'Avengers: Age Of Ultron' Could Be Gaining Elizabeth Olsen As The Scarlet Witch

“Avengers: Age of Ulron” is still about two years out, and details on the upcoming blockbuster are scarce, but thanks to some new casting rumors, we’ve got a hint of where the “Avengers” sequel might be going. Elizabeth Olsen is highly rumored to play longtime Avenger the Scarlet Witch, hinting that she and her superspeeding brother Quicksilver will appear in the film.

According to MTV, the 24-year-old sister of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen is almost certainly set to play the Scarlet Witch. While she hasn’t appeared in tons of films so far, Olsen is slated to appear in “Oldboy” and “Godzilla,” meaning that she could be on her way to becoming a major star. No doubt appearing in a sequel to one of the highest-grossing movies ever would help her on that path.

So who exactly is the Scarlet Witch, anyway? Sister to Quicksilver and daughter of Magneto, Wanda Maximoff is the Avengers’ resident magic user. She has the ability to manipulate, and while it’s pretty explained in the comics, the upshot is that she can pretty much rearrange reality to suit her. Outside of her powers, the Scarlet Witch is best known for marrying a robot created by Ultron and for that one time she went crazy and killed all of her teammates.

The Scarlet Witch has been a member of the Avengers for decades, but she’s also part of another important Marvel franchise: the X-Men. She was originally introduced as a member of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the X-Men’s greatest group of villains, and though it wasn’t revealed at the time, Wanda and her brother Pietro were later found out they were Magneto’s children. After their stint with the mutant terrorists, the ever-optimistic Captain America decided that the two could be reformed and added them to the Avengers roster (Cap has history of adding ex-cons to the Avengers ranks. Black Widow and Hawkeye were also villains at one point).

But while the Scarlet Witch has strong ties to the X-Men and other mutants, it’s extremely unlikely that those connections will come up in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Currently, Sony owns the film rights to any and all X-Men characters and concepts, and the studio’s longrunning series of X-Men films is set in a completely different universe than Marvel Studios’ Avengers films.

While this version of the Scarlet Witch won’t be Magneto’s daughter or a mutant, given her years of attachment to the Avengers, there’s plenty to do with her character. Things could get especially interesting considering that Wanda’s longest-lasting partner in the comics was the Vision, a humanoid robot created by the evil Ultron (who, if you can’t guess by the title, is the villain of “Avengers: Age of Ultron”). Still, it remains to be seen exactly which angle the writers will take with her character. Let’s all hope it’s not the weird, alternate-universe version where she’s in love with her brother.

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” is set to premier summer 2015 with original “Avengers” director Joss Whedon at the helm.