#as opposed to django as biouncle and marya married

[bobbimorses]

wanda & pietro maximoff’s ethnicity (+magneto’s) & race in comics: a timeline

lately, i’ve been seeing some confusion and misinformation concerning wanda and pietro’s ethnicity, so i’ve tried to make a condensed timeline of their “shifting”/”evolving” parentage and ethnicity citing canonical sources and with accompanying panels. mostly so you know what isn’t new and has been lore for decades. since magneto was half their parentage most of the time (more on that later), some panels center on his ethnicity [he’ll be referred to as magneto for simplicity’s sake bc of his various aliases].

tldr; they were introduced as “vaguely european,” then “unknown but adopted by romani,” then half ashkenazi jewish, then half romani and half ashkenazi, then fully romani, then half ashkenazi and romani again, and are currently fully romani (retcon of a retcon pending)

x-men #4 (1964)

in wanda and pietro’s first ever appearance, they’re from "the heart of europe,” where they were being chased by an angry mob. no additional info.

avengers #31 (1966)

after some avengering, they return to their home village, now said to be in the balkans, and so they’re from southeastern europe. a few issues later, they reveal they were born on “wundagore mountain,” and this village ends up being “transia,” which is a whole country within marvel.

giant-size avengers #1 (1974)

wanda encounters the ww2 hero the whizzer (yes. really.), real name robert frank. he says that he and his pregnant wife, miss america (madeline joyce), had traveled to wundagore mountain for her labor. madeline died in childbirth and the whizzer (yes! really!) ran away in grief, leaving the newborns that were presented to him. wanda thinks he must be her father. since robert frank and madeline joyce are presumably anglo-americans, her ethnicity could have been presumed the same (anglo-ish). it’s still not revealed who raised the maximoffs

avengers #186 (1979)

wanda and pietro learn more of their origin from bova, the evolved cow (roll with it) who was midwife to their real biological mother, magda, who fled shortly after their birth.

the whizzer and miss america were really their intended adoptive parents, because the franks’ baby, unbeknownst to them, was stillborn.

instead, wanda and pietro were placed into the care of a romani couple, django and marya maximoff. at this point, wanda and pietro’s ethnicity remains a mystery (as magda’s is not yet specified and their biological father wasn’t disclosed), but their adoptive parents are a romani couple and they were raised within the romani community.

uncanny x-men #125 (1979)

magneto reveals he had a wife named magda, who readers know gave birth to pietro and wanda, but magneto doesn’t. dramatic irony, baby

uncanny x-men #150 (1981)

this issue introduces magneto’s origin as a survivor of the holocaust (18 years after his first comic appearance). based on several subsequent issues, it seemed clear that writer chris claremont intended for magneto to be ashkenazi jewish, and so most readers assumed he was.

in uncanny x-men #161 (1982) [left], a flashback shows magneto first met xavier while volunteering in israel, and he attends a holocaust remembrance event with kitty pryde (also jewish) in uncanny x-men #199 (1985) [right]:

and, in similar language to the #199 panel, this statement in uncanny x-men #211 (1986) also implies he is jewish:

these are but a few of several examples. however, i suppose it’s never explicitly stated. this will be important later.

vision and the scarlet witch #4 (1983)

magneto says he IS the father (which he learned from local evolved cow, bova). hooray! magda had fled from magneto, who didn’t know she was pregnant, after he killed a mob (responsible for their daughter anya’s death) with his newfound powers. under the assumption that magneto is ashkenazi jewish, this makes wanda and pietro ethnically half ashkenazi jewish

vision and the scarlet witch v2 #5 (1985)

magda is confirmed to be romani (in this unfortunate 80s manner), meaning wanda and pietro are half romani from their mother’s side, and half ashkenazi jewish from their father’s

x-men unlimited #2 (1993)

though readers thought he was jewish before, magneto is revealed to be sinti, a romani tribe in central europe. [supposedly, this is because magneto was being set up as a villain again and marvel feared anti-semitic implications if he were explicitly jewish.] this would make wanda and pietro fully romani.

x-men v2 #72 (1998)

it’s revealed that “erik lensherr,” thought to be magneto’s real name, was in fact an alias, and presumably he wasn’t sinti but needed to have an identity as one to track magda (still sinti!) down. again, he still isn’t explicitly stated to be ashkenazi jewish, but 2 years later the x-men movie comes out. that, of course, opens with young magneto in auschwitz, so now Everyone presumes he’s jewish. which, surprisingly, is only explicitly stated for the first time in x-men: magneto testament in 2008. so wanda and pietro are again half romani (sinti) and half ashkenazi jewish.

this would be the status quo until...

avengers & x-men: axis #7 (2015)

magneto is retconned to be NOT the father. wanda and pietro are retconned to NOT be mutants. is it because marvel comics was trying to separate fox-owned x-men properties from the mcu-owned properties since they were both trying to use the maximoffs? we can’t say for sure--yes. yes it was.

scarlet witch v2 #4 (2016)

wanda and pietro’s NEW real biological mother is revealed to be natalya maximoff, sister to django maximoff, thus making wanda and pietro’s adoptive parents their biological uncle and aunt. their new biological father isn’t revealed, but marvel has said that they’re now fully romani (again), so he must be too? they are also now from serbia, so presumably natalya isn’t sinti like magda.

will this retcon be undone and magneto restored as wanda and pietro’s father since that was their backstory for 36 years? who knows! if so, they will be half ashkenazi jewish and half romani again. right now, they’re fully romani, which they incidentally already were before. comics!