All Scarlet Witch Powers And Abilities Ranked
Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch, is one of the most powerful characters ever created in the Marvel Comics universe, especially among Earthlings. Even the MCU version that hadn’t reached her full potential and didn’t tap into half of the powers Scarlet Witch has in the comics, Wanda is still the most powerful superhero, albeit she doesn’t know it yet.
With such an immense repertoire of skills, abilities, and superpowers, it’s no wonder that every action she does ends up having a huge impact on time, space, and the multiverse generally. Here’s a full list of all Scarlet Witch’s powers and abilities, ranked from the weakest to the strongest.
I want to emphasize that most of these powers stem from Wanda’s reality manipulation powers. Still, they manifest in different ways and garner different results, so some of them are ranked separately despite stemming from the same general power.
12. Flight
One of Wanda’s most classic powers is flight. Scarlet Witch uses her magic to warp and manipulate matter around herself, allowing her to fly particularly fast and effectively.
While flying is incredibly useful and certainly an asset, it’s not that rare among comic book characters. Also, other abilities Maximoff has made flying less useful to her. The next power on this list is certainly one of those abilities.
11. Teleportation
Scarlet Witch doesn’t need to fly that much because she can easily teleport instead. In Scarlet Witch Vol.2 #1, you can see Wanda teleport seamlessly across large distances.
If she doesn’t need to teleport physically, Wanda can also astral project, going anywhere she wants in her astral form. Finally, she can also teleport others and open portals to travel inter-dimensionally (Scarlet Witch Vol.2 #3).
We haven’t seen Maximoff use this ability in the MCU yet, and it’s not used in the comics as often as you’d think, but it’s still in her common repertoire.
10. Telekinesis
Apart from being able to teleport herself or others, Scarlet Witch also has very powerful telekinesis. She can move incredibly heavy objects using her powerful magic abilities.
The skill is incredibly potent, granting Wanda technology manipulation, including mechanical components, high-tech gadgets, etc. For instance, she once made Ultron short-circuit in the comics.
9. Hexes
Scarlet Witch’s hexes are a name for all her reality-warping tools that manifest physically. She can create powerful magical beams, shoot energy bolts, create defensive force fields, etc.
The power is incredibly powerful, even in the MCU. The cinematic version of Scarlet Witch used her hexes to protect herself from Thanos’ blade – the one that was powerful enough to crush Captain America’s vibranium shield, coming from a guy that knocked out the Hulk in a fistfight.
Yeah, Scarlet Witch is powerful.
8. Healing Abilities
Although Scarlet Witch’s healing powers stem from her reality-warping and biological manipulation powers, it’s still a power that is incredibly useful for her and her teammates. It’s so powerful that it can fix disabilities not even the greatest minds in the Marvel universe could fix.
In the House of M storyline, where Wanda created a completely new, alternate reality, Professor X got his legs back – he could walk just like any other healthy human. Not even Beast and Hank Pym were able to heal Charles Xavier’s legs. Wanda didn’t heal them, per se, but rather altered the reality to make them perfectly healthy.
7. Telepathy
We’ve been through teleportation and telekinesis – now it’s time to mention Scarlet Witch’s telepathy. Wanda can manipulate other people’s minds to a significant extent. She can make anybody do anything she wants, as long as she can get close enough to cast the spell.
Apart from mind control, Wanda’s telepathy skills allow her to know everything about a person without ever meeting them, cast vivid illusions into one’s mind, and much more.
6. Chaos Magic
Since she was born, Wanda Maximoff was a mutant, having some of her powers from the beginning. However, she only became Scarlet Witch after Chthon, the lord of Chaos Magic, bestowed his powers upon her.
Tapping into Chaos Magic allows Wanda to do extraordinary magical features. Casting spells is a joke for her. She can cast a protection spell on her teammate just as easily as she can turn herself invisible. To make herself even more powerful, Wanda can channel energy from beings other than Chthon, such as Morrigan or Cyttorak in Uncanny X-Men #191.
5. Necromancy
There’s a dark side of Scarlet Witch’s powers, and it wasn’t that rare seeing her fall off the deep end and use the powers malevolently. However, even Wanda’s necromancy skills and knowledge have been proven useful for great purposes.
Scarlet Witch can access other plains of existence, allowing her to resurrect others who died, as she did with Wonder Man in Avengers Vol. 3 #11. However, using this level of necromancy takes a toll on Wanda and her psyche, so we don’t see it often. Plus, it would be a too powerful plot device – she could just resurrect everybody after they die.
Maximoff also has something called the Witch Sight – she can see entities that normal humans and other superheroes cannot see. For instance, she saw Agatha Harkness’ spirit in Scarlet Witch Vol. 2 #3.
4. Reality-Warping
At last, we arrive at the one power that most of Wanda’s other powers stem from – her reality-warping abilities. Apart from what we’ve already mentioned – such as healing, flight, hexes, etc. – Wanda’s reality-warping spirals into endless possibilities. I’ll try to concise them into sections.
First, Scarlet Witch can transmute any matter into anything she imagines. Her biological manipulation skills go right down to the cellular level, meaning any organic or inorganic matter is susceptible to this ability.
Then, Wanda has elemental manipulation, allowing her to completely control all elements, including pyrokinesis, hydrokinesis, umbrakinesis, aerokinesis, geokinesis, etc. The list of Wanda’s reality-warping abilities is endless, as she can change everything into anything she can think of.
Still, that’s not Scarlet Witch’s most powerful ability.
3. Energy Resistance
If you manage to hit Wanda, it’s a problem for her. She has basic human physiology, meaning a hard punch could literally kill her. That’s why Scarlet Witch doesn’t allow anybody to hit her, no matter what kind of an assault they’re trying to use.
That allows her to defend not only from physical damage and attacks but also various types of energy. She is very resistant to magic, cancels-out others’ reality-warping skills, etc.
However, Wanda’s biggest Energy resistance achievement came in the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline, namely in the sixth issue, where Scarlet Witch resisted the Phoenix Force itself – one of the most powerful cosmic entities and forces in existence.
2. Alternate Reality Creation
If altering her own reality wasn’t impressive enough, Scarlet Witch can also create, control, and manipulate entirely new, alternate realities.
The first such alternate reality that pops to mind has to be the House of M event, where Wanda reshuffled the entire world, making mutants the dominant race and Magneto the ruler of the world. Even after she abandoned that reality and switched everything back to how it was originally, it had major repercussions.
One could argue that we saw another alternate reality created by Scarlet Witch in the WandaVision TV show. The MCU version of the alternate reality spanned over a small town in the US, creating a small pocket-reality with visible borders that separated it from the main reality.
1. Nexus Being
Finally, all those powers lead to one simple fact that makes Scarlet Witch the most powerful character in the Earth-616 universe, not just the Earth alone. Wanda Maximoff is a Nexus Being, one of the very rare entities that can influence the universe in a way that changes probability and alters time flow.
Even when she was a young girl, Wanda unknowingly shifted probabilities to her advantage. However, sometimes her actions led to a domino effect of unwanted consequences.
Everything she does can have a huge impact on time and space, meaning that Scarlet Witch constantly reshapes the future, knowingly or incidentally. That’s why she has to be constantly supervised by Omni-powerful entities such as the Watchers and the Time-Keepers – they observe what Scarlet Witch does and act accordingly.
It is believed that there is only one Nexus being in each universe within the multiverse – a being responsible for the time flow and the entirety of events happening within the said universe.
THAT – is how powerful Scarlet Witch really is.
