Why Did Marvel Remove Scarlet Witch from the 2023 MCU Timeline Book Cover?

Since it first launched in 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become the biggest movie franchise and one of the biggest media franchises of all time. While it started and it’s best known for its interconnected movies, the franchise also spawned TV shows, comics, books, and other sorts of media. Recently, Marvel Studios announced the official book titled ‘Marvel Studios The Marvel Cinematic Universe An Official Timeline,’ However, the fans couldn’t have overlooked how the official cover looks slightly different than it did when the book was first announced, and now we’ll try to explain why Scarlet Witch has been removed from the final cover.

On the first official cover, the book featured six MCU characters, out of which one was Scarlet Witch. However, on the final confirmed cover, Elizabeth Olsen’s character has been removed and replaced by Loki and Sylvie. Marvel didn’t provide an official statement on why the change was made, but the possible reason is that Scarlet Witch has been absent from the franchise since her alleged death in ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.’ Loki and Sylvie are front-running the upcoming ‘Loki’ Season 2, which will premiere around the same time as the book releases. Scarlet Witch is still featured on the book’s back cover.

‘Marvel Studios The Marvel Cinematic Universe An Official Timeline’ will contain answers to all the biggest questions regarding the MCU’s sometimes confusing timeline. We can all agree the franchise became pretty hard to follow, especially after that five-year time jump in ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ while most of the movies before it were set in the present day at the time of their release. The franchise introduced dozens of characters since its inception, and it was probably a hard job for the covers’ artist to pick only six characters. In the rest of this article, we’ll see what characters are featured on the cover and why they deserve their place there.

‘Marvel Studios The Marvel Cinematic Universe An Official Timeline’ will be a must-have for all hardcore MCU fans!

Earlier this year, when Marvel uncovered the first official look at the book, it featured these six characters on the cover: Tony Stark/Iron Man, Sam Wilson/Captain America, Shang-Chi, Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, and Thanos. Still, it was marked in the upper right corner that this cover wasn’t the final one, which turned out to be true when the final cover featured Loki Laufeyson and Sylvie Laufeydottir.

The choice of putting Iron Man and Thanos on the cover is simply too obvious. Iron Man is a character that kicked off the entire franchise, and Thanos was the ultimate villain of the first three Phases, commonly known as the Infinity Saga. Although neither of them was part of the franchise since their final showdown in 2019’s ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ it makes plenty of sense why they are featured on the final cover.

As for the other characters, Captain Marvel is currently one of the strongest characters, and she certainly has a future in the franchise. The same can be said for Shang-Chi, the only character introduced in Phase 4 that led his standalone movie (‘Eternals’ was a team movie, and all the other movies were sequels). Sam Wilson’s Captain America was the first legacy character in the franchise after Steve Rogers retired from his being Captain America.

Scarlet Witch kicked off the franchise’s Phase 4 and the Multiverse Saga with the ‘WandaVision’ series, and she later returned as a villain in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which ended with her alleged death, although no one is buying it that she’s dead for real. Her return is definitely expected, and even if she doesn’t return, she is still an important part of this franchise, which is why she kept her place on the book’s back cover, where she’s accompanied by Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, She-Hulk, T’Challa/Black Panther, and Team Cap from ‘Captain America: Civil War.’

Scarlet Witch’s place on the initial cover was taken over by Tom Hiddleston’s Loki and Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie. They are also important for the MCU and its future since they opened the gates of the Multiverse when Sylvie killed Nathaniel Richards, aka He Who Remains, which opened the way for Kang the Conqueror, a new ultimate villain, to join the franchise. Both Loki and Sylvie are returning in the second season of the ‘Loki’ series, which is set to premiere around the same time the book is scheduled to start publishing.

‘Loki’ Season 2 will premiere on October 6, 2023. The book ‘Marvel Studios The Marvel Cinematic Universe An Official Timeline’ can be pre-ordered on Amazon, and it’s set to arrive on October 24, 2023.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Have something you add? Let us know in the comments.