New scrapped designs for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness showed off an alternate look for Elizabeth Olsen's evil Scarlet Witch.
While Wanda Maximoff was in a rough spot during WandaVision, the situation only got worse when she popped up alongside Doctor Strange. This time, the Darkhold‘s claws were deep in her soul, and it wasn’t letting go.
The former Avenger did many things that are generally frowned upon, including trying to murder a Multiverse-hopping child. She’d go on to successfully slaughter a council of extremely powerful superhero elites—one of which even had a family.
While she did plenty for anyone to fear her very name, it turns out that she also ended up looking far more terrifying while doing it.
Deleted Designs for Evil Scarlet Witch
The Direct got its hands on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - The Art of the Movie book, and in it were several rejected designs for the corrupted/evil version of Scarlet Witch.
The first version of Elizabeth Olsen's character isn’t too far off from what made it in the final cut. Those black veins from the Darkhold’s influence are notably overcoming the struggling hero.
This take on Wanda also looked fully possessed—almost more like a ragged shell that the Darkhold’s influence occupies.
Bringing back a little of Wanda’s original soul to the mix, this look has her clearly still succumbed to the darkness.
The art evolves to show the influence of the evil spell book becoming too much for Wanda to handle.
The final image takes the overflowing Darkhold influence to the extreme, as Wanda’s very head seems to shatter into darkness.
Marvel Studios then turned the dial to 11 with this version of the Scarlet Witch, which looks downright horrifying.
One of the most significant observations is how this design, and the previous one, really worked to meld Wanda’s tiara into this more demonic look.
These three concepts hold striking similarities to Lilith, Mother of Demons—a villain who was actually the main antagonist in the recent Marvel video game Midnight Suns.
Scarlet Witch's Evil Self Had Unused Potential
These scrapped concept illustrations perfectly showcase some of the missed potential with Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
There are little hints throughout the movie of how much the Darkhold was influencing her, but for the most part, that’s only visualized with some extra black makeup.
While those more extreme of the new designs were only meant to play during the mind sequence in Professor Xavier’s head, where she does have a scarier look, the movie could easily have leaned more into those terrifying designs. The further she fell to the Darkhold’s influence, the more unrecognizable Wanda would become.
How great would it have been to see one of those nightmare-inducing versions of the Scarlet Witch go up against an undead Doctor Strange in the film’s finale?
Sadly, the time for seeing such a demonic-looking Wanda has probably passed. By the time she returns, the MCU will most likely be hard at work on her redemption story—and getting her in the same room as her reincarnated son.
