salarta

sassyhungary:

Today’s Axis update revealed that Magneto may not be the father of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, due to him not being affected by a spell that, if he was related to Wanda, should’ve killed him. 

A handful of people saw this coming when Marvel revealed a recommended reading list for the twins, and left out the issue where Magneto revealed that he was the twins’ father.  This was also supported by the fact that Marvel does not own movie rights to X-Men, including Magneto, and therefore cannot incorporate him into the Maximoff twins’ backstory in Age of Ultron. 

The whole point of the retcon is that Marvel wanted to have ties between the MCU and Earth 616 because the movies make them a lot of money. And so if they cannot get money on the twins’ backstory, then there’s apparently no point in keeping it. It is not because Erik was such an awful father. It is also not because Marvel wanted to do something nice to the Maximoff Twins for once.

Unfortunately that’s not even the bigger picture. Through their relationship with Magneto, the twins have an established Jewish heritage and are the children of Holocaust survivors (Madga was a sinti Romani who was also a Holocaust survivor, and met Erik in the camps or before depending on which origin story you got). Erasing the struggles of Holocaust victims has long been a thing, and Marvel is doing just that with this decision. There is also a severe lack of Jewish characters in the comics, and Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are some of the few characters who are not stereotyped and are good representation. And in Age of Ultron, they are being white-washed and are literally put in the worst situation for two Romani Jewish characters. This retcon removes that aspect of their identity and removes important representation that is sorely needed today. 

Have there been retcons of their parentage before? Certainly, but here’s another thing. Magneto revealed that he was the father of the two of them in Vision and the Scarlet Witch, February 1983. The Maximoff twins were introduced on March 1964, so they spent a longer time being Magneto’s kids than actually being by themselves, and certainly longer than any other backstory. And the fact is that being his kids has greatly shaped the twin’s paths. They are Magneto’s children in alternate universes, in the tv shows, and even in the X Men movies. 

This decision ignores and erases a large part of their history, a large part of their background, and is ignorant at best and anti-semitic and whitewashing at it’s worst. There is absolutely no reason that anyone should be happy with this decision.

And just a side note, Wanda describes this reveal as a punishment for Erik. During this whole event, Magneto has been punished and blamed for what started the whole situation, which was killing the Red Skull. This is just a part of a long series of backlashes for the Jewish Holocaust survivor for killing a Nazi, this is literally victim blaming the man for killing a character that should’ve been dead a long time ago. If that doesn’t scream Anti-Semitism I don’t know what does.