Hello and welcome to another week of Ye Olde School Café! This week, we’ll see the fantastic origin in depth of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff! Yes, the twins from Wundagore Mountain are about to find out that what they thought was their early life was only partly true. In reality, they were raised by a cow…seriously, read on if you don’t believe me!
As the team is back at the mansion, Tony Stark is in the kitchen being hit on by Ms. Marvel. Jocasta listens in, but quickly leaves to try and console Vision. Vision tells her that he isn’t worried about Wanda, because “how can a machine worry”? We next switch to Wanda and Pietro arriving in Transia. They are greeted and shown where they will stay. As they settle in for the night, Pietro waits for Django to fall asleep, then heads over to the window and is entranced by the nearby mountains. He harkins back to days of old, where he and Wanda were being raised by Django and his gypsy wife. Pietro then goes to bed, but Wanda is suddenly awakened by a presence in the room. She quickly sits up in bed, and sees a man hovering over her. It’s a man that calls himself Modred, and he begins to tell Wanda about her past. Before he really gets into anything, though, he blasts her in the back, knocking her out.
The next morning, Pietro is panicked because Wanda is missing, so he immediately darts outside. After whipping through the neighborhood in record time, he comes up empty. A little girl then approaches him and tells him that she saw Wanda fly like a fairy. Pietro jumps to his feet and speeds to the mountain. As he heads up the mountainside, he gets zapped by an invisible force field which knocks him out. He wakes up to find himself in the care of Bova! If you don’t know who or what Bova is, I’ll tell you. Bova is a half-human half-cow creature that is a creation of Herbert Wyndham (High Evolutionary). Pietro is stunned at the sight of this being, and then it tells him the story of how the High Evolutionary evolved a cow into the the being called Bova. Then, how one night a woman came knocking at the door, and was just about to deliver twin babies. After several weeks of tending to the twins and their mother, one day Bova discovered a note from their mother saying she needed to leave. Bova then took the children to the High Evolutionary. He decided to give the children to two gypsies in a nearby village, Django Maximoff and his wife. Bova then begs Pietro to leave because of an imminent danger.
Meanwhile, Wanda has been captured by Modred and taken to a sacred place where he tells her that she’ll be the vessel for his master, Chthon. Wanda escapes momentarily, but Modred proves to be too resourceful, and recaptures her. The next moment, Pietro and Bova are talking below the mountain, but get interrupted by an image of Wanda in the sky. She’s quite possessed at this point and warns Pietro and Bova to get away or face dire consequences. Pietro speeds down the mountain to get help, but is stopped by Django. As the weather starts to go berserk, Pietro and Django are attacked by a tree! They get away to a nearby house and Pietro makes a call to the Avengers. Immediately, they jump on a Quinjet and head for Transia. As they head out, Django and Pietro get mystically slapped unconscious. Within minutes, the Avengers arrive and start searching for their missing comrade. They quickly find out that Modred will tolerate no interference in his master’s plans. One by one, he takes out the Avengers. First The Falcon, then Ms. Marvel, and all eventually fall to either Modred or even their one-time teammate Wanda (who has been completely possessed by Chthon).
At this point, we get a quick history lesson on Chthon and his book, The Darkhold. After that, as things are looking desperate, one of the High Evolutionary’s Knights of Wundagore comes to the aid of the Avengers. He quickly swipes the Darkhold away from Wanda, and this moment gives the Avengers all the time they need to recover. Pietro gives his sister a super-speed punch, and then Django wonders if his magical doll can trap the evil inside of Wanda. With the strength of the entire team, Django uses the doll to exorcise Chthon from Wanda. Wanda then uses her Hex powers to blast half the mountain down on top of the doll. At this point the battle is over, but the pain isn’t. The twins watch as Django takes his last breaths, and then slumps over and dies. Sadness fills Wundagore Mountain, not for the first or the last time, but definitely enough sadness to close this chapter in the lives of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch!
This is certainly a book that any Avengers fan needs to have. The “Backpack Marvels” version I have is cool because it’s smaller than your typical Tpb (trade paperback), and can be taken on the road for easy access. There are more stories in this book, as well. The two other issues in this trade are stand-alone stories about the Inhumans and an adventure with Hawkeye going up against Deathbird! See you next week!
Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net
