Note: This essay first appeared on the ComicsXF Patreon.
For about 12 years, ever since Marvel’s AXIS event in 2014, Magneto has been stripped of his status as the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver’s biological father. This retcon is infamous and a stark example of the Marvel Cinematic Universe synergy that so many comics readers rail against. In the years since, the retcon has gone pretty much ignored by both Marvel readers and the creatives behind the scenes. Wanda Maximoff still maintains a parent-child-esque relationship with Magneto, exemplified in the Krakoa-era Trial of Magneto miniseries. She and her brother Pietro still maintain a sibling-like relationship with Lorna Dane, Polaris, and the four characters are still considered to be deeply intertwined.
I love Pietro specifically because of his mutant power, or I guess his human-mutate power? His superspeed pairs perfectly with his regretful and angsty character. Pietro holds grudges — against Magneto, against many other characters, and against himself. He is constantly doing his best to avoid grappling with his past and with his heritage as the son of Magneto. As a speedster he is comically fast, but never fast enough to escape his regret and resentment.
I just finished reading the 13-issue Quicksilver solo series from 1997-98, written by Tom Peyer, Joe Edkin and John Ostrander and drawn mostly by Rob Haynes, Casey Jones and Derec Aucoin. I picked up the trade at my local comic shop because I was starved for stories that centered Quicksilver. Most of Pietro’s appearances are in team books or as a cameo in someone else’s solo series. So, despite the fact that this story is an extremely deep pull that a lot of people never read, I was psyched to find it. The book was fun; I had a good time with it. I found some moments hard to get through, but overall I got lost in the absurdity of the story.
For those unaware, Quicksilver is set in the aftermath of the “Heroes Reborn” event, where, after Onslaught’s defeat, the Avengers who seemingly perished to stop him come back to life, reuniting with their loved ones. Among these heroes are Crystal of the Inhumans and, of course, the Scarlet Witch. The solo itself revolves around Pietro and his relationship with his wife and daughter through the lens of High Evolutionary hijinks and Inhuman mayhem. Exodus, then the leader of the Acolytes seeking to enact Magneto’s will, targets Pietro and Crystal’s daughter, Luna.
The Acolytes’ problem with Luna is that she isn’t a mutant and doesn’t have powers of any kind. Magneto’s granddaughter being simply a run-of-the-mill Homo sapien is a major heresy for Exodus and his posse of mutant supremacists.
The story is surreal, to say the least. Pietro is forced to grapple with his heritage both as a child of Magneto and as the former ward of the High Evolutionary. The comic features a mysterious character whom Pietro calls Nestor, who lends him assistance and then disappears several times. Nestor helps Pietro unlock his dormant ferokinesis ability while in jail on New Avalon and in the final issue taunts Pietro about his self conception and who he is as a person.
As I read this series, I couldn’t help but pause periodically to remember that everything happening is happening for essentially no reason, at least as it pertains to Quicksilver and his connection to Magneto. Luna is not Magneto’s granddaughter and Quicksilver is not his son, so Exodus’ ire toward the two of them is essentially pointless. In that way, the 2014 retcon ruins this and many past stories that feature Quicksilver, Magneto and the Scarlet Witch. These characters are linked in a way that is almost impossible to undo, which is why the retcon has been hated by fans for so long.
Stories like House of M (2005) and Young Avengers (2006) become head scratchers as well. They feature the family of Magneto prominently, with Scarlet Witch particularly front and center, even though we are now aware that the only members of said family are Magneto and Polaris.
Wanda generally has enough going on in a given story that it’s much easier to exclude her tension with Magneto. Pietro is different. Even in stories where his sisters or father are absent, Magneto’s presence continues to haunt his narrative. In fact, I would go as far as to call it his core tension and the driving force behind much of his decision making in his solo series and throughout his other appearances.
Nestor, the mysterious figure Pietro encounters in his solo, dresses in a long robe with darkness cloaking his face, save for occasional glimpses of a helmet that looks strikingly like the famous helmet worn by the master of magnetism. The final issue features Nestor and Pietro in a battle of wits as Nestor interrogates the fastest man in Marvel on his own self-perception. The issue covers Pietro’s various identities, as a brother to Wanda, a hero in the Avengers, a husband and a father, all while Nestor skulks in the background, his face hidden in shadow.
Running throughout the book is a series of voice recordings Pietro dubs the Crystal files. They serve as an internal monologue of sorts for Quicksilver, with the reader receiving information from the position of his estranged wife, Crystal of the Inhumans. In Pietro’s final confrontation with Nestor, the shadowy figure attempts to steal the disks the files were recorded on, warning Pietro that giving them to Crystal could spell disaster for the two of them. Pietro doesn’t care and punches Nestor in the face, slamming him into a power cell on Mount Wundagore. As Pietro runs off, Nestor ominously monologues about how what needed to be done was done.
Nestor’s presence is framed as a dark seduction, with the mysterious character clearly knowing things about Pietro that he himself has no conception of. Nestor appears to represent a future version of Pietro who has given into the hate and fear he believes live deep in Magneto’s heart. Nestor seems to want Pietro to overcome him and become someone different than who he might turn out to be should he follow in Magneto’s footsteps.
Quicksilver’s heritage is also a big part of his prior stint on X-Factor (which I’m still making my way through on Marvel Unlimited), in which he participates in Valerie Cooper’s government-operated superhero team, as the concept of Magneto, then thought dead, still looms over him. What might his father say about Pietro using his mutant gift as an arm of the state? In many ways, that very act is a rebellion against Magneto as Pietro’s father.
That tension comes to a head in issue #92, part of 1993’s “Fatal Attractions” event, as Quicksilver confronts Val about her participation in Project Wideawake, a government program meant to churn out Sentinels to use against mutants.
Val defends herself to him by saying she was “just following orders,” which prompts Pietro to give a line that absolutely decimates her and says a lot about Pietro and his journey:
“An unfortunate choice of phrase, Valerie. One that echoed again and again at Nuremberg when the murderers of my father’s people — my people — sought expiation of their sins.”
The scene goes on as Pietro and the whole X-Factor team walk away from a sobbing Val as she insists that they are her friends, to which Quicksilver snidely responds:
“‘Some of my best friends are mutants’? Ah, Valerie, how very typical — of a flatscan.”
(Flatscan was a common pejorative used by mutants to describe humans at the time.)
This scene can be read two ways both then and now. As a Romani character, Pietro is all too familiar with the horrors of the Holocaust, or Porajmos. But the comic sees members of the Acolytes bowing to Pietro as Magneto’s only begotten son. He rejects their acts but ultimately not his heritage as he reads Valerie Cooper to absolute filth.
The retcon is easy to reverse. Magneto never appeared on Maury to discuss his parentage of Wanda and Pietro; it was all classic superpowered/magical comic book shenanigans that led us to this status quo. There is also no threat to the comic/movie synergy; with the MCU having the rights to use Magneto, he could just as easily be revealed to be Wanda’s father in future projects, so why not hit the undo button?
The retcon weakens many stories, and in a continuity based on a sliding timescale rather than frequent universe resets (like at DC), the water that is the lore becomes murky and hard to wade through. With the recent accidental reveal by Sir Ian McKellen that Magneto destroys New Jersey in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, the barrier to Magneto’s connection with Wanda and Pietro has come down.
Since Disney acquired Fox, and the rights to use any of the X-characters it wants to, it might be time someone gave the green light to reverse the 2014 retcon and give the fans a full House of M once again.
