AGE OF ULTRON PREQUEL COMIC REVEALS ORIGIN OF QUICKSILVER AND SCARLET WITCH 

Age of Ultron Prequel Comic Reveals Origin of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch

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Warning: this article contains spoilers for Avengers: Age of Ultron!

Last month, Marvel released a digital prequel comic for Avengers: Age of Ultron that\'s proved to be surprisingly informative about some of the new characters in the film. Titled \'Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude - This Scepter\'d Isle\', the comic reveals how Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch receive their powers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Specifically, the comic explains that Baron Strucker uses Loki\'s scepter from the first Avengers movie to unlock Pietro\'s super-speed and Wanda\'s magical abilities.

This idea of latent superhuman abilities being unlocked falls in line with the theory that the two characters have been re-imagined as Inhumans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Inhumans are born with untapped genetic potential that is only unleashed when they\'re exposed to a process known as Terrigenesis. Recently, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series introduced the Inhumans into the MCU.

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\'This Scepter\'d Isle\' makes a number of other interesting revelations and adds some extra context to scenes glimpsed in the trailers for Age of Ultron. The comic explores how Strucker and his Hydra agents retrieved the scepter from a S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratory and teases a connection between the weapon and the Tesseract (which thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy we now know is one of the six Infinity Stones). Apparently Strucker himself was masquerading as a high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent before the organization\'s collapse in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The comic also reveals that Strucker\'s Hydra fortress is located in the fictional European nation of Sokovia. Wanda and Pietro are citizens of Sokovia and members of a protest movement lashing out against the corrupt government (hence the shot of protesters from the trailer). They, along with many others, are recruited by Strucker with the promise that they\'ll be given power to help them oppose the government. And while most of Strucker\'s test subjects die as a result of his experiments, it seems these two siblings are his first major successes. The comic ends with a rehash of the post-credits scene from Winter Soldier, as Strucker reflects on the irrelevance of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra and the coming "age of miracles."

\'Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude - This Scepter\'d Isle\' is written by Will Corona Pilgrim and drawn by Wellinton Alves. The comic is currently available for download on Comixology for $2.99. The story will also be collected next month along with several other Avengers issues in the graphic novel Marvel\'s Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude.

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.

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