Characters / MCU: Pietro Maximoff

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Spoilers for all works set prior to the end of WandaVision are unmarked.

Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver

"Keep up, old man!"

Species: Enhanced human

Citizenship: Sokovian

Affiliation(s): HYDRA (formerly), Ultron (formerly), Avengers

Portrayed By: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Gabriel Gurevich (young, WandaVision Episode 8) ^{Foreign voice actors}Arturo Castañeda (Latin-American Spanish dub), Adrián Viador (European Spanish dub), Fuminori Komatsu (Japanese dub), Jean-Christophe Dollé (European French dub), Kevin Houle (Canadian French dub), Gustavo Pereira (Brazilian Portuguese dub)

Appearances: Captain America: The Winter Soldier ^note  In The Stinger | Avengers: Age of Ultron | WandaVision ^note Archive footage from Age of Ultron and flashbacks as a child only

"I don't see the big picture. I have a little picture. I take it out and look at it every day."

Wanda's twin brother, who also underwent Wolfgang von Strucker's experiments, which gave him superhuman speed. He joins his sister in helping bring about Ultron's vision of a new order without the Avengers. After learning of Ultron's real intentions, Pietro defects alongside Wanda and they join the Avengers in order to save their planet — along with what remains of their home. However, he ends up sacrificing his life to save Hawkeye.

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#-L

• 11th-Hour Costume Change: Combined with Good Costume Switch, for the final battle in Sokovia, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff change into outfits more reminiscent of their comic book counterparts. Pietro puts on a silver shirt with blue accents while Wanda dons a red leather jacket.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: After serving as antagonists for the majority of the film, Pietro and his sister Wanda join forces with the Avengers right before the final battle against Ultron.
• Abled in the Adaptation: While he still struggles with deep-seated childhood trauma, he doesn't have his comic book counterpart's severe mental illness which made him prone to breakdowns and episodes.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Zig-Zagged. Pietro Maximoff's hair color is naturally white in the comics, whereas his MCU counterpart has dark brown hair, as shown in The Stinger of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and some flashback scenes in WandaVision, though it becomes white by the time of Avengers: Age of Ultron due to his exposure to the Mind Stone.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Practically every iteration of Quicksilver was born with his powers due to being a mutant. This Quicksilver received his powers as a result of experimentation with the Mind Stone.
• Adaptation Species Change: Like his sister, he was introduced as a mutant in the comics, but he’s a human experiment in the MCU continuity^note However, to better match the film versions, Pietro's and Wanda's origin in the comics was Retconned so that they are now human experiments in the original continuity too .
• Adaptational Nationality: From the fictional setting of Transia to the equally fictional Sokovia.
• Adaptational Villainy: While unlike the Ultimate Marvel, X-Men: Evolution, and Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) and in Pietro's case, his The Super Hero Squad Show counterparts, he and Wanda do make a Heel–Face Turn ^note their Ultimate counterparts joining the Ultimates was for protection against Magneto, much like those incarnations with Magneto, they were willing allies of HYDRA and Ultron here, as opposed to the originals being forced to work for Magneto.
• Adapted Out: Like Wanda, the fact that Fox owned the rights to the X-Men film franchise prior to 2019 means that his background is changed from having Magneto as his father to being the subject of experimentation.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: After Wanda gets freaked out when she discovers Ultron's true plans by exploring his mind in Helen Cho's lab, Pietro comes to her and tries to comfort her by hugging her and stroking her cheek.
• Age Lift: A minor example, but he mentions being older than Wanda by twelve minutes at one point. In the comics, Wanda is traditionally the older twin.
• Ambiguous Situation: With The Reveal in WandaVision that Wanda is a witch who was born with magical powers that were amplified by the Mind Stone, it's unclear how Pietro gained his powers and survived HYDRA's experiments. Did he also have some sort of innate potential that was activated by the Infinity Stone, did the stone (which was established as having an artificial intelligence) choose to spare him for its own reasons, or was Wanda (since she was tested before him) somehow involved in making sure he didn't suffer the fatal side effects like the other volunteers? The original final script of Episode 8 indicated the latter, with Agatha theorizing that Wanda subconsciously used her powers to protect Pietro and even grant him his own.
• Anti-Villain: At first, he antagonizes the Avengers because Tony Stark created the shells that bombed their home. Later, after he and Wanda realize Ultron's true motives, they join up with the Avengers.
• Arrow Catch: He's more than fast enough to catch arrows, as Hawkeye finds out the hard way. He's also fast enough to catch Mjölnir in flight, although catching it isn't the hard part.
• The Baby of the Bunch: During the brief time he was part of The Avengers, Pietro was one of the youngest members alongside his sister Wanda (who is technically 12 minutes younger than he is). While in his mid-twenties, he was probably the most childish member of the team and occasionally teased the older members about their age, such as calling Hawkeye an "old man".
• Badass Arm-Fold: Does this during the meeting with Ulysses Klaue in an attempt to look intimidating. However, Klaue isn't particularly impressed.
• Bash Siblings: With the rest of the Avengers, especially Captain America and Hawkeye (the latter with whom Pietro shares a friendly rivalry).
• Beard of Evil: Unlike most other versions of Pietro Maximoff, he has a small beard and spends most of his screen time as a villainous henchman working for HYDRA and later Ultron, although he eventually makes a Heel–Face Turn during the last act of Age of Ultron.
• Big Brother Instinct: In all their shared scenes, it's clear that he's protective of his sister. He is also the older twin of the two here (in the comics, Wanda is traditionally the older twin).
• Big Damn Hero: Just as Ultron is beginning to overwhelm Captain America during their fight on the train in Seoul, Pietro unexpectedly arrives running at Super-Speed and knock Ultron back, saving the Captain.
  • Also, he shows up just in time to shield Hawkeye and Costel from Ultron's bullets at the end of the film.
• Blue Is Heroic: Pietro has blue eyes and he starts wearing a blue outfit after he and Wanda decide to stop Ultron by joining the Avengers. His streaks after running also have a blue tint to them.
• Book Ends: He's introduced and shown in his last scene in the same way: running into Clint and saying, "You didn't see that coming?"
• Break the Cutie: He and Wanda were Cheerful Children who loved watching sitcoms together with their family. Then a mortar shell hit their apartment one night while they were watching an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, killing both of their parents and leaving the twins with a seething hatred of Tony Stark as a result of seeing his company's logo on another shell that they were terrified would go off and kill them as well.
• Bridal Carry: This is how he carries Wanda when he has to take her with him while he's running to another location.
• Brother–Sister Team: He and Wanda have been the primary person in each others' lives since the death of their parents, and this shows in their dynamic on and off the battlefield.
• Bulletproof Human Shield: At the end of the film, Pietro uses himself as one to protect Hawkeye and a Sokovian child from being shot by Ultron. An even more absurd example than normal, what given the bullets are being fired from a quinjet.
• Bullet Time: Because he's so much faster than everybody around him, everything is incredibly slow when he's running. This is best seen during the fight in the Salvage Yard, where everyone is moving in slow-motion which allows him to dodge Captain America's shield and land a punch on him. It's Played for Laughs during The Avengers' brief scuffle in Avengers Tower when he sees a bullet come up from the ground, unaware that he's standing on a glass floor and Hawkeye just fired a bullet from below, causing Pietro to fall to the platform below and Hawkeye pinning him down afterwards.
• Butt-Monkey: Pietro is usually injured or taken out in amusing ways, such as trying to grab Mjölnir and going sailing in the other direction.
• The Casanova: While not particularly apparent in the theatrical version of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the film's deleted scenes show that Pietro was quite the ladies' man:
  • He tries to seduce a young woman from Sokovia named Zrinka by offering her a beautiful dress, only for Wanda to point out that he does this with pretty much every girl in town.
    Wanda: Is every girl in Sokovia getting a dress from Paris? At least Gertie's looked warm.
  • He also attempts to flirt with another Sokovian girl during the evacuation of the city.
    Pietro: But, uh... maybe I see you after?
• Casting Gag: This is not the first time Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays a superhero with a traumatic past.
• Celebrity Paradox: Godzilla was mentioned in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who plays Pietro, played Ford Brody in the 2014 film.
• Character Catchphrase: "You didn't see that coming?" Hawkeye borrows it at one point.
• Character Death: He dies saving Hawkeye and a young boy by shielding them from gunfire with his own body after Ultron tried to open fire and kill civilians who were being evacuated from Sokovia.
• Childish Older Sibling: He's twelve minutes older than Wanda but he's also more impulsive, rash, and cockier.
• Civvie Spandex: Wears at least three blueish outfits throughout the movie: a blue tracksuit with white arrows on its side, a dark blue vest over a light blue T-shirt with black track pants, and his main promotional costume: a grey and blue undershirt with blue track pants. The last outfit, in particular, looks a bit like he's closet cosplaying his comic outfit. Justified, since the twins are poor street urchins who steal whatever clothes they can find to form outfits. Also, they don't join the Avengers until halfway into the movie, when the team would be busy dealing with Ultron.
• Closet Shuffle: Played for Drama. When their apartment building was hit by mortar shells during their childhood, the young Pietro and his twin sister hid under a bed. They were trapped under debris for two days before being rescued.
• Co-Dragons: He and his sister serve as co-conspirators for Ultron until they decide to join the Avengers.
• Color Character: Quicksilver.
• Colorful Contrails: Pietro Maximoff leaves a blue-white trail as he moves at lightning-fast speeds.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: He is never referred to as "Quicksilver" in the film. Hawkeye calling him a "quick little bastard" is the closest it gets.
• Composite Character: Pietro and Wanda are introduced as a pair of superpowered twins working for Baron von Strucker. This is much like the Fenris twins, Strucker's own mutant children from the comics.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Pietro and Wanda's parents were killed after their apartment building was caught in a bombing when they were ten years old.
• Cracking Up: At the beginning of the final battle, he cracks his neck before running through a bunch of Ultron Sentries.
• Cut the Juice: When Steve Rogers and the Maximoff twins come to the Avengers Tower and confront Tony Stark and Bruce Banner for trying to experiment on the dormant Vibranium body that Ultron created with Helen Cho's Cradle, Pietro quickly gets fed up with their arguing and decides to simply use his Super-Speed to unplug the machine.
• Dark and Troubled Past: While the Maximoffs were having a TV night, Pietro's parents were killed by a mortar shell, orphaning him and Wanda. They then spent two days trapped under the rubble, mere feet away from another shell, until they were rescued. This ordeal left the twins with a burning hatred for Tony Stark, as his family's company had developed the mortar shells. They grew up in an orphanage while their home became embroiled in further war and spent their youth protesting against foreign military occupation in Sokovia, especially the United States and the Avengers, which led to them being recruited into HYDRA.
• Dead All Along: In WandaVision, it seems at first that either Wanda or Agatha Harkness resurrected him in a new body but Agatha later reveals to Wanda that this wasn't the case and the "Pietro" who appeared in Westview was a fake. The finale reveals that the fake Pietro (or "Fietro", as Agatha calls him) was just a random guy Agatha enthralled and granted powers with an enchanted necklace.
• Deadpan Snarker: Pietro is quite fast in making witty comments.
• Death by Adaptation: Pietro Maximoff has died in the comics but he came Back from the Dead and is currently alive. In the MCU, he never comes back to life after his death.
• Demoted to Extra: In the comics, Pietro Maximoff is a major member of the Avengers who has been part of the team for years and has had plenty of adventures with them. In the MCU, he only joins the team for one battle before getting killed.
• Didn't See That Coming: It's his catchphrase and true to his word, his Super-Speed has makes him rather unpredictable and difficult to anticipate.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: While the character of Pietro Maximoff has died before in the comics, he has never been shot to death by Ultron.
• Dies Wide Open: After being shot multiple times by Ultron, Pietro collapses to the ground with both eyes still open. However, his eyes are later shown to be closed when his corpse is taken to one of the lifeboats.
• Disarm, Disassemble, Destroy: He uses his superspeed to snatch a pistol from Arms Dealer Ulysses Klaue and instantly unload and disassemble it, lining the parts and rounds neatly up on the table next to him. Klaue is surprised but quickly regains his cool.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He first appears in The Stinger of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but doesn't play an important role until Age of Ultron.
• Enemy Mine: When he and Wanda find out Ultron's true plan, they turn on him and decide to help The Avengers stop him, though they're clearly not on good terms with Tony Stark.
• Epic Fail: He tries to lift and use Mjōlnir, unaware that one has to be worthy to wield it, and is sent flying towards a box of crates and getting hit in the face by Captain America with his shield when he tries to get up.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • What causes his Heel–Face Turn in Age of Ultron. While Pietro was vengeful enough to side with the likes of Ultron for a shot at revenge against the likes of the Avengers, he absolutely does not approve of destroying the entire Earth in order to do so.
  • Even though he's a villain at this point, Pietro looks pretty shocked when he sees Ultron lose his temper and slice off Ulysses Klaue's arm for merely comparing him to Tony Stark.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Deleted Scenes show him flirting with and offering gifts to Zrinka, a young, attractive blonde woman.
• Fatal Family Photo: While not actually shown, he mentions early on in Age of Ultron that he looks at a picture of his deceased parents every day. Naturally, he doesn't survive the movie.
• Fictional Accent: Pietro and his sister, who are from the fictional country of Sokovia, speak with an accent that resembles a blend of Russian, Ukrainian, and a couple other existing accents.
• Firing in the Air a Lot: When the police department ignore his warnings of the city being under attack, he comes back with an assault rifle and fires it in the air to get them off their asses before handing the rifle to a nearby police officer.
• Flash Step: His powers allow him to do this, as shown when he uses his Super-Speed to run behind Ulysses Klaue without him realizing what's going on.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: This is the Maximoff twins' dynamic, with Pietro being the Foolish Sibling and Wanda the Responsible Sibling. A deleted scene shows Pietro handing out stolen supplies to fellow countrymen, and Wanda chides him for stealing, saying he's going to get shot one day. It's most apparent in fight scenes, as Pietro is quick to rush off into a fight while Wanda lingers behind until it comes to a confrontation that she cannot avoid.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: He goes completely unmentioned beyond Age of Ultron, aside from Hawkeye indirectly alluding to Pietro in Civil War by suggesting he owed someone a debt. Finally subverted by the events of WandaVision, in which Wanda brings up the fact that she's a twin and that her brother didn't make it... and is disturbed as soon as "Geraldine" mentions that Ultron killed him. Given her reaction, it's less Pietro's been forgotten and more bringing him up around Wanda is too much of a raw nerve.
• Fragile Speedster: He has Super-Speed, but limited endurance: prolonged running takes a visible toll on him, and he needs to catch his breath at times. He's also not fast enough to stop bullets, unfortunately.
• Freudian Excuse: He was orphaned when a Stark Industries missile took out his parents, leaving him and Wanda stuck waiting for two days for a second one to go off and take them. Living in poverty for years afterwards, he and Wanda signed up for HYDRA to experiment on them and give them powers in order for the twins to protect Sokovia and exact revenge.
• Friendly Rivalry: His rivalry with Hawkeye turns into this when he turns on Ultron and joins The Avengers, with the two snarking at each other while fighting together.
• Friend to All Children: Even before his Heel–Face Turn, Pietro was shown to act pretty nice towards Zrinka's younger brother Costel. He gets a football for the boy in a deleted scene, and he ultimately sacrifices his life to save Costel at the end of the movie.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He was a poor orphan from an obscure country who volunteered for a lab experiment by a terrorist organization, and unexpectedly survived to become a superpowered individual capable of giving a lot of trouble to the Avengers themselves and tearing apart dozens of Ultron Sentries with little difficulty.
• Glass Cannon: Because of his Super-Speed, Pietro can hit like a freight train; guaranteed to knock down or knock out whoever he hits while running and this makes it quite easy for him to tear apart Ultron Sentries in the final battle. However, he has a very limited endurance so running for too long can tire him out and he needs to catch his breath afterwards. He's also not tough enough to survive getting peppered by bullets.
• Good Feels Good: After their Heel–Face Turn, Pietro and his sister discover that helping save people feels pretty nice.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: When he isn't destroying drones by running through them, he's punching them.
• Gory Discretion Shot: We don't see him get peppered by bullets, only his bullet-riddled body after the act. This is quite strange considering how earlier in the film, Ultron hacked off Ulysses Klaue's left arm onscreen.
• Guilt by Association: He and Wanda were orphaned when a Stark Industries missile took out their parents, so they hate Iron Man/Tony Stark, and as he is one of the Avengers, the twins go after them. Both eventually grow out of it, though.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: He runs right into battle with nothing but his fists, while his sister's telekinetic and telepathic powers don't require her to get close to anyone.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: The light-haired, Hot-Blooded to Wanda's Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette.
• Harmful to Minors: At the age of 10, Pietro and his sister had to witness their parents being crushed to death when their apartment was struck by mortar shells.
• Heel–Face Turn: After he and Wanda find out Ultron's real plan, they quickly jump ship.
• Heroic Bystander: From what he tells Ultron during their first meeting, the ten-year-old Pietro saved his twin sister when their apartment building was struck by mortar shells by grabbing her and taking her to safety under a bed, allowing both of them to survive. This event is eventually shown in detail during a flashback scene in WandaVision.
• Heroic RRoD: Downplayed, but after running as fast as he can to move dozens of civilians out of the path of the out-of-control train in Seoul, Pietro is exhausted and needs a few minutes before he can move, which Captain America is very tempted not to give him.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He pulls one in the final battle, blocking a shower of bullets from an Ultron-controlled Quinjet to protect Hawkeye. This was done because Clint himself was performing a Heroic Sacrifice by attempting to shield a little boy from the Quinjet's fire.
• A Hero to His Hometown: While he's initially an enemy to the Avengers, he's this to Novi Grad, Sokovia. The locals gladly accept the stolen supplies he provides for them and follow his order to leave the city without question in Deleted Scenes. He's even more well-liked than Wanda because he's much more sociable and friendlier. However, it's implied that the local law enforcement isn't too fond of him (likely because he steals from the rich citizens) as they initially ignore his pleas to evacuate the city until he fires a gun in the air and orders them to get off their asses. Some of the locals are even on a First-Name Basis with him, likely because they knew him way before he got his superpowers.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: His fight scenes mostly consist of him running towards someone to punch or ram into and then running away afterward.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: During the fight on Klaue's ship, Pietro is running around taking shots at the Avengers. As he sees Mjölnir flying by, he doubles back to make use of it. Cue the hammer dragging him into a pile of crates.
• Holding Hands: In the first scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Pietro and his twin sister Wanda hold each other's hand upon hearing that their HYDRA base is being attacked by the Avengers.
• Hope Spot: After getting pumped full of gatling gun rounds, Pietro stands up, looking none the worse for wear... then he crashes to the ground and dies within a second.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Like his sister, he lets his hatred of Tony Stark (and by extension the Avengers) lead him to trust both HYDRA and Ultron before switching sides.
• Hunk: He's a handsome and well-built man, and we even get a glimpse of his muscular physique when he suits up for the final battle.
• Hypocrite: Pietro and Wanda Maximoff have an Irrational Hatred of Tony Stark, whom they blame for the death of their parents because a mortar shell from Stark Industries killed them. So they reply by joining HYDRA, the Nebulous Evil Organisation on Earth which has inflicted ten times the damage of Stark Industries. It gets even worse as when HYDRA fails to stop the Avengers, the twins join Ultron and only switch sides when they learn he means to destroy the entire world and kill every single person (including them). Not to mention, they had no problem brainwashing the Hulk and unleashing him on a defenseless town; one wonders how many people were killed by the green artillery shell with the Maximoffs' names written on it that they themselves fired, and the irony of this is completely lost on them.
• Intergenerational Rivalry: Hawkeye is visibly much older than him and they spend most of the movie trying to one-up each other, with Pietro ribbing Clint for his age.
• Invulnerable Knuckles: He rips through Ultron units with ease using only his bare hands. It's a Required Secondary Power for a speedster.
• Ironic Echo: His first and last lines to Clint, with the last being much harsher in hindsight.
  Pietro: You didn't see that coming?
• "Just Joking" Justification: When Wanda tells the girl he's trying to woo by offering a dress that he does this with all the girls in Sokovia in a deleted scene, Pietro embarrassingly claims to the offended girl that she's just saying that as a joke.
  Pietro: Ahem, she's kidding...
• Just Like Robin Hood: A Deleted Scene reveals that he uses his Super-Speed to steal necessities and distributes them to the Sokovian citizens who need food, clothes, and medicine. Wanda chastises him for stealing too much out of concern that he will be killed for it.
• Killed Off for Real: In a universe where someone can cheat death through the snap of one's fingers, magic spells, drugs made from alien DNA, mystical substances, or even just getting your past self plucked from the timeline, Pietro remains dead and buried.
• Locked into Strangeness: His hair turned white after HYDRA experimented on him with the Mind Stone which granted him Super-Speed.
• Lovable Rogue: In a deleted scene, it's revealed that Pietro actively uses his powers to steal from the rich to provide for the poorer people of Sokovia.

M-Y

• Major Injury Underreaction: During the final battle, Pietro gets accidentally grazed in the arm by a policeman, and his reaction is nothing more than mild annoyance. This may be due to his metabolism being enhanced by his powers.
• Manchild: Like his sister, he's a bit emotionally stunted as a result of his traumatic background stemming from the death of their parents. The difference is that while Wanda is a more introverted example of the trope, Pietro is more extroverted. His impulsiveness, flirtatious attitude, and arrogance are more akin to a troublesome teenager instead of a grown man.
• Misplaced Retribution: When he and Wanda were kids, a shell smashed into their apartment block, killing their parents and staring them in the face for two days. It hampered efforts to rescue them as they waited to see if it would explode. Pietro and Wanda then blamed Tony Stark, whose company made the shell, rather than the people who actually fired it. They also hate the Avengers merely because they're associated with Tony, and instead of getting their revenge on him as an individual, they go after the Avengers as a whole. Thankfully, he and Wanda both eventually realize that they are wrong.
• Mook Carryover: Pietro and his sister Wanda started off their villainous career as henchmen for HYDRA. However, a few days after the downfall of Baron Strucker, they are both recruited by Ultron, the new major enemy of the Avengers.
• Motive Misidentification: The Maximoff twins misidentify Ultron's motives, as well as his plan, in Avengers: Age of Ultron at first, much to their regret.
• Mr. Fanservice: He's quite handsome and muscular. There is even a glimpse of his abs when he changes clothes for the final battle.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: He dies protecting Hawkeye and a little boy from an onslaught of bullets, resulting in this. However, he survives for a few seconds before collapsing dead.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Between him, Wanda and Ultron, Pietro is the most eager to kill the Avengers, to the point that he complains when the other two make plans against them that don't involve killing them.
  Pietro: [Annoyed] Everyone's plan is not to kill them.
• Mystical White Hair: It's not remarked on in the film, but flashbacks of him as a child show him with dark brown hair, indicating his hair color is a side effect of the experiments with the scepter.
• No Indoor Voice: As a kid, Pietro is excitable enough to shout all the time. Agatha actually lampshaded this.
  Pietro: IN ENGLISH, PAPA!
  Agatha: He's loud, isn't he?
  (later in the flashback)
  Pietro: WANDA!
  Agatha: I mean, we're right here.
• Nominal Villain: The only reason Pietro and his sister join Ultron is their desire to get revenge on Tony Stark and because they're sincerely convinced Ultron is a legitimate alternative to the Avengers in protecting the world. When Wanda manages to read Ultron's mind and see his plan for destroying mankind and Earth, they decide to turn against him.
• Not Bad: Despite having been a member of HYDRA, when he sees the Helicarrier arriving in Sokovia to help the civilians, he admits that S.H.I.E.L.D. is not as bad as he thought.
  Pietro: This is S.H.I.E.L.D.?
  Steve Rogers: This is what S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to be.
  Pietro: This is not so bad.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: In Age of Ultron, he and Wanda seem to be evil at first, until it's dug deeper that they just lost their parents to a weapon of Stark Industries when they were kids and want revenge. When Wanda looks into Ultron's mind and sees what he desires, she and Pietro join the Avengers' side.
• "Not So Different" Remark: As Cap remarks when he learns of their origins, Pietro and Wanda are just like him, in that they volunteered to be experimented on so that they could gain superpowers with which to protect their country. In both cases, the scientists (Erskine and Strucker, respectively) were German too.
  Steve Rogers: What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country?
  Maria Hill: We're not at war, Captain.
  Steve Rogers: They are.
• Not Wearing Tights: He never wears a proper costume, though the running gear he dons in the final battle has the same color scheme as his costume from the comics as a Mythology Gag.
• Not What I Signed on For: Pietro and his twin sister initially join Ultron's side when he tells them he wants to destroy the Avengers, since it was a Stark Industries bomb that destroyed their home and killed their parents. Both promptly pull a Heel–Face Turn when they find out that Ultron is also plotting The End of the World as We Know It.
• Oh, Crap!: Quicksilver goes through this when he tries to grab Mjolnir in slowed time with his Super-Speed, only to discover too late that he's unworthy.
• One-Man Army: His superhuman speed allows him to take on multiple Avengers at once, and power through several Ultron Sentries effortlessly.
• Parental Abandonment: His parents were killed by a mortar shell developed by Stark Industries, leaving him and Wanda as orphans, which is the root of their enmity with Tony Stark.
• Pet the Dog: In a deleted scene, a pre-Heel–Face Turn Pietro provides supplies to the people of Sokovia, including medicine for a sick elderly man who can't afford insurance, showing that even at this point he wasn't that bad of a guy.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Pietro dresses in Blue while his twin sister Wanda dresses in Red. Pietro also leaves behind blue energy when he runs, while Wanda's magical energy is dark red. Their taste in clothing follows gender lines too, with Pietro wearing athletic gear while Wanda wears dresses and loves to accessorize. Even as children, they had the same color dynamic.
• Platonic Kissing: He plants a kiss on the side of his sister's head to comfort her when she voices her horror over Ultron's plan.
• Posthumous Character: Played with. Although Pietro dies in the movie he's introduced in and is seldom mentioned afterward, his death hits the Avengers pretty hard, especially with Clint and Wanda. The former decides to give his newborn baby "Pietro" as his middle name, whereas the latter barely talks about her brother due to the trauma his death caused her.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: Getting superpowers from Strucker's experiments caused his dark brown hair to turn white.
• Power Incontinence: His introductory scene shows what happens when Super-Speed meets a small, enclosed cell. Not a great combo.
• Precious Photo: We don't actually get to see it, but Pietro mentions that he keeps a picture of his dead parents with him and looks at it on a daily basis. It even provides the Page Quote.
• Pre Mortem Catch Phrase: Says, "You didn't see that coming?" right before his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Inverted. In the comics, Pietro has a major romantic relationship with the Inhuman Royal Family member Crystal, with the two even having a daughter named Luna together. In the MCU, Pietro probably never even met Crystal, as she never visited Earth until he's already dead.
• Race Lift: The Maximoff twins have usually been portrayed as Romani in the comics (either as the children of Magneto and his Romani wife Magda, children of the Romani Django and Marya Maximoff, or children of the Romani Natalya Maximoff), and of Jewish ancestry during the period when they were considered Magneto's children. In the MCU, they are portrayed as white Eastern Europeans.^note Aaron Taylor-Johnson is ethnically Jewish, however.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: He has a pale complexion and prior to participating in Strucker's experiments where he got his superpowers, he possessed dark hair.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: With his twin, Wanda. Despite their color scheme, Pietro was the more impulsive of the two, with a tendency to leap before thinking. Justified, as he is a speedster who can get away with just about anything.
• Redemption Equals Death: Pulls a Heel–Face Turn before the final battle and dies Taking the Bullet for Hawkeye and a kid the latter rescued.
• Required Secondary Powers: To go with his Super-Speed, he is strong enough to plow into (or through) his enemies without pulping himself on impact. He also has reflexes quick enough to avoid running into things.
• Revenge Before Reason: The Maximoff twins want revenge on Tony Stark, who created the bombs that killed their parents, to the point that anyone with him is, in their eyes, either just as bad as he was or simply Collateral Damage, though eventually they come to realize the error of their ways and become Avengers themselves.
• Revenge Myopia: Pietro and Wanda want revenge on Tony Stark because a Stark missile killed their parents... except that while Tony's company did make the missile, it wasn't him who aimed or fired it. Hell, it likely wasn't even him that sold it, given this happened during the time Obadiah Stane was selling under the table.
• The Rival: Pietro has a clear rivalry with Hawkeye throughout Avengers: Age of Ultron, with the two always confronting each other during each of their fight scenes. Once Pietro joins the Avengers, it becomes more of a Friendly Rivalry.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Quicksilver in the comics was originally an enemy of the X-Men. In Age Of Ultron, he's an adversary of the Avengers prior to his Heel–Face Turn.
• Rule of Three: In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Pietro gets shot at in slow motion three times, with the bullet getting closer each time. The first time Hawkeye shoots out the floor from underneath him. Then at one point in the final battle, he's grazed in the left arm by a Sokovian police officer. And finally, he ends up being shot multiple times during Ultron's strafing run.
• Sacrificial Lion: He's the first Avenger to actually die... and, come Infinity War and Endgame, isn't the only one to.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After finding out that Ultron's true plan is to wipe out humanity, Pietro and Wanda both decide to leave his side and get away from him as fast as possible.
• Self-Serving Memory: When recounting the destruction of the Maximoff home in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Pietro mentions that it happened during dinner and that the floor fell from under them. However, when this event is shown on-screen during a flashback in WandaVision, the mortar shells actually hit the apartment while the family was watching television after dinner and it caused the roof to collapse, so it seems like Pietro is remembering the incident differently.
• Shirtless Scene: Pietro gets a very short one as he changes his shirt while gearing up for the Final Battle.
• Sibling Seniority Squabble: Pietro normally follows Wanda's lead, but when she tells him not to worry about protecting her and to help the people of Sokovia in the climactic battle, he jokingly reminds her that he's technically older than she is by twelve minutes before complying (in the original comics, it is traditionally Wanda who is the older twin).
• Siblings in Crime: Pietro and his sister Wanda have joined the terrorist organization HYDRA together and they spend the majority of Avengers: Age of Ultron as a duo of villainous henchmen bent on killing the Avengers until they have a change of heart.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: With Wanda. In contrast to her, Pietro's more impulsive, incautious, and less serious.
• Smug Super: He can move too fast to be seen, and doesn't hesitate to rub it in people's faces. ("You didn't see that coming?") He also mocks Hawkeye three times about being an old man.
• Sole Survivor: In both Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Avengers: Age of Ultron, it's mentioned that he and Wanda were the only test subjects of Strucker who survived his experiments.
• Spared by the Cut: An alternate ending scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron was shot that features Pietro surviving the final battle and joining the New Avengers at the end alongside his sister while wearing a new costume. Ultimately, the theatrical cut didn't use that scene and has Pietro getting killed by Ultron in the final battle.
• Speed Blitz: He's fond of charging at his opponents at full speed, knowing that none of them are quick enough to anticipate and counter it. Steve even describes him as "a blur" after their fight.
• Speed Demon: He's fast and he knows it. His catchphrase is "You didn't see that coming?" which is him bragging about how incredibly quick he is. He also frequently makes quips towards Hawkeye who he jokes is much slower than him because of his age, calling him an "old man" after picking Wanda up and running away.
• The Speedster: Pietro is the main speedster of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, being shown as fast enough to outpace even Mjolnir. However, he doesn't appear to be quite fast enough to outrun bullets as he was only able to jump in the way of several shots aimed at Hawkeye which costs him his life.
• Story-Breaker Power: He stands out as one in a settting where people - including his sister Wanda - are considerably more powerful than him; his ability to move faster than the eye can see, fast enough that bullets are moving in slow motion. Wanda's powers are Strong as They Need to Be and can be dialed down to just telekinesis as necessary, but there's no way to justify "Oh well, suddenly he's not fast enough to TKO everyone on the field in a few seconds tops". He would have been a great boon to either side of the fight in Captain America: Civil War for example. He also may have been able to talk down Wanda from her Face–Heel Turn.
• Super-Reflexes: He has this as part of his Required Secondary Powers, as he needs it to avoid running into things he shouldn't. With it he was able to dodge a shield throw from Captain America and catch an arrow from Hawkeye.
• Super-Speed: His ability, which he first demonstrates in his cell, is to move too fast to be seen.
• Super-Strength: Pietro has low-level superhuman strength likely because he needs it as a Required Secondary Power for his Super-Speed to work properly. He's able to lift and tear apart Ultron Sentries without hurting or bruising his knuckles, stagger Captain America with his blows, and effortlessly lifts and carries Wanda or other people (as seen when he's saving civilians from getting hit by a train in South Korea) when he's running.
• Sweet Tooth: Downplayed, but when Klaue offers some sweets to the Maximoff twins, Pietro can't resist using his Super-Speed to take one.
• Taking the Bullet: At the end of the Final Battle, Pietro takes not one but an entire rain of bullets from an Ultron-commandeered Quinjet to save Hawkeye and a little Sokovian boy, dying in the process.
• Team Member in the Adaptation: While Pietro Maximoff was affiliated with a few villainous organizations in the comics, he has never been a member of HYDRA unlike his MCU counterpart.
• Tempting Fate:
  • In a deleted scene, Wanda reprimands him for stealing too much and warns that if he keeps it up, he'll get shot. Seeing as he now has Super-Speed, Pietro's only response is to scoff and roll his eyes. Take one guess how he dies later on.
  • Pietro also promises to pick Wanda up after she has destroyed all the Ultron Sentries trying to reverse the anti-gravity device.
• Time-Shifted Actor: Pietro is portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson as an adult in The Stinger of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron, while Gabriel Gurevich plays his child self when he appears in a flashback scene of WandaVision.
• Token Competent Minion:
  • Pietro and his sister serve as this for Baron Strucker. While all of his other soldiers get slaughtered with ridiculous ease by the Avengers during the opening battle, the Maximoff twins are the only ones who are able to give them some trouble.
  • To a lesser extent, they are this to Ultron as well. While the Ultron Sentries are clearly more dangerous than the HYDRA goons, they are still dispatched in large numbers by the Avengers without too much effort. The twins, on the other hand, pose an actual threat to them.
• Token Super: Being the only two subjects of HYDRA's experiments on the Mind Stone to have been successful, Pietro and his twin sister are the only superpowered individuals to be part of Baron Strucker’s HYDRA Cell.
• Toyless Toyline Character: Very little merchandise was made for the character.
• Tragic Keepsake: He tells Ultron that he keeps a small picture of his parents that he frequently looks at.
• Tragic Villain: Starts off as one in Age of Ultron, being motivated by a desire to protect Sokovia and avenge his parents' deaths, before eventually joining the Avengers and dying a hero.
• Trauma Button: He becomes this to Wanda following his death, which is why he's rarely brought up afterwards. "Geraldine" bringing up his death causes Wanda to throw her out of the Hex.
• Troll: Out of all The Avengers, he loves picking on Hawkeye the most. He frequently one ups and makes fun of him throughout the entire movie.
• Twins Are Special: Subverted. Pietro and Wanda are classified as "enhanced individuals" because of their powers, but their powers are not a product of their twinness, nor are their abilities (superspeed and psychic/magical powers, respectively) particularly complementary. When Pietro dies, Wanda does instantly sense it from far away, but a reciprocal psychic link between the two hadn't been established before this point, so it's likely this has more to do with Wanda's individual telepathy than anything else.
• Twin Telepathy: He and Wanda are extremely close and seem to move perfectly in tandem. It's justified as Wanda is a telepath.
• Unskilled, but Strong: His Super-Speed has made him incredibly powerful, but due to gaining his powers only recently, his fighting skills are rather lacking. When he fights, he mostly just hits people once before running away and his inexperience has led to both Thor and Hawkeye outsmarting him on their own at two different points in the film.
• Unwitting Pawn: Both Pietro and his sister volunteered to be experimented upon by what they thought was S.H.I.E.L.D., so they could protect Sokovia from a military invasion, unaware that HYDRA were the ones responsible for the invasion in the first place.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: From what is shown in the flashbacks of WandaVision, Pietro was once a cheerful, playful kid, a far cry from the supervillain working with HYDRA and Ultron to kill the Avengers that he becomes as an adult.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: Subverted. During the battle on Klaue's ship, Pietro tries to take advantage of his Super-Speed to steal Mjölnir from Thor and use it against the Avengers, only to find out the hard way that he's not worthy.
• Villain Team-Up: After the Avengers dismantle the HYDRA faction operating in Sokovia, he and Wanda team up with Ultron to get another opportunity at taking down The Avengers. After Wanda finds out that Ultron's plan is to cause an extinction-level event, they turn on Ultron and decide to assist The Avengers in stopping his plans.
• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: Pietro and Wanda Maximoff both serve as the Strong Underlings to Baron Strucker's Weak Boss, as they are both enhanced individuals capable of taking on the Avengers, while Strucker is an old man with no combat skills who doesn't even try to defend himself when Captain America comes to capture him.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He dies in his first full appearance. It makes his Heroic Sacrifice all the more surprising.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Although their anger towards the Avengers is misplaced, the reason Pietro and Wanda volunteer to undergo experimentation with Loki's scepter is because they believe that their new powers will allow them to crush their oppressors and resist external interference in Sokovia.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: As a Sokovian, he has a vaguely Serbian accent, though not as pronounced as his sister's.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Pietro's hair has turned white from the experiments that gave him his powers, and he's a villain working for HYDRA and then Ultron whose primary goal is to kill the Avengers. Subverted, as he eventually realizes the error of his ways and joins the heroes.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Pietro is confused as to why Wanda decides to let Tony just take Loki's Scepter and leave him unharmed instead of taking advantage of the fact that he's alone and defenseless to simply kill him on the spot, and openly asks her about it in a deleted scene. Later, he also complains that Ultron's plan is to have Wanda use her powers to mess with the Avenger members' minds rather than kill them (because Ultron doesn't want to make them martyrs).
• You Killed My Father: The only reason he and Wanda join HYDRA, and later, Ultron, is because they lost their parents to an explosion caused by a weapon of Stark Industries during a civil war. He does put his animosity towards Tony aside following his Heel–Face Turn.
• Younger Villain Vs Older Hero: Before their Heel–Face Turn, Pietro and Wanda Maximoffs were the Younger Villains opposing the Older Heroes, as they are in their mid-20s while the Avengers members range in age from early 30s (in the case of Natasha Romanoff) to over a thousand years old (in the case of Thor).
• You're Just Jealous: When Wanda complains about him giving stolen dresses to many Sokovian girls in a deleted scene, Pietro accuses her of simply being jealous because he didn't offer her one as well.
  Wanda: Is every girl in Sokovia getting a dress from Paris? At least Gertie's looked warm.
  Pietro: (to Zrinka) She's kidding. (to Wanda) You're jealous you're not getting a dress.

Alternate Versions

Ralph Bohner / "Pietro Maximoff"

See his folder on the Westview page.

Variants

Peter Maximoff

See his folder on the X-Men Film Series: New Timeline page.

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"You didn't see that coming..."