Scarlet Witch #3
Scarlet Witch (2024) #3 marks the first full reappearance of Lore — Wanda Maximoff's necromantic multiversal counterpart — in a mainstream Marvel ongoing series in roughly thirty years, pulling a villain who had been dormant since the 1994 Scarlet Witch four-issue limited series back into active continuity. The issue's thematic weight comes from the dark-mirror dynamic at its core: Lore, a fellow nexus being who destroyed her own reality before turning her sights on the broader multiverse, forces Wanda to confront the most unsettling version of herself imaginable — one that surrendered to power and chaos rather than choosing heroism. That psychological framing, combined with Russell Dauterman's brand-new Lore design published as both cover and interior art, makes the issue a meaningful creative milestone in Steve Orlando's ongoing project of deepening Wanda's mythos and repositioning her as the Marvel Universe's premier mystical defender. The issue also serves as a generational bridge: it rewards readers familiar with the early-1990s solo material while remaining fully accessible to audiences who came to Wanda through the MCU.
In Scarlet Witch #3 (2024), Wanda faces a haunting trial as her dimension-hopping doppelgänger, Lure, forces her to relive past trials, while back in Lotkill, Quicksilver and Polaris fight a relentless Griever. With Darcy’s urgent plea to Hexfinder now underway, the fate of Wanda’s return to Earth hangs in the balance. Written by Steve Orlando and illustrated by Russell Dauterman, with inks by Jacopo Camagni and colors by Matthew Wilson and Frank William, the cover by Dauterman captures the story’s escalating tension.
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Scarlet Witch (2024) is the third distinct ongoing volume written by Steve Orlando, continuing the narrative threads he developed across the 2023 Scarlet Witch series and the 2024 Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver miniseries; Marvel announced the relaunch in February 2024, positioning it as a synthesis of that run's blockbuster energy and the more personal, magic-focused storytelling Orlando had established earlier. For issue #3 specifically, Orlando invited Russell Dauterman — who had been serving as the series' cover artist throughout — to also pencil and ink key interior sequences depicting the Wanda/Lore confrontation, making this the first issue of the 2024 run to feature Dauterman on interiors alongside series penciller Jacopo Camagni. The original Lore character had been created by writers Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett with penciller John Higgins and inker Mark McKenna for the 1994 limited series, and her reintroduction in #3 required Dauterman to build a new visual language for the character — one that deliberately inverted his own vibrant Scarlet Witch design with a gothic, undead aesthetic.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published August 21, 2024 (cover-dated October 2024) by Marvel Comics; written by Steve Orlando, interior art by Jacopo Camagni and Russell Dauterman, colors by Frank William and Matthew Wilson, letters by Ariana Maher, edited by Alanna Smith.
- Features the first return of Lore to a Marvel ongoing series since her original appearances in Scarlet Witch Vol. 1 #1–4 (January–April 1994), a gap of approximately thirty years.
- Lore was originally created by writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with penciller John Higgins and inker Mark McKenna; she is a necromantic nexus being from a parallel universe (Earth-TRN955) who destroyed her own world before targeting the mainstream Marvel Universe.
- Russell Dauterman, who had been the series' cover artist, also drew a portion of the interior pages for this issue — his first interior work on the 2024 volume — depicting the direct confrontation between Wanda and Lore.
- Dauterman's redesign of Lore for the issue was noted by multiple outlets as visually drawing from Elizabeth Olsen's 'Darkhold Wanda' appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), blending comics and MCU aesthetics.
- The issue carries four variant covers: a 1:25 Joëlle Jones incentive variant, a Belén Ortega variant, a Jessica Fong 'Disco Dazzler' themed variant, and a Ron Lim Marvel & Coca-Cola promotional variant.
- Narratively, the issue is the penultimate chapter of the opening arc of the 2024 series, with Wanda fighting to return to the land of the living while battling Lore in a mystical dimension.
- The 2024 Scarlet Witch ongoing is a direct continuation of Orlando's multi-title run that began with the 2023 Scarlet Witch series and continued through the Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver (2024) miniseries, forming a cohesive, extended solo chapter for the character.
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Reprinted in Scarlet Witch by Steve Orlando #4 (2024)
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