★★★★☆ A functional family

Marvel: What If . . . Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings? (A Scarlet Witch & Spider-Man Story)

Seanan McGuire

I am not a compulsive writer. It's just that, when I'm not writing, I want to be.

This statement leapt to mind when I first became familiar with Seanan McGuire. The problem with authors like this is that they tend to lack filters. (Asimov certainly did.) I count myself a hard-core McGuire fan -- I have read almost every work of fiction she has published. (This is a big job, and complicated -- digging up her many and diverse publications is not a simple job.) Her best, in my opinion, is As Good As It Gets in urban fantasy. (Her best, in my opinion, is the October Daye series. I mention that because I know many fantasy readers have a lower opinion than I do. If you are one of those, apply the appropriate discount to my evaluation.) Her worst (Parasitology, in my opinion), alas, can be pretty bad.

What If... Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings? is neither her best, nor her worst, but it is much closer to the former than the latter. (For those still trying to work that out -- I'm saying it's good!) The premise is that Peter Parker's parents stumble across an abandoned baby Wanda in her native land of Latveria (a fictional Marvel Ruritania) and adopt her. Wanda and Peter grow up in Brooklyn, brought up together as brother and sister by Aunt May and Uncle Ben.

The real strength of WIWMaPPWS? is its depiction of the interior working of a realistically complicated but functional family. Of course, bad things happen. It's mostly the canonical Spiderman story. I won't spoil, but if you're a Marvel fan, much of the story will be familiar, with a new twist... Wanda's relationship with Peter seemed mostly believable to me. For instance, we have this bit of dialog when Spiderman and Wanda are seen patrolling together

“Spider-Man!” he gasps. “And…Spider-Man’s date?”
“Ew,” says Wanda reflexively.

That made me laugh, but also felt exactly right.

Do you need to be up on the Marvel Universe? I don't think so. I personally have seen most of the MCU movies, but very few of the comic books. In fact, WIWMaPPWS? inspired me to look up anthologies of the comic books. I discovered, to my delight, that there exists a Penguin Classics series of Marvel Comics collections.

Marvel: What If . . . Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings? on Amazon

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