Marvel Removes Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch Permanently
Once upon a time, roughly 20 years before she would make her debut in the MCU, Wanda Maximoff wiped the entire mutant race from the pages of Marvel Comics with three simple words, “No more mutants.” Now, decades later, Marvel is returning the favor. The upcoming book Marvel Studios The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline, out October 24, has removed Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch from the previously revealed front cover in favor of Loki‘s Tom Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino.
The book, which details every event in the Marvel Cinematic Universe while also putting them in chronological order, was first announced late last year with a tentative cover subject to change. This proto-cover featured Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch sandwiched between a picture of Simu Liu’s Shang Chi and Thanos.
Elizabeth Olsen, has been relatively scandal-free her whole career—unlike fellow MCU actors Jonathon Majors—making the decision to remove the Scarlet Witch from the book’s cover even more puzzling.
Despite being an early mock-up and not the final cover, the original image and an updated one just released by Penguin Random House are almost exactly the same.
Oddly, the only change between the two covers is the addition of the two Loki stars as a replacement for the previous picture of Elizabeth Olsen taken from Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness. When a company removes one specific actor from a product—whether it’s a movie, a show, or, in this case, a book—prior to its release, it’s going to raise questions.
Most of the time, when an actor’s likeness is removed, for instance, Chris D’Elia being edited out of Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead and replaced by Tig Notaro in post-production, it’s because of some kind of allegations or scandal.
Elizabeth Olsen, however, has been relatively scandal-free her whole career—unlike fellow MCU actors Jonathon Majors—making the decision to remove the Scarlet Witch from the book’s cover even more puzzling. One could assume that it has something to do with the character being presumed dead at the moment, except the same could be said for Thanos and Iron Man—both on the cover and both deader than the proverbial doornail as far as the MCU is concerned.
Loki Season 2
A more likely reason would be the upcoming premiere of Loki Season 2 on October 6—just a few weeks before Marvel Studios The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline is set to be released. The inclusion of Loki and Sylvie on the book’s cover is most likely an effort to create some synergy between the Official Timeline and the Disney+ series. Unfortunately, it’s at the expense of Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch.
Wanda’s exclusion could also be a result of the fan backlash against the character after the events of Doctor Strange 2. Several fans—many of whom agreed with Thanos’s decision to murder half the universe so the other half didn’t starve—took to social media to vocally chastise the Scarlet Witch for murdering a fraction of The Mad Titan’s bodycount in order to see her children.
Elizabeth Olsen’s character was sadly held to a different standard than several of the male characters in the MCU by a small but vocal part of the Marvel fanbase.
Hopefully, the cover change was just a marketing decision and not the result of Marvel giving in to toxic fans and beginning to phase the Scarlet Witch out of the MCU.
