Scarlet Witch Fact — November 4, 2026

Today's Fact

Her codename promised one colour and her first cover delivered another — and the mismatch was a deliberate piece of cover design, not a printing error.

THE SCARLET WITCH DEBUTED IN GREEN — HER FIRST COVERS PAINTED HER THE WRONG COLOUR ON PURPOSE!

The Featured Fact

When Wanda Maximoff debuted in X-Men Vol. 1 #4 (March 1964), by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, she arrived as a reluctant member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. On that cover — and again on the cover of issue #5 — the Scarlet Witch wears a bright green costume, complete with a pointed headdress that closes under her chin. Turn to the story inside, and she is wearing scarlet from her very first panel: the green outfit existed only on the covers. The green costume is on full display in the gallery below.

The swap was a colourist's judgement call. Stan Goldberg, Marvel's unofficial lead colourist, had a free hand with cover colours, and a scarlet Wanda standing beside a scarlet Magneto would have blurred the composition's centre. Lee said as much himself in the letters page of X-Men #7: cover colours were sometimes changed simply to balance the design. The change had a knock-on effect — Pietro's costume was originally green, so Quicksilver was recoloured blue to keep the twins distinct, and blue became his lasting colour.

For sixty years the green suit remained a cover-only curiosity, something Wanda never actually wore in a story. That changed in Scarlet Witch Vol. 4 #2 (2024), when the ancient sorcerer Moridun magically transformed her costume into the green outfit mid-battle and mocked her as a “verdant amateur”. A colouring decision made to keep a 1964 cover tidy had finally walked into canon, six decades late and wearing the wrong colour on purpose.

Why It's Obscure

Plenty of characters change costumes. Wanda's most famous alternate look was one she never wore at all — until a villain dressed her in it as an insult.

Stan Goldberg

A free hand — The colourist behind Marvel's teen-humour line also coloured its superhero covers, and was trusted to alter a costume's colour whenever the cover needed it.

X-Men #7

The explanation — Stan Lee answered the green-costume question in print, in the issue's own letters page: sometimes a costume's colour changes on a cover just to balance the design.

Quicksilver

The ripple effect — Pietro lost his green costume to his sister's cover and gained the blue one instead; unlike Wanda's green, his replacement colour stuck permanently.

2024

Canon at last — Scarlet Witch Vol. 4 #2 turned the cover curiosity into an in-story costume, completing a sixty-year journey from colourist's shortcut to continuity.

Gallery

The evidence, side by side: the original 1964 cover with Wanda in green at Magneto's right hand, and the scarlet costume readers actually know.

Original X-Men issue 4 1964 cover showing Scarlet Witch in a green costume beside Magneto — **The wrong colour, in print** A copy of X-Men #4 (1964): at Magneto's right, Wanda wears the green costume with its chin-strap headdress — visible here exactly as 1964 readers first saw her.

Scarlet Witch in her red costume with hex energy comic art — **The colour she kept** Wanda in full scarlet, hexes lit: the look the interiors used from the start, and the one the covers caught up with once Magneto left the frame.

Scarlet Witch casting a hex close-up comic art — **Hex first, hue second** A close study of Wanda casting: whatever the cover department decided, the power — and the headdress silhouette — were already unmistakably hers.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Why Was the Scarlet Witch's First Costume Green? — CBRComic Book Legends Revealed: the green costume appears on the covers of X-Men #4 and #5 only, Goldberg recoloured it to balance Magneto's red, and Lee addressed it in X-Men #7.
10 Things Only Comics Fans Know About The Scarlet Witch — ScreenRantConfirms Wanda was not scarlet at first: she wore a green version of her costume in her first appearance while the interiors used the classic design.
Scarlet Witch's First Costume Is Finally Official Canon — ScreenRantOn Scarlet Witch (2024) #2: Moridun transforms Wanda's costume into the green 1964 cover outfit and calls her a “verdant amateur”, making the look canon sixty years on.