Monica's Powers Explained: Could She Beat Scarlet Witch?

WARNING: There are SPOILERS ahead for WandaVision episode 6, "All-New Halloween Spooktacular!"

In WandaVision episode 6, Monica Rambeau discovers that exposure to cosmic energies is changing and affecting her — a similar origin to her superhero counterpart in the Marvel Comics, who possesses powers that could challenge Wanda. This may or may not be a fair comparison — after all, the MCU has diverged from the comics in terms of character power levels and abilities, and the commonly-held assumptions about Wanda's powers is based on estimates made before WandaVision. However, based on Wanda's apparent abilities in the MCU, and a rough estimate of how Monica's comics abilities will be adapted, it's fair to predict that the two female characters will be comparable.

Wanda appears to be the cause of a number of new super-powered characters in the MCU, including some familiar faces from the comics. Her twin boys, Billy and Tommy have powers with notable differences from their comic book selves but are still recognizable parallels. It would seem that Monica is being set up to become a superpowered hero as well.

In Monica's case, although her powers have yet to manifest in WandaVision, her mother's callsign of "Photon," which is shown prominently in the background of episode 4, suggests that she will also receive light and energy spectrum based superpowers. Physical evidence, including a brain scan that was ruined by an undetermined cause, suggests that she may already be giving off high levels of energy. To this end, it may be safe to assume that the nature of her powers will be similar in the MCU as they are in the comics, although their degree may scale.

Wanda's Abilities And Limitations As Seen In WandaVision

Wanda's powers have clearly grown since she was first introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron. While her abilities seem to warp reality within Westview, there are some exceptions — Wanda's Scarlet Witch powers have no effect on her twins, for instance. Since the exact origins of the Hex and who is exercising active control at any given time are a bit ambiguous, what can be directly observed of her powers include the ability to conjure solid objects, to exert telekinetic force with fine-to-delicate manipulation over objects and people in her surroundings, considerable mind control over people that fall into her sphere of influence, and apparently some strange narrative power over the "sitcom" framework that is encompassing Westview.

There are some noted exceptions to these powers, however. Apart from Vision and the twins, who have some resistance or immunity to Wanda's abilities, other Westview townsfolk appear to have limited autonomy when not being directly observed by Wanda, suggesting that her control is not absolute. Because Vision has mind powers of his own, he can also free the people of Westview from Wanda's control, and she is not aware of these incidents. As well, when experiencing physical or emotional distress — whether it be the pain of childbirth or a heated argument with one of her loved ones or friends — Wanda's control over her powers seems to lapse, a significant limitation when her control over her surroundings appears to be fairly absolute. Finally, Wanda is not omniscient, meaning that she can only react to things that she can directly perceive. While she may have some extra-sensory perception, it does not appear to be extensive.

Monica's Abilities As Per The Comics

Monica Rambeau has both a comic book and MCU connection to Captain Marvel. In the comics, Monica was given the title of "Captain Marvel" by media outlets, despite the fact that there were others with a claim to the name. In the MCU, Monica met Carol Danvers as a child in Captain Marvel, and this first impression seems to have made an impact. Comic book Monica was empowered with control over energy of all different frequencies, leading to her alternate identity as "Spectrum," and could both become energy and manipulate it, allowing her to move and act at the speed of light, as well as control different kinds of radiation.

While the extent of Monica's changes in the MCU have yet to be determined, it seems likely that the writers will choose powers that are similar to her comic book counterpart's abilities, and that they will choose visually interesting ones, given the medium. To that end, it seems likely that Monica will gain Spectrum's abilities of energy generation, absorption and manipulation, as well as possibly the ability to transform into energy. Since Spectrum also has a sense for cosmic energies and events, a theme connecting to MCU Monica's cosmic energy origins, these also seem like an intuitive inclusion in Monica's suite of powers.

Still, Monica has some defined limitations. She does not appear to be immune to the transformative effects of the Hex, and has no obvious resistance to Wanda's mind control. While episode 3 did show that she retained some knowledge and information from the outside world, it is hard to definitively say that this was by virtue of her own resilience, given how little information there is about how the Westview effect behaves. Finally, any abilities Monica does manifest will be entirely new to her, which may mean that as adaptable as she is, she might not have all the answers to start out with.

Could Monica Beat Wanda?

With the escalation of tensions between Vision and Scarlet Witch almost leading to a fight, it's hard to say if it will come down to Monica going toe to toe with Scarlet Witch. There are a lot of factors to consider when having two heroes with very different power sets going head to head, and context — such as whether such a fight occurred in Westview, where Wanda's powers are more pronounced — would have an impact on the outcome of such a struggle. If such a comparison is to be made, it needs to be made on a power-against-power basis, without any question of who started the fight or who got in the first strike.

As Wanda does not have perfect perception, Monica could easily enter or leave a fight by turning into energy and moving at the speed of her energy form. When Wanda took Vision's body from S.W.O.R.D., she demonstrated that her kinetic abilities were more pronounced, indicating that she still has considerable power outside of the Hex, however, and Monica can still fall prey to Wanda's telepathic control. Wanda is trained with the use of her powers — Monica would still find her own newly acquired abilities unfamiliar and possibly unwieldy. On the basis of speed, Monica is more likely to get in a deciding blow faster, but with a twin brother with super-speed, Wanda is accustomed to dealing with speedsters. Ultimately, the best way to find out will be to tune into WandaVision and see what happens.

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