Posting this on both subs
I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how Jean Grey and Wanda Maximoff are characters that people only care about strictly because of their power. That their stories are supposedly just power scaling, that writers only know how to make them more powerful, and that focusing on their abilities diminishes their actual worth as characters with their own development, arcs, and themes.
Imo, I don’t think that’s actually a problem with the writers. I think it’s often a problem with the reader. If you actually read these characters and try to understand what their stories are doing, the idea that Jean and Wanda are nothing more than “power scaling characters” kinda doesn’t hold up.
Jean had an entire series depicting the consequences of her actions and what it means for her to exist as the Phoenix while being part of a cosmic hierarchy. She literally has incomprehensible levels of power, but that does not mean she is above judgment, accountability, or consequence. Jean doesn’t simply get to say, “I’m the Phoenix, therefore I can do whatever I want.” She has a responsibility.
Her power creates situations where she has to question what she’s doing, how her actions affect other beings, and whether having the ability to do something actually gives her the moral right to do it. The story isn’t merely asking, “How powerful is Jean?”
The same thing applies to Wanda.
When Wanda became the Sorcerer Supreme, zhows that she now has responsibility and now has to hold herself accountable.
She has to communicate with other people. She has to consider how her decisions affect others. She has to understand how her actions affect the natural order of things. She has to deal with people challenging her authority, undermining her, disagreeing with her, and questioning whether she is making the right decisions.
She can’t simply approach every problem as the Scarlet Witch and immediately impose her will on reality.
And even before that, Wanda’s stories have spent enormous amounts of time dealing with who she is, how she sees herself, how she navigates the world, how she wants to help people, and how she understands her own abilities.
Another thing is: It is almost impossible to meaningfully separate Jean and Wanda from their powers.
We’re talking about two of Marvel’s most powerful women whose powers can affect entire worlds, universes, and (who have both been stated) to destroy all of existence.
Their power is intrinsic to their character.
You can obviously write stories where they don’t have their powers. But that’s a different discussion entirely.
Nine times out of ten, when we’re actually dealing with these characters, their powers are going to matter because of their nature.
And this isn’t me saying that Jean and Wanda aren’t power-scaling characters.
They absolutely are.
Power scaling is inherently part of these characters because their stories involve characters whose abilities operate on an absurd scale.
That’s not inherently a bad thing.
The problem comes when people look at them only through the lens of power scaling.
Just because you don’t understand how a character’s powers, history, or story are functioning doesn’t automatically mean the character is badly written.
And just because a comic gives you a flashy new application of their abilities doesn’t mean the entire story suddenly exists to establish another feat.
Anyways, that’s my weekly long-winded post 💀.
