All's Well That Ends Well In X-Men: Trial of Magneto #5

We know who killed The Scarlet Witch. Is justice served? Can it ever be on Krakoa? We find out thanks to Leah Williams, Lucas Werneck, Clayton Cowles and Edgar Delgado examine her fate in X-Men: The Trial Of Magneto #5.

Andrea Ayres: Well, here we are, Charlie. At the end of this limited series, and you know what? It was perfectly fine. It did what it set out to do. It felt very much like an episode of a soap opera where they try to get everyone caught up on what happened for about 80 percent of the episode. When you get down to it, I’m not sure we learned a bunch of new information. This series means to appeal to a broad spectrum of readers, and so it felt a little more like it was helping us along in ways other Marvel titles don’t always do. How did you find this issue?

Charlie Davis: You know Andrea, as someone who watches wrestling which has been called soap-operatic at times, this felt, in the end, as you put it, fine. We got to the critical plot beats, telegraphed things we knew might happen down the road, and circled back to things touched on in other places. It was a perfectly fine story, but you’re right. It didn’t challenge expectations or cause us to examine what we knew about Wanda or the X-Men or their messy relationship with each other. Do I think that could have been a very painful thing to explore? Yes. Do I believe Leah Williams was absolutely capable of letting those high concept ideas soar and still slam dunking it? Absolutely. Marvel wanted this story to be painted by numbers, so it was.

It Was You

Charlie: I really…don’t understand why it was Toad. Like I get it, but as much as I get it, I really don’t. It would feel like a scapegoat even if said scapegoat had a reason to do it. Much like Toad trying to kill Cyclops in All New X-Men years back, it was still kind of head-scratching.

Andrea: Okay, I’m kind of happy to hear you felt this way. When I was reading it, I thought I had missed something. The Toad payoff was not there. I mean Toad being obsessed with Scarlet Witch and being a member of the Brotherhood of Mutants. I don’t know. It kind of just felt tacked on to me. Not sure if that’s a fair read or not, though. I think this was about tying up loose ends at the end of the day.

Charlie: I think some of that could tie into everything needing to be pushed into the mini and finished up in 5 issues, but at the same time, I felt in the beginning of the series that we were really winding up for a doozy of a reveal. I felt like we could have one thing or another—either significant character development or an interesting antagonist for the series, but not both. We already touched on how it felt like a bit of a compromise to have so much action as a trade-offfor getting rid of the real haunting pathos that existed at the start.

Guilt is a Kind of Grief

Andrea: To be perfectly honest, I don’t know if guilt is a kind of grief. Guilt is sometimes shame wrapped up as something different. Guilt is a self-conscious emotion. Guilt directs our actions. It exists to help guide us towards prosocial behaviors. We tend to feel guilty because we’ve violated an established social norm, boundary, and so forth. To feel guilt, we have to be able to predict or at least imagine social consequences.

Sometimes we feel guilt and shame together. Shame is like guilt’s angry cousin. Experiencing these emotions together can make us less likely to apologize. That’s not guilt. That is shame. Experiencing shame has a pretty significant impact on our psychological well-being and how we act in the future. Studies indicate, feeling shame is painful and debilitating and may affect our core sense of self. Want to know where you fall on some shame-guilt metrics? You can take a test. It’s called the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA-3), based on the work of Jane Tangney. Okay, wait. I’ve done this again for the second article in a row now, back to the comics.

Guilt isn’t grief, and I don’t think Magneto feels guilty. I think he is feeling ashamed. Shame can cause maladaptive behaviors, like avoidance. You know, like when Magneto goes off to be alone. Magneto feels shame for how he has treated others in the past, but because that shame is attached to his core sense of self, he may be less likely to make changes in the future. If he were guilty, he would be more likely to experience empathy. He would be more likely to admit wrongdoing for past behavior and make goal-directed moves and decisions to ensure he does not make the same mistakes again.

So we know now, as many predicted when Trials first began, that the trial of Magneto was an emotional one. What are your thoughts on all this, Charlie?

Charlie: I think this is all a lot more Magneto-centric than I thought it would be, and I don’t think that takes away from anything but, but do think it stacks some interesting cards into the deck for what it seems like his upcoming status quo might be. On the issue of guilt…I think it would only be natural to feel guilt over all of this, but Magneto seems to have done a good job of compartmentalizing where he needs to. We’ve seen time and time again where he shuffled off responsibility to his family in order to plug that time into waging his war right or wrong against humanity and for mutants. Maybe he’s a little numb to the guilt or even shame until it was something that he couldn’t ignore anymore. I think the theme of neglect also runs through all of this. Magneto neglects his family, Wanda neglects her powers, and of course, the X-Men neglect to consider what demonizing Wanda might do for even a moment.

Andrea: Charlie, I never get tired of your insights. I’ll give Magneto this, there does seem to be an authentic expression of emotion here, but there’s something worth unpacking. Wanda says, “No one ever taught him to love any other way.”

She is referencing that he is only capable of expressing love through trial. In that way, I wish we could have focused on that component a bit more. Instead, the series pulled in too many moments of unnecessary action sequences? I think those ended up detracting from some of the conclusions and resolutions we’re getting in issue #5. As you said before, BigMarvel wanted the series to be painted by numbers. I’m calling Marvel editorial BigMarvel now. It’ll catch on, I know it…

To get back onto the idea that some people can only love through trials. I am guessing we all have. They can only show up for us when they are experiencing what they perceive as a test of some kind. For me, that’s all ego-based shit, and I am not about it. I don’t buy into the excuse that because Magneto was never taught the proper way to show love or affection, he is incapable of it or an excuse for his behavior.

We choose how we show up to our relationships. It is up to us to examine our behaviors. As you said, that’s not something Magneto is capable of as he seems to have compartmentalized the parts of him that require exhuming and investigation. How many of us are tortured or traumatized? Yet, when we turn that trauma and pain on others and see others hurt, we can only blame our actions.

So, we finally spin the wheel.

The Redeemer

Andrea: Why is three an important number in mysticism? Let’s take a very short, hastily researched detour. Three isn’t simply an important number to mystics. It is everywhere. It’s in religion, illustration, Greek myths, nature; you name it. The symbolic three is all around us. The past, present and future. The beginning, middle and end. It’s considered a magic number far beyond the pages of this comic. Plus, witches often come in threes. Which is just something we should remember. Do you think Wanda will spin the wheel again? Any guesses as to how?

Charlie: I’m not sure. I think a lot of this cool iconography were things that were kind of tossed in to let people like us dig around a bit and play in the space. It’s always a balance with Wanda and just how you want to thread the witch and magic needle. I think Leah was a great person to balance it with things that make sense and the emotional journey we have been on with Wanda. I think Wanda will start to factor heavily in more Dr. Strange stories going forward so I suspect it will show up again. Tell me Andrea. We’re too hoping this mini would retcon Wanda back into a mutant?

Andrea: We certainly do see allusions to Dr. Strange here in the data pages, so I definitely suspect that we’ll see more of her there. You know, I just wanted some wrongs righted. I wanted Wanda to have a compelling story arc that wasn’t, “This lady witch is crazy, can you believe how crazy her powers have made her?!” For that, Leah has done exceptionally well. I didn’t think that we’d have Wanda back as a mutant by the end of this series, so that wasn’t a big shock to me. We still don’t know if she is or isn’t, though? I would imagine they want to dangle that one out for a spell because many interesting narrative threads can come from it.

Okay, let’s get to the goods. So there’s a kind of Mutant Heaven now? An afterlife officially referred to as “The Waiting Room.” Wanda created the pocket dimension with time folding in on itself. As we learn in issue #5, Wanda ensured its creation by faking her murder. I mean, I don’t need to go into the entire thing.

As you know, most people have read the issue by now. The idea that 20 million souls were added to the resurrection queue “overnight” has massive implications. Cerebro used Wanda’s collapsing time and created a dimension to scan every possibility for all lost mutants. I’d love to know your thoughts on this, and also about the first lost-now-not-lost- mutant we meet?

Charlie: I knew since we first stepped into this mini and from the months of setup beforehand that we were driving toward some sort of redeeming of what Wanda did during House of M. It had to happen, we and the X-Men needed it to happen. Still, I’m a little murky on the details as it seems you are. But…regardless…it’s a really nice sentiment. I think Thunderbird is very much an example of someone who was lost and a showing to the X-Men, and of course fans, that anything is possible with the way things are constructed now. I’m not sure Thunderbird would have been my pick, but I digress.

Andrea: I agree. It’s a nice sentiment. It’s just, you know, I don’t know how well this kind of story is served by being a mini. There’s just so much I wanted to be explored from an emotional perspective. That’s not a new thing for me. That’s always my gripe. It’s the thing I constantly complain about. It’s probably annoying at this point. It’s such a tough road to chart. Do I even like minis? I don’t know!

I’ll be interested in seeing how Thunderbird’s return will develop into his narrative. I am hoping it does. Thunderbird was the first X-Men to die on a mission, and people have been wondering for, you know, forty years why so many others have been resurrected. Especially now, in the Hickman era. Do you think justice was served here?

Charlie: Was justice served? I don’t know about that but…was Wanda given as much justice as she deserved. Yes. Absolutely yes.

Andrea: Who is redeemed and who isn’t? That’s for the people who Wanda wronged to determine.

X-Traneous Thoughts

Pocket dimensions and timestreams, saving Star Trek: Voyager and 20 million mutants, they’ve given us so much.
Scarlet Witch 2022 baby
That font, though.