The most infamous storyline regarding Scarlet Witch is unarguably House of M as it showed how unimaginably powerful she is while also depicting the catastrophic consequences of a being with vast amounts of power wielding their abilities without restraint. However, while the event made Scarlet Witch out to be a villain, House of M actually helped her become a better hero.
Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch made her debut in the Marvel Universe as a villain who worked for Magneto alongside the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. As time went on, however, Scarlet Witch proved to be a better hero than she ever was a villain after she joined the Avengers and used her hex magic and reality manipulation powers for good. Behind the scenes of every one of her comic appearances, however, Scarlet Witch’s mental health was slowly deteriorating, something that finally became apparent leading up to the Marvel Comics event House of M. In that storyline, Scarlet Witch creates a world where Magneto is the ruler of the Earth and mutants reign supreme, but after even granting Magneto absolute power isn’t enough for him to love her, Scarlet Witch utters the now infamous phrase, “No more mutants” and erases most of the mutant population from the Earth. Since then, Wanda has made significant efforts to make up for her crimes against the mutant community and has shown that she has learned from the mistakes of her past in a truly profound way.
In Captain Marvel #28 by Kelly Thompson and Jacopo Camagni, Captain Marvel is reeling after returning to her original place in time following a mission she went on in the future. A few issues earlier, Captain Marvel is brought to an alternate future of the Marvel Universe against her will and battles against a villain she can’t hope to defeat. So, when she returns to her normal time, Captain Marvel determines she needs to use every avenue of power available to her so she can eliminate this powerful threat and save the world–and so Carol decides that she needs to learn magic. After asking Doctor Strange to teach her the ways of being a sorcerer, he basically laughs in her face and tells her no. Carol goes to every other magic user she knows to ask them to help her instead, including Scarlet Witch. Unfortunately, Scarlet Witch also tells Captain Marvel that teaching her magic is a bad idea, and as Carol walks away in a huff, Wanda says, “This is not a good path for you, Carol. Take it from someone who knows. Darkness clouds this path.”
If anyone knows about following the wrong path into a metaphorical cloud of darkness, it is Scarlet Witch, and that is exactly the kind of wisdom she tries to impart on Captain Marvel. While seemingly insignificant, this scene speaks volumes to how Scarlet Witch has recovered from House of M. Rather than wallowing in her own guilt, Scarlet Witch is taking action to make up for what she did in her moment of monumentally powerful catastrophic weakness. Not only has she given the mutants of Krakoa the ability to bring back mutants from the dead who weren’t logged in Xavier’s Cerebro system, but she is passing on her wisdom to all other heroes in the Marvel Universe, hoping to keep them from making the same mistakes she did.
It is safe to say that Scarlet Witch has made a full comeback into the world of heroism in Marvel Comics continuity, and while this interaction with Captain Marvel may seem small on the surface, it is another step towards her redemption that she hopes will help Captain Marvel on her journey–proving that Scarlet Witch’s House of M assault actually made her a better hero as it gave her the insight she needed to help other heroes going through similar struggles.