Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness may be dominating the box office at the movies but the real star is Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch. Played with an edgy Girl Interrupted tinge of murderous madness aplomb by Elizabeth Olsen, her story picks up where she left off in 2021’s WandaVision.

Supporting character Agatha Harkness became not only the subject of a chart-topping song but also a queer icon in her own right.

“From a queer and trans lens, when we look at Wanda, we can see ourselves in her story,” said E. Tejada III, a 37-year-old equity and inclusion educator in Burdett, N.Y. Despite her hardships, “you can see that resilience, that she is still very much moving forward.”

Olsen, who plays Wanda, says she hadn’t known about the connection LGBT fans have to the character. “That’s really amazing. I think these stories have an impact in a way that I am that I somehow don’t [realize],” she said. “I’m so inside them that I don’t really get to step outside.”

Wanda isn’t any luckier in the comics. Eleven years after her 1964 debut, she marries Vision and has two children, but through both magic and old-fashioned supervillainy she loses her family and her memories of motherhood. When those memories resurface, an outpouring of grief leads Wanda to kill some of her teammates as well as swaths of mutants — a marginalized, superpowered race. The character has been on a long journey of redemption and healing ever since.

“You break the rules and become the hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn’t seem fair.”

Joseph Kim, a 24-year-old social media content producer from New York City, said this reminds him of biphobia, transphobia and racism within the LGBT community. In Wanda’s story, he said, “you have that same kind of metaphorical gatekeeping of, ‘You are one of us, and yet you’re not one of us.’”

Across comics and films, Wanda receives little support from other characters. The MCU portrays her grieving alone, and in the “House of M” comic-book storyline, other characters consider killing Wanda as she experiences a mental health crisis.

For Brandon Bush, a comic book journalist, this absence of support also mirrors systemic injustices. “When you see people like Wanda who aren’t getting the resources that they need, you relate to that because you see your own communities and them not getting the resources that they need,” Bush said.

@billythewiccan welp, destroying the multiverse definitely did a number on my mom…#marvel #mcu #doctorstrangeinthemultiverseofmadness #scarletwitch #wiccan #elizabetholsen ♬ original sound – Rachel

Still, many LGBT fans don’t see the kind of representation they want in the MCU generally. Yes, more LGBT superheroes — including Wanda’s own children — have graced comic book pages in recent years, and a same-sex relationship shows up on-screen in The Eternals.

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Olsen was excited for the new Dr. Strange sequel to introduce superhero America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), who is lesbian in the comics and whose same-sex parents are alluded to briefly in the movie. “We need to reflect the world in these films,” she said. “We have such a platform. To not use it in that way would be foolish.”

#multiverseofmadness spoilers!!
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this scene was truly heartbreaking. i will never get over it #scarletwitch pic.twitter.com/9jqUQiiN9K
— amanda ᱬ team witch (@aoumaximoff) May 8, 2022

But many fans still feel such depictions are too rare. Which is why they fill the gap by reading LGBT themes and relationships into Marvel films and series — sometimes in ways that deviate from creators’ visions.

In addition to relating to Wanda’s hardships, some viewers interpreted interactions in WandaVision between Wanda and Agatha as flirting.

In other MCU titles, fans see sparks fly between super-soldier Steve Rogers and his best friend Bucky Barnes. And storylines featuring the X-Men — a superhero team that Wanda fought against in her comic book debut — are widely read as queer allegories. Noticing signs of romance between presumably heterosexual characters who express affection for one another has become crucial to their enjoyment of superhero media.