In this feature we examine comic book stories and ideas that were not only abandoned, but also had the stories/plots specifically "overturned" by a later writer (as if they were a legal precedent). Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of The Abandoned An' Forsaked. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.
Today, we take a look at how Vision impregnated the Scarlet Witch...or DID he?
One of hey points of Steve Englehart and Richard Howell's year-long Vision and Scarlet Witch mini-series was the establishment that Vision WAS human. Just in an artificial body. Vision embraced his humanity at the end of #2 when he decided, "Hey, we should have a kid."
In the following issue, the Scarlet Witch expresses some natural doubts about the possibility...
Later in the issue, though, Vision and the Scarlet Witch are captured by the Salem's Seven, who prepare to sacrifice Wanda to Lucifer. There is a whole bunch of magick energy being contained by the leader of the Salem's Seven, Vertigo. When Vision takes out Vertigo...
Suddenly there was a whole lot of magick with no one to control it. In steps Wanda...
But she needs help...
For lack of a better term, at that point Wanda essentially used the magick to make magic sperm there, impregnating her. Heck, if you want to read Vision and Scarlet Witch's interactions above as "magick sex," well, I guess you could.
In any event, in the following issue Wanda learns that she IS, in fact, pregnant...
I love how casual Doctor Strange is about how the baby was conceived. "Eh, it's only magick."
At the end of the series, Wanda gives birth...
but not just ONE baby, TWO!!
So that was the way things were for some time until John Byrne took over West Coast Avengers (which was soon re-named to Avengers West Coast).
Go to the next page to see how things changed...
In #43 of that title, Byrne already introduced a slight change, highlighting the fact that Wanda's probability-altering powers gave her the babies, not magick...
Later that same issue, her babies disappear...
Wanda is NOT pleased at this...
Nor is she when the NEXT governess has the same problem...
The NEXT governess just lies about it...
Eventually, in Avengers West Coast #51, a resurrected Agatha Harkness explains what is going on...
And in a twisted scene, we meet Master Pandemonium with the twins...
And he reveals the truth in the following issue...
And Agatha Harkness spells it out to the Human Torch (who had recently joined the Avengers) and the widow of Toro, Torch's former sidekick...
Finally, the Avengers defeat Master Pandemonium, but Wanda's kids are totally gone. Agatha explains more...
So there you go, Byrne abandoned an' forsaked the whole thing.
In the future, though, Brian Michael Bendis would further abandon and forsake aspects of this story in Avengers Disassembled, including revealing that Doctor Strange did not remember Scarlet Witch having kids (despite, you know, delivering them himself). Plus, Agatha Harkness may or may not have been "resurrected" by the Scarlet Witch herself.
The twins would later return to continuity as brand-new characters in the pages of Young Avengers. That does not really count as an abandoned an' forsaked (and it might not count as Abandoned Love, either). I will see if it can be worked into SOME sort of column in the future!