsible.
She goes to the campus and is greeted by the Dean. He kinda hits on her but it turns out Wanda’s not completely against flirting with a nerd.
“No one’s out to trap me,” she thinks. Of course, that’s foreshadowing now that we’re in the main story where…A villain named “Past Master” lures her into a trap with the promise of ancient magical texts.
With Wanda having her mutant hex powers, I often forget that she also studies witchcraft. I like that that aspect of her is being explored here.
As a result of Past Master’s powers, Scarlet Witch is sent back in time to possess her own ancestor, who was a pirate, where she has to use her own magical abilities to return to her own time period and defeat the villain. (How was her ancestor a Spanish pirate? I thought she was from Serbia or something like that?)
She and her predecessor end up teaming up so Wanda can protect her bloodline.
I usually complain about these anthology books because 8-page stories either have to be jokes or pure character pieces–multi-part stories this short can’t get any momentum going and it’s too hard to follow them between installments. Unless you horde them, wait, and then read all at once, but then the scripts are choppy, with cliffhangers and recaps every 8 pages. But in this case, having this story told in 8-page installments makes it a little easier to slog through, frankly, because it’s kind of silly and boring.
Richard Howell, who helped create the Vision/Scarlet Witch mini- and maxi-series of the ’80s, returns to Wanda. His renditions of Scarlet Witch are fine–cheesecake lite. I can appreciate his art, even if it’s not really my cup of tea.