Scarlet Witch's Hair Color Part 2

As we saw last time, Wanda and Pietro left the X-Men comic (X-Men #11) and immediately showed up that same month's Avengers comic. Her hair was still brown on the cover of Avengers #16...

Scarlet Witch on the cover of Avengers #16 (1965)

...however in the story itself, we come across a Stan Lee caption describing a certain "graceful black-haired beauty."  Yep, instead of a brown base color Wanda's wavy windswept hair now has a grey base, again with a lot of black inking.

Wanda and Pietro in Avengers #16 (1965)

The million dollar question: why the change in Wanda's hair color? Was Stan Lee merely being poetic when he called her black-haired--after all many describe dark brown hair as "black"-- and did the colorist mistakenly take him literally? Or if the change to black hair was an editorial decision, did showman Stan hope to invoke an association with a certain ebon hair'd, headline-grabbing movie queen?

Maybe Stan felt that since Wanda was now a newly-minted heroine she needed to have her own unique hair color. At that time Marvel's lead super-heroines--so few in number you could count 'em on one hand with fingers to spare--all had different hair colors: Sue Storm was the blonde, Jean Grey was the redhead, and Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, had brown hair. Perhaps Stan thought two Marvel "brownettes" would confuse the kiddies (never mind that Jan and Hank's feature in Tales to Astonish would only last a couple of months after they departed the Avengers).  

Sue Storm, Jean Grey and Janet Van Dyne

But guess what, the new Sub-Mariner series that replaced Jan and Hank's in Astonish included the return of a character, Lady Dorma, who--though non-powered--had always had an exotic look similar to Wanda's...including wavy, tousled brown hair with black shading!

Dorma in Tales to Astonish #70 (1965)

In any event, here's the black-haired Wanda with her Kooky Quartet cohorts: 

Scarlet Witch in 1965-6

Wanda and Pietro left the Avengers active roster for a few issues (Avengers #30-35) but while they were on team leave they popped up in Thor #134  and X-Men #27.  

                  left: Thor #134 (Kirby)                                   right: X-Men #27   (Roth)                                               

When Wanda and Pietro returned to the Avengers in Avengers #36 the team had grown beyond the Kooky Quartet and Wanda traded in her big ol' headgear for a much sleeker model (though a reader wrote in and complained that the new design looked like it would puncture Wanda's cheeks every time she spoke). A couple of issues later, Marvel expanded its color palette and began to use blue as her hair's base color, instead of the grey.

1967: shades of grey in Avengers #36...and dark blue in Avengers #38 

Here's Wanda by John Buscema, Don Heck, George Tuska and Werner Roth. 

Scarlet Witch in 1967-8

Wanda and Pietro left the team in Avengers #53 (1968) and didn't rejoin until nearly two years later in Avengers #75 (1970). During her time away she was shown in Avengers Annual #2, Avengers # 58, Spider-Man #71 and X-Men #59-60, always with black hair. The black hair was even present in Silver Surfer #5, in a Buscema recreation of a Kirby X-Men #11 panel from her Brotherhood of Evil Mutants days.  

On hiatus from the Avengers: Scarlet Witch in 1968-9

As mentioned above, Wanda and Pietro returned to the team in Avengers #75. On the cover she has blue-black hair...

On the cover of  Avengers #75 (1970)

...but as with #16, inside it's a different story! Next: The Scarlet Witch returns to her roots. 

Scarlet Witch's Hair Color Part 1

At long last! The answer to the number one question about the Scarlet Witch! No, it's not whether Elizabeth Olsen can fill out Wanda's costume...or what the heck does Wanda's hex power actually do...or how did she conceive kids with the Vision...or is she or isn't she Magneto's daughter...or more recently, is she a mutant or Inhuman...or...

Forget about all that. The burning question is: what color is the Scarlet Witch's hair--is it black or is it brown? Over the years I've posted Wanda hair chronologies including at the CBR forums (though from what I understand, since their reboot older posts are stored in their archives). Anyway, here 's my handy-dandy overview of Wanda's Silver Age/Bronze Age hair color. Note, the following is based on how Wanda appeared in the actual Silver Age issues at the time these comics were first published, and not in reprints! 

Let's begin. As many Marvelites know, Wanda first appeared in 1964's X-Men #4. In her first appearance she had brown hair. Her hair color is not the same brown color as, say, Reed Richards, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Jane Foster or Betty Ross had; Wanda's hair is darker than theirs and there's a lot of black linework--inking--to accentuate her hair's curly/wavy texture; but Wanda's base color is undeniably brown. 

Wanda makes a point in X-Men #4 (1965)

Here are some more images of Wanda during her original stint with Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (X-Men #4-7, X-Men #11)  plus a shot of her in Strange Tales #128 (Jan. 1965). The brown-haired Wanda, Magneto and the rest of the Brotherhood also made an appearance in Journey Into Mystery/Thor #109 (Oct. 1964).

Wanda in  X-Men  4, 5, 6, 7 and 11;

plus Strange Tales 128 (Torch-Thing story)

As many Marvelites also know, Wanda and Pietro left Magneto's Brotherhood in X-Men #11 and immediately showed up in that same month's (in terms of release/publication date) Avengers comic, the famous Avengers #16. In both X-Men #11 and on the cover of Avengers #16 the base color of Wanda's hair is still brown. But inside #16 it's a different story, as we'll see next time in the Scarlet Witch Hair Color Chronicles - Part 2!

Avengers #16. 
Like X-Men #11, it's cover dated May 1965

The brown-haired Wanda

on the Avengers #16 cover