Why Marvel quietly removed Scarlet Witch from timeline cover

With more details of Marvel’s MCU timeline book being revealed, some fans have spotted a Scarlet Witch-shaped hole in the proposed cover.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been hopping around time since its earliest movies: Iron Man started off in the present day, before Captain America took us back to the days of the Second World War before fast-forwarding to 2012 for The Avengers.

Since then, we’ve had Captain Marvel’s ’90s debut on planet Earth, Loki’s timeline-hopping shenanigans, and Deadpool 3 will shakeup the canon even more.

We are 32 movies and eight shows deep into the franchise, and given its stories extend all across time and space, it can be a bit confusing to keep track of exactly when everything’s happening. Luckily, there’s a new book coming out for that very reason, but one beloved Marvel star has been taken off the cover.

Scarlet Witch removed from MCU timeline cover

The first cover for The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline featured six characters: Iron Man, Shang-Chi, Sam Wilson’s Captain America, Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, Thanos, and Scarlet Witch.

Ahead of its release on October 24, Penguin Random House updated the cover – and Wanda Maximoff has been replaced by Loki and Sylvie.

There are two reasons for this change: firstly, the first version of the cover wasn’t the final artwork, as noted by the publisher’s website; secondly, given the timing of the book’s release, Loki and Sylvie’s presence makes more sense with Loki Season 2 hitting Disney+ around the same time.

Penguin Random House

There’s also the relevance to consider: Scarlet Witch may have been involved in the Multiverse of Madness, but Loki and Sylvie’s story is directly connected to the flow of time within the MCU. If there’s ever a hardback multiverse explainer, you can expect to see Wanda’s face on there, but Loki and Sylvie make more sense in this context.

And, of course, there’s another big factor: Scarlet Witch is technically dead, at least for right now. She was seemingly crushed under the rubble of Mount Wundagore, but we’re all expecting her to come back – including Elizabeth Olsen.

“We can do anything with her now! I feel like we’ve done so much,” she told Screen Rant.

“Now, we can really have fun; I feel like there’s a lot more humor to be had with her. She’s often the emotion of a story, and I’m curious to see what we can explore. And hopefully [we can] give her some redemption.”

You can check out what we know about Loki Season 2 here as well as the latest updates on brand-new Marvel projects.