Marvel Risks Wasting 2 Perfect Opportunities For Scarlet Witch's MCU Return In 2026

Published Sep 5, 2026, 4:45 PM EDT Simon Gallagher has worked in movie and TV journalism for more than 17 years. He has written more than 6000 articles and reviews, and edited thousands more. He is an expert in the entertainment industry, particularly in the golden age of screen superheroes. Simon is also a Rotten Tomatoes approved critic. Sign in to your ScreenRant account It’s now been more than 4 years since Mount Wundagore collapsed at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, seemingly ending the tragic MCU story of Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch. Since then, we’ve found out pretty much nothing about what came next: nothing about Doctor Strange’s new eye, where Clea was taking him, America Chavez’s training, or whether Wanda actually did die for real. Some of those answers might well be coming by the end of the year, since rumor has it Strange and Clea will reappear as acolytes of Robert Downey Jr’s Dr Doom. And while America’s future is completely unknown, she’s off training at Kamar-Taj and has her new-found family, so she can be left alone. But the MCU is still not done with Scarlet Witch, no matter how insistently people want to deny it. And since Marvel didn’t give us a shot of a dead body, and Wanda is a reality-warping Nexus Being, everyone can be forgiven for being cynical. For a long time, the unwritten assumption has been that Wanda’s eventual return was a guarantee. She’s simply too powerful to be left in the superhero graveyard, and with the unofficial "Scarlet Witch Trilogy" concluding in 2026 with VisionQuest, the path to her return has never felt cleaner. Her sons will reunite (presumably), her robo-husband is set to rediscover himself, and all of her reasons for losing her grip on reality will be resolved. So surely Olsen will be brought back into the fold? Sadly, what feels inevitable also seems shockingly unlikely in the short-term, despite how perfect either of the two remaining chances in 2026 might look. Scarlet Witch Isn't In Avengers: Doomsday (That We Know Of) Credit: MovieStillsDB It would be very silly to believe that there won’t be any surprises in Avengers: Doomsday. No matter how many “leaks”, nor how many details have been legitimately released, the top brass at Marvel Studios knows exactly how valuable keeping some secrets can be. Even to a movie basically guaranteed to make a billion dollars without trying. So there is still a chance they’re hiding Scarlet Witch’s return. We know Robert Downey Jr’s Doom is apparently assembling a powerful group of followers to help rescue the multiverse (and probably refashion what survives in his image, let’s be honest), so why not Wanda? She’s literally a reality-changing weapon, and she owes something of a debt to the Multiverse - just as Doctor Strange does, which is presumably behind his rumored alliance with Doom. Sadly, though, all signs point to Wanda sitting the event movie out entirely. Olsen herself has repeatedly played down expectations for the fifth Avengers film. Speaking to The Playlist, Olsen made her stance clear when pushed on a prospective 2026 return: "I want to see her return in this role because I think what they've done with her is really great, and I love the journey she's taken... I just have no idea how or when, for sure." When specifically asked about the chance she’ll be back alongside Earth's Mightiest Heroes in Doomsday, her response was pretty clear: "Well, I can't." From “I Am Iron Man” to “I Am Inevitable” · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know the MCU? “Whatever it takes.” 🤖Phase OneRDJ & the founders, 2008 🛡The AvengersWhedon’s team, 2012 💎Infinity SagaThanos & the stones ⚡EndgameWhatever it takes, 2019 🌏MultiversePhase 4–6, 2021– ASSEMBLE → 01 Iron Man (2008) is, in retrospect, the most consequential casting decision in modern blockbuster history — but at the time Marvel Studios and parent company Paramount were openly hostile to director Jon Favreau’s push for the lead actor he eventually got. Favreau later said he had to fight “tooth and nail” and the actor had to do a paid screen test, a screen-test deal almost unheard of for an A-lister. What was the executive objection to him? AHe was considered too old for a 15-year contract BHis history of drug arrests made him uninsurable CHe was already under contract to DC/Warner Bros. DHe’d publicly refused to do any superhero work ✓ Correct! Robert Downey Jr. had been arrested multiple times between 1996 and 2001 on drug and weapons charges, served roughly a year in California state prison (1999–2000), and was fired from Ally McBeal in 2001 after relapsing. By 2007 he’d been clean for several years, but Marvel/Paramount considered him essentially uninsurable for a $140 million tent-pole. Favreau pushed for him over studio favourites Tom Cruise (who’d had Iron Man development at Fox years earlier) and Sam Rockwell (who’d later play Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2 as a consolation). RDJ took a reported $500,000 base salary — less than Terrence Howard, whose role he then permanently overshadowed. ✗ Wrong. The answer is his arrest history. RDJ had drug-related arrests from 1996–2001, served prison time in 1999–2000, and was fired from Ally McBeal in 2001 — which made him uninsurable in studio terms even though he’d been sober for several years by 2007. Favreau fought for him over Tom Cruise and Sam Rockwell, and RDJ took a reported $500,000 base salary — less than co-star Terrence Howard. NEXT → 02 The Avengers (2012) — the film that proved the shared-universe model could work, grossed $1.52 billion, and ended Phase One with Loki, Thanos’s mid-credits reveal, and the “swarm shot” of the team rotating in Manhattan — was written and directed by a TV showrunner best known at the time for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. Name him. AJon Favreau BKenneth Branagh CJoss Whedon DJoe Johnston ✓ Correct! Joss Whedon. Marvel hired him in mid-2010 partly on the basis of his uncredited script rewrites and his comfort writing ensemble team dynamics from Buffy/Angel/Firefly. He directed The Avengers (2012) and the follow-up Age of Ultron (2015), then exited the MCU and Marvel handed the next two Avengers films to the Russo brothers. The three other directors named all really did make Phase One films: Favreau directed Iron Man (2008) and Iron Man 2 (2010), Branagh directed Thor (2011), and Joe Johnston directed Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) — which is why this question separates Phase One trivia from Avengers-specific trivia. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Joss Whedon — hired largely on the strength of Buffy, Firefly, and uncredited Hollywood script work. The three wrong options are deliberately all real Phase One MCU directors: Favreau did Iron Man 1 & 2, Branagh did Thor (2011), and Joe Johnston did The First Avenger (2011). Whedon directed Avengers (2012) and Age of Ultron (2015) before exiting the MCU. NEXT → 03 Marvel co-architect Stan Lee (1922–2018) appeared in every theatrical MCU film from Iron Man (2008) onward, even shooting cameos in advance to outlast him. He died on November 12, 2018. In which film does his final filmed MCU cameo appear — as the long-haired young driver of a 1970 car bearing the bumper sticker “NUFF SAID”? AAvengers: Endgame (2019) BAvengers: Infinity War (2018) CCaptain Marvel (2019) DSpider-Man: Far From Home (2019) ✓ Correct! Avengers: Endgame (April 2019). Lee appears digitally de-aged behind the wheel of a 1970 Chevy at the New Jersey army base where Tony Stark and Steve Rogers travel back to retrieve the Tesseract; he shouts “hey man, make love, not war!” The cameo was filmed before Lee’s death and confirmed by the Russos as his final filmed MCU appearance, although the next-released film, Spider-Man: Far From Home (July 2019), became the first MCU film with no Stan Lee cameo at all. Captain Marvel (March 2019) has him reading the script for Mallrats on the L.A. train and was the first posthumously-released cameo, but Endgame was the last one he actually shot. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Avengers: Endgame — the de-aged hippie-era driver in the 1970 New Jersey time-heist scene. Captain Marvel (March 2019) was the first cameo to release posthumously, but Endgame (April 2019) was the last one Lee actually filmed. Spider-Man: Far From Home (July 2019) became the first MCU film with no Stan Lee cameo at all. NEXT → 04 Across Phase One through Three, each Infinity Stone is hidden inside a distinctive container before being claimed for Thanos’s Gauntlet. The blue Space Stone is housed inside a glowing cube that originates with the Asgardians, is recovered by Howard Stark from the wreckage of the Red Skull’s plane, is taken to Asgard by Loki in 2012, and is finally retrieved by Hulk on Sakaar before falling to Thanos. What is that container called? AThe Tesseract BThe Aether CThe Orb DThe Eye of Agamotto ✓ Correct! The Tesseract — the blue cube that houses the Space Stone — first appears in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), powers the portal Loki opens over Manhattan in The Avengers (2012), and is destroyed by Thanos in Infinity War (2018) when he crushes it to claim the stone inside. The wrong options are all real Infinity Stone containers from the MCU: the Aether (red liquid form) houses the Reality Stone in Thor: The Dark World, the Orb houses the Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Eye of Agamotto houses the Time Stone in Doctor Strange. So all four answers refer to genuine stone containers — only the Tesseract holds Space. ✗ Wrong. The answer is the Tesseract. The trap is that all four options are real Infinity Stone containers: the Aether holds Reality (Thor: The Dark World), the Orb holds Power (Guardians of the Galaxy), and the Eye of Agamotto holds Time (Doctor Strange). Space — the blue stone shown in Cap’s 1942 plane wreckage and Loki’s 2012 invasion — is the Tesseract. NEXT → 05 In Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the Soul Stone is hidden on Vormir and guarded by a Stonekeeper — revealed to be a cursed Red Skull. To claim it, the seeker must sacrifice the person they love most by throwing them from a cliff. Thanos arrives on Vormir with one adopted daughter, weeps, and pushes her over the edge. Which character does Thanos sacrifice to obtain the Soul Stone? ANebula BGamora CMantis DProxima Midnight ✓ Correct! Gamora (Zoe Saldaña). Thanos forces her to lead him to Vormir because Nebula has earlier revealed under torture that Gamora knew the Soul Stone’s location all along. The scene is the emotional pivot of Infinity War: it confirms that Thanos really does love Gamora, which means the sacrifice qualifies. In Endgame (2019), a 2014 version of Gamora returns through time travel with her father — meaning Gamora-of-Infinity-War remains dead at the end of the saga, while a different Gamora wanders the cosmos in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Nebula is alive throughout Infinity War; Mantis survives Vormir entirely; Proxima Midnight is one of Thanos’s Black Order children, killed in the Battle of Wakanda. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Gamora. Nebula is alive throughout Infinity War (she’s the one whose torture reveals Gamora knew where the stone was hidden). Mantis isn’t on Vormir. Proxima Midnight is Thanos’s adopted daughter via the Black Order, not via Zen-Whoberi, and is killed during the Battle of Wakanda by Scarlet Witch. Thanos sacrifices Gamora — the only adopted daughter he genuinely loves. NEXT → 06 In Avengers: Endgame (2019), Steve Rogers travels back in time to return the Infinity Stones, then chooses to remain in the past and live out a life with Peggy Carter. He returns to the present as an old man, sits on a bench by the lake at the Avengers compound, and hands his vibranium shield to a younger Avenger as the symbolic transfer of the Captain America identity. To whom does Steve give the shield? ABucky Barnes BSam Wilson CT’Challa DPeter Parker ✓ Correct! Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) — the Falcon. The choice deliberately bypasses Bucky, the original comics successor, because the Russos and screenwriters Markus & McFeely wanted the moment to read as a deliberate, racially-charged passing of an American icon rather than the obvious comics-canon handoff. The thread is then picked up directly in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+, 2021), in which Sam initially gives the shield to the Smithsonian, sees the government install John Walker as a replacement Cap, and ultimately takes the mantle himself — setting up Captain America: Brave New World (2025) with Mackie as the franchise’s new lead. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Sam Wilson, the Falcon. In the comics Bucky is the classic Cap successor, but the Russos and screenwriters Markus and McFeely deliberately picked Sam instead — a choice the entire Falcon and the Winter Soldier series (Disney+, 2021) then unpacks before Mackie carries it into Captain America: Brave New World (2025). NEXT → 07 After Endgame, Marvel Studios’ Phase Four launched the MCU on Disney+ with a sitcom-pastiche limited series in which Wanda Maximoff and a resurrected Vision live inside a reality-warping suburban hex. Each episode parodied a different era of US TV sitcom — The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, Family Ties, Modern Family. The show premiered January 15, 2021 and ran nine episodes. Which series was it — the first MCU project on Disney+? AWandaVision BLoki CThe Falcon and the Winter Soldier DHawkeye ✓ Correct! WandaVision (January 15 – March 5, 2021), created by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman. It launched Phase Four, earned 23 Emmy nominations, and effectively rebooted Wanda Maximoff as the Scarlet Witch ahead of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). The Falcon and the Winter Soldier followed it in March 2021 — not first — and Loki landed in June 2021. Hawkeye is the 2021 Christmas series with Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld. The original launch order was WandaVision → FATWS → Loki → What If...? → Hawkeye, and WandaVision’s sitcom format remains the boldest swing of the Disney+ era. ✗ Wrong. The answer is WandaVision (January 15, 2021), the first MCU show on Disney+ and the launchpad for Phase Four. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier came in March 2021, Loki in June 2021, and Hawkeye in late 2021. The sitcom-pastiche structure — Dick Van Dyke through Modern Family — is unique to WandaVision. NEXT → 08 At the closing panel of San Diego Comic-Con on July 27, 2024, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige brought the Russo brothers back on stage to announce a new title for the next Avengers film — previously labelled “The Kang Dynasty” before Jonathan Majors’s December 2023 conviction forced a pivot — and then unmasked a cast of actors wearing green hoods. The final hood came off Robert Downey Jr. RDJ is returning to the MCU, but not as Tony Stark. As whom? AMister Sinister BDoctor Doom CNorman Osborn DMephisto ✓ Correct! Doctor Doom — Victor von Doom, the Latverian dictator and Reed Richards’s lifelong nemesis, generally considered Marvel’s greatest comics villain. The next Avengers film, originally announced as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, was retitled Avengers: Doomsday after Jonathan Majors was dropped as Kang following his December 2023 assault conviction. Doomsday is scheduled for May 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars to follow in May 2027 — both directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, returning to the MCU after Endgame. The in-universe explanation for RDJ playing Doom rather than Stark hinges on the multiverse: Doom is being positioned as a variant of Stark from another timeline. ✗ Wrong. The answer is Doctor Doom. The film was retitled from Avengers: The Kang Dynasty to Avengers: Doomsday (May 2026) after Jonathan Majors was dropped, and the Russos returned to direct. RDJ’s casting as Doom — rather than as Tony Stark — is being explained in-universe via the multiverse: Doom as a Stark variant from another timeline. REVEAL MY RATING → The Stones Are Cast · Final Scorecard Your Avengers Standing 💎 / 8 A worthy Avenger — or dusted in the snap? ⤴ ROUND TWO Marvel actors denying their involvement in upcoming projects isn’t exactly shocking, as Andrew Garfield can attest, but keeping Wanda entirely out of Doomsday feels like a massive misstep. Doom’s mastery of both science and sorcery, and the Multiverse storyline makes their potential partnership feel completely logical. Scarlet Witch Is Also Seemingly Absent From VisionQuest And then there’s the other 2026 MCU project that’s still to come. If Wanda skipping Avengers: Doomsday feels like a misstep, excluding her from VisionQuest feels criminal. Terry Matalas’ upcoming Disney+ series is the climax to the story started in WandaVision (well, actually, well before that, but the trilogy is a nice structure). And with White Vision attempting to piece himself back together, his wife not being involved - even as a part of whatever psychological odyssey brings Ultron back as a human - would not make sense. But that’s the way we’re headed, apparently. Again, Olsen appears to be as much in the dark about the series as the fanbase was when it was first announced. In an interview with Inverse, she claimed ignorance, suggesting she only knew anything about it thanks to Paul Bettany: "I didn't know anything about it until [Bettany] and I spent some time with each other just the other week, and he's so proud of it. It really sounds like a trifecta between Agatha All Along and his show and what we made with WandaVision, so I'm excited to see that." Perhaps she’s just playing coy, because wrapping up the trilogy of stories explicitly centered around the trauma, love, and grief shared between Wanda and Vision without actually bringing Wanda is a betrayal of the story. Add to that the fact that Billy and Tommy are now active in the MCU (and may reunite in this show), thanks to the lingering magical aftershocks of Wanda’s actions, and we have the whole family unit. Even Grandpa Ultron is in - and we’re supposed to accept Wanda isn’t? That’s wrong. Marvel Needs Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch Back (But Where Could She Actually Return?) Image via MovieStillsDB Assuming she doesn't make a surprise return in either Doomsday or VisionQuest, of course, the most likely reappearance of Scarlet Witch would come in Avengers: Secret Wars. But why are so many Marvel fans so ferociously committed to the idea that she has to return? Well, part of the argument is already laid out above: at the moment, the final chapter of her story is being told without her, and she is a massive hole in the middle of it. Her children may hate her (or what she represents), but there can be no satisfying conclusion for either of them, or for Paul Bettany's tragic android without the heart of their family. Scarlet Witch has long been one of the MCU's worst treated characters. Her origin was well-plotted, and her realignment as a hero was a good move, but it was almost immediately undone as she became the MCU's answer to the Dark Phoenix. She killed innocents, was imprisoned by her fellow heroes (and her lover), and was eventually exiled, before having to kill Vision, suffering an emotional breakdown with no support, and then was turned into a villain. That is a ridiculously busy arc. Olsen's performance was always great, and she deserves the opportunity for a true redemption - and so does Wanda - before time runs out on her relevance. And while I don't want to complain about a good thing too much, I'm slightly worried that she will return in the wrong way. We can only hope that VisionQuest's marketing is hiding a giant secret, because that's the story Olsen deserves. Multiverse of Madness used her well as a villain, but that storyline was a betrayal of her arc as a tragic figure who went through unthinkable trauma, regardless of whether she sacrificed herself or not. Doomsday would be continuing the trend of making her part of someone else's story - a puppet to Doom, and I'd prefer not to see that as her return. And Secret Wars, while essentially a cheat code for doing anything with the Multiverse, wouldn't carry the emotional weight, unless it was also twinned with a miniseries or special set in its aftermath that reunites and reconciles Wanda with her children. Release Date October 14, 2026 Network Disney+ Showrunner Terry Matalas Cast James D'Arcy J.A.R.V.I.S. Marvel Studios' Vision Quest is a limited series set in the MCU and released on Disney+. It reveals the fate of Paul Bettany's resurrected Avenger, last seen fleeing Westview at the end of 2021's WandaVision. Directors Christopher J. Byrne, Gandja Monteiro