Rumors began to bubble to the top of the cauldron a couple of weeks that Elizabeth Olsen had extended her Marvel Studios contract and a possible Scarlet Witch movie was in the works. Now, a well-known source for Marvel Cinematic Universe rumors, Murphy's Multiverse, has reported that there are two projects in development at the studio featuring the Scarlet Witch: an adaptation of the Young Avengers story Avengers: The Children's Crusade by Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, Mark Morales, Justin Ponsor, and Cory Petit, and a solo Scarlet Witch project.

The information about a new Scarlet Witch solo project and follow-up project based on Children's Crusade was Tweeted by "MyTimeToShineHello" (@MyTimeToShineH) on March 8th, 2022, and it has garnered plenty of RTs and likes in the time since the news dropped from the long-time Marvel Studios scooper. Hey, the people want their Wanda!

If there is validity to the rumors of either project, it remains to be seen whether they will take the form of a big-screen feature or a Disney+ streaming series or special.

Wanda was last seen in 2021's WandaVision, the first MCU streaming series on Disney+. In WandaVision, the plot was driven by a particularly traumatic run-in with the corpse of her late lover orchestrated by a power-mad director of S.W.O.R.D. Wanda unwittingly cast a Hex that plunged the town of Westview, New Jersey, into a parallel dimension where everything played out like a sitcom – in other words, where no one could get hurt.

However, throughout the nine-episode season, Wanda was eventually awakened to the fact that people could get hurt – those residents of Westview who had been co-opted and cast in WandaVision (Wanda's in-universe sitcom) without their consent. These innocent bystanders faced a psychic assault within the Hex, both being forced to play the parts Wanda had cast them and experience her grief – a fact leveraged against Wanda by Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) in the show's season (or is that series) finale.

After WandaVision, however, the plan Harkness had to steal Wanda's Chaos Magic has backfired, and instead of leaving her powerless, she has instead awakened the Scarlet Witch. As was foretold by the Darkhold (that's the Book of the Damned), the Scarlet Witch can create without consciously casting spells thanks to her intrinsic access to Chaos Magic. By the season finale's end, Wanda has defeated Harkness and achieved her apotheosis as the Scarlet Witch.

Children's Crusade and Beyond

Children's Crusade #1
Marvel Comics

Wanda will next appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. While many MCU culture writers have already decided Wanda is the villain of the picture, it remains to be seen whether that will be the case. Given the director Sam Raimi's track record with powerful female characters like Ruby, played by Lucy Lawless in the Raimi-created Ash vs. Evil Dead series, who would be poorly cast in the role of "villain," it seems unlikely he would take such a simplistic route with Wanda.

Regardless of how Wanda's part in the narrative plays out in Multiverse of Madness, if there is a subsequent Children's Crusade adaptation, that could mean a significant role in the story for Doctor Doom. This seminal Fantastic Four villain could be closer than you think, especially if the rumors of an appearance by The Illuminati in Multiverse of Madness prove to be true – Reed Richards is a member of their ranks. Doom's origins are inextricably tied to his!