Marvel quietly dropped a bomb in Axis #7 this week which suggests Magneto is not the father of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

Leaving aside movie-based speculation on the motivation for the reveal (which I don’t really care about), I thought it would be worthwhile to revisit the long and winding road of the Wanda and Pietro’s parentage. How much would Marvel have to retcon to square this circle?

1974: Giant-Size Avengers

Invaders creator Roy Thomas introduced the idea that Wanda and Pietro were the children of the Robert and Madeline Frank, also known as the Golden Age heroes Whizzer and Miss America. They were traveling in Europe at the time and were in Wundagore while Madeline was pregnant. She was said to have died a few days after childbirth and Robert inexplicably left the children with the High Evolutionary.

1979: Avengers #182

Five years later, David Michelinie begins complicating the history of events by introducing Django Maximoff, an elderly Roma who could trap souls within marionettes (don’t ask). Django believes the twins to be his own children, Ana and Matéo. The question of their parentage was left unresolved for several months.

1979: Avengers #186

In a story that took three writers (David Michelinie, Steven Grant, and Mark Gruenwald) to write, we learn that the twins were actually born to a woman known only as Magda, who appeared at the High Evolutionary’s doorstep. She was on the run from her unnamed husband, who had acquired strange powers. After birth, she fled the mountain in an effort to keep the twins’ existence secret from their father. (And this was a year before Empire Strikes Back, folks!)

The involvement of Robert and Madeline is carefully retconned by saying they arrived shortly thereafter and Madeline died in childbirth giving birth to a stillborn child. Magda’s orphaned twins were offered to Robert, but he fled the mountain, distraught from his wife and child’s death.

The Maximoffs were a Roma family living in Wundagore at the time, who had recently lost their own children, Ana and Matéo. They were given Wanda and Pietro to raise as their own. This retelling still leaves the identity of the twins’ father unrevealed, however…

1983: The Vision and Scarlet Witch #4

Another five years later, Bill Mantlo connects the dots and reveals that Magda’s power-mad husband was none other than Magneto, who discovers that Magda gave birth to two children named Wanda and Pietro.

So that’s how we got to “Magneto is the father of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.” But Magda is a pivotal connective element that we still know little about.

1987: Classic X-Men #12

Yet another five years later, Chris Claremont tells us the circumstances of Magda’s flight from Magneto after he used his newfound power to kill a small community that was victimizing him and his family. Of note is the fact that Magda was not portrayed as visibly pregnant at this time.

2010: Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #2

Fast-forward to Avengers: The Children’s Crusade by Allan Heinberg. In it, he reveals that Magneto wasn’t aware his wife was pregnant at the time she fled him.

This summary points to a significant gap of time between the last time we see Magda with Magneto and the point at which she gives birth to the twins. Both Magneto (and the audience) merely assumed that the twins were sired by him. Isn’t conceivable that Magda could have encountered another man during the period of time between fleeing Magneto and giving birth?

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TLDR: Magneto not being the parent of Wanda and Pietro is entirely plausible and doesn’t even involve undoing any continuity to make it happen.