Director Sam Raimi has expressed his opinion on whether Doctor Strange is more powerful than Scarlet Witch.
When it was initially announced that Elizabeth Olson‘s Scarlet Witch will appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, fans assumed she would play an enemy. The final villain of the film is yet to be revealed, although the many teasers and ads appear to hint that she will be an ally. The TV advertisements also appear to suggest that whatever they’re battling will try to persuade Wanda to turn against Strange, which may be an issue for the good doctor.
Scarlet Witch‘s powers are ill-defined and inconsistent throughout the comics, and she tends to be as weak and/or powerful as the writers and editors will allow. The most well-known of them occurred when she almost wiped off Mutants at the conclusion of the House of M narrative. Her abilities appear to be rather limited in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but we witness just how strong she can be in the Avenger movie and the Disney Plus series WandaVision, with the latter implying that she has the ability to outsmart the Sorcerer Supreme. People are already wondering who would win if she and Doctor Strange got into a fight, but even Sam Raimi isn’t convinced.
Sam Raimi was asked by Fandango who would win in a fight between Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch. Simply put, he claimed that he had no idea, and that it all relied on which versions were pitted against one another:
That’s a question I’ve been asking kids on the playground since third grade. Who is stronger, this character or that character? Well, I think Wanda’s magic, from Marvel lore, is more powerful than almost any of the other characters in this picture, but Doctor Strange has the knowledge of the mystic arts that Wanda doesn’t have, and he’s got the help of Kamar-Taj. If you were to pit them against each other, different altered versions of themselves … there could be a Doctor Strange out there that’s more powerful than our Wanda. Or there could be a Wanda out there who is more powerful than our Wanda here. So, because of these altered versions, it’s all a mixed bag of possibilities.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Xochitl Gomez, Rachel McAdams, and Patrick Stewart feature in the film directed by Sam Raimi from a scenario written by Michael Waldron.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will premier on May 6, 2022.
