Warning: This article contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine.
Summary
Deadpool & Wolverine’sCassandra Nova might be one of the strongest new characters in theMarvel Cinematic Universe, but she still may not compare to Wanda Maximoff’s Scarlet Witch. The MCU is full of characters who have an incomprehensible level of power, including the likes of Captain Marvel, G’iah and Doctor Strange, andElizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witchis a member of this envied club. This is especially true after the MCU’s Phase 4, but Marvel Studios might have just debuted a villain with enough power to take on the Scarlet Witch.
When bringing iconic Marvel heroes such asRyan Reynolds' Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverineinto the MCU for the first time ever, Marvel Studios made a good choice by pitting them against a supremely powerful enemy.Deadpool & Wolverine’sexploration of the dangerous Void at the End of Time made this possible, as a villain could debut that even staff at the Time Variance Authority were scared of. Cassandra Nova’s debut in the MCU’s Phase 5 brings another character with an extreme level of power into the MCU - power rivaling even that of the Scarlet Witch.
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The MCU’s roster of superheroes is huge, and each one possesses incredible abilities that make them some of the strongest beings in the multiverse.
Deadpool & Wolverine Introduced Cassandra Nova Into Live-Action For The First Time Ever
As one of Marvel’s weirdest villains, it wouldn’t have been surprising if Cassandra Nova had never made her live-action debut. However,Emma Corrin brought the sinister and charismatic villain to life inDeadpool & Wolverine, introducing Cassandra Nova as the queen of a rag-tag band of pruned villainsin the Void.Emma Corrin’s Cassandra Novawas revealed to have a very similar origin story to her Marvel Comics counterpart, as she is the sister of Charles Xavier, a.k.a. X-Men leader Professor X.
Cassandra Nova tried to murder Charles Xavierin the womb, but this action may have caught the attention of the TVA, as she revealed she was pruned before she could even walk. Cassandra struck a deal with the TVA, however, which allowed her to occupy her corner of the Void peacefully, avoiding the threat of Alioth, but stopping her from existing in an actual timeline.Despite being confined to the Void for eternity, Cassandra Nova’s powers in the MCU are seriously impressive, rivaling those of other characters.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Cast
A follow-up to the highly successful Deadpool and Deadpool 2 films starring Ryan Reynolds as the Merc with a Mouth. The third film will be the first in the franchise to be developed under the Marvel Studios banner following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.
Cassandra Nova’s MCU Powers & Comic Differences Explained
There are many clear differences betweenCassandra Nova inDeadpool & Wolverineand her Marvel Comics counterpart, the main being that, in the comics, she is a Mummudrai, while in the MCU, she is revealed to be a regular mutant.Mummudrai act as the dark shadow to a particular individual, and since Cassandra Nova connected to Charles Xavier in the womb, she acquired some of his mutant abilitiesin the comics. This allowed her to create a physical form and gifted her powerful telepathic and telekinetic abilities.
In the MCU, Cassandra Nova was confirmed to be an Omega-level mutant and the biological twin sister to Charles Xavier. This meant that she had many similar abilities to her brother, including telekinesis, telepathy and memory manipulation. However,while Xavier can access an individual’s mind just with thought, Cassandra Nova is more tactile, having to physically root around in an individual’s head to get the information she desires. This contributed to some of the most gruesome and disturbing scenes inDeadpool & Wolverine.
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In Marvel Comics, Cassandra Nova’s powers allowed her to enact very destructive feats. In perhaps her most famous story, she set a Wild Sentinel on the mutant nation of Genosha, culminating in the genocide of 16 million mutants. While she never had the chance to pull off this feat in the MCU, having been pruned as a baby,Cassandra proved her strength by killing variants of notable characters such as Magneto, Quicksilver, Daredevil, Doctor Strange and the Human Torch. She later turned her attention to theTVA’s Time Ripper, which she hoped to use to destroy the multiverse.
Scarlet Witch’s MCU Powers & Comic Differences Explained
While Cassandra Nova is one of the MCU’s newest strong characters, Wanda Maximoff’s Scarlet Witch has been regarded as one of the most powerful figures in the franchise ever since her debut in thepost-credits scene ofCaptain America: The Winter Soldier. For most of her Marvel Comics history,before a 2015 retcon, Wanda Maximoff was the mutant daughter of Magneto, meaning her plethora of remarkable abilities were originally considered to be a mutation. She has since been revealed to be a genetically-modified witch, however - an experiment of the High Evolutionary.
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This retcon brought theScarlet Witch closer to her MCU counterpart, who has been revealed to be a witch whose natural powers were enhanced by exposure to the Mind Stone. This gave her Chaos Magic abilities, as well as powers including telepathy, telekinesis, psychic energy manipulation, mental manipulation, flight, conjuration, transmutation, teleportation and illusion creation.Her incredible reality warping powers allowed her to inadvertently erect the Hex around Westview, New Jersey, inWandaVision, playing out her happy sitcom-style life with Vision, whom she also created following hisAvengers:Infinity Wardeath.
The Scarlet Witch has an even wider scope of abilities in Marvel Comics, which famously allowed her to construct an entirely false world that made mutants superior to humankind, before stripping most of the world’s mutants of their powers with the iconic"No More Mutants.“The MCU’s Scarlet Witch hasn’t affected reality on this scale, yet, but her access to the Darkhold allowed her to literally walk across the boundaries between universes.The Scarlet Witch would make a formidable adversary to Cassandra Nova in a possible future battle, and the pair might be more evenly matched than first thought.
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Who Would Win In A Fight In The MCU Between The Scarlet Witch & Cassandra Nova?
The introduction of Cassandra Nova inDeadpool & Wolverinehas led to some speculating about who would win in a battle between the Omega-level mutant and the MCU’s Scarlet Witch.Both of these characters have a level of power that puts the majority of the MCU’s other inhabitants to shame and, when they so desire, can both be incredibly violent and uncontrollable. It could be argued that the Scarlet Witch would win this fight, after all, she already killedCharles Xavier inDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but Cassandra Nova has a few tricks up her sleeve.
Both Cassandra Nova and Wanda Maximoff are currently deceased in the MCU, so it might be unlikely that the pair will ever face off in live-action.
Cassandra Nova’s quick-thinking and telekinetic ability could give her the one-up. She hastily stripped Johnny Storm of his skin, and thrust Deadpool and Wolverine a great distance, so the Scarlet Witch might not stand a chance.She also easily altered Wolverine’s memories, so she could do the same to Wanda, rendering her incapacitated. However, Cassandra would need to get close to pull this off, and Wanda may not let this happen. The Scarlet Witch could simply change the world around them to give her an advantage, and perhaps even remove Cassandra’s mouth or hands, as she has done before.
It’s very hard to judge who would be triumphant in this fight, though it seems thatCassandra Nova’s methods are far more brutal and unrestricted than the Scarlet Witch’s. Wanda only really got her claws out when her children were at risk inWandaVisionandDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but when faced with a simple battle, the win could easily go to Cassandra. It seems more likely that the mutant villain would easily take down the Scarlet Witch, based on theirMarvel Cinematic Universedepictions, but one thing’s for sure, this fight would certainly be a spectacle.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multimedia superhero franchise that began in 2008 with Paramount’s Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. The franchise quickly grew in popularity, with Disney eventually buying out Marvel Entertainment in 2009. The MCU consists of dozens of movies and TV shows, most notably Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision, and Loki.
