Who Is Agatha Harkness? Meet Marvel’s Character Before Her Disney+ Series

When Disney released the trailer for the upcoming Marvel series Agatha All Along, it opened with star Kathryn Hahn humming and driving a car. She pulls up to a crime scene, and it turns out she’s a detective. However, her time as a detective is short-lived. While in the morgue discovering that the body is Wanda Maximoff’s, Aubrey Plaza’s character, Rio Vidal, appears to remind Agatha of her true identity. As Rio tells her to “claw your way out!”, Agatha transforms into various women before ultimately becoming the nosy neighbor from WandaVision.

Agatha Harkness, a character created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, first appeared in issue 94 of Fantastic Four in October 1969. She was one of the original witches who survived the Salem witch trials. In Fantastic Four, she served as the governess to Franklin Richards, son of Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) and Susan Storm (Invisible Woman), and became an ally to the team.

More recently, Agatha was introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in the Disney limited series WandaVision as the nosy neighbor, Agnes. According to Kathryn Hahn, Agatha’s relationship with Wanda is similar to that of Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Mozart. Hahn explained, “We talked a lot about Amadeus and Salieri, in terms of their relationship – Agatha wishes that she could make the kind of music that the Scarlet Witch naturally has. For someone who has spent centuries studying this, meeting someone to whom it comes completely naturally is maddening. You want to know why.”

In the comics, Agatha is nearly immortal, having survived since ancient times, even remembering half a millennia before Atlantis’s destruction. In the late 17th century, she settled in the English colony of Salem, Massachusetts, forming her own coven to freely practice magic. However, her group was persecuted during the trials.

The survivors of her coven resettled in a hidden mystical city in Colorado called New Salem, accessible only to those with magical powers. Agatha married and had a son, Nicholas Scratch, but eventually left the city herself.

By the end of the 18th century, Agatha joined the Daughters of Liberty, an all-female group dedicated to protecting freedom. Using her vast knowledge, she trained the women in mystical arts.

Later, Agatha met Wanda Maximoff and sensed her desire to control her powers, offering to tutor her. Agatha trained Wanda until her marriage to Vision. In New Salem, Agatha’s son, Nicholas, had seven powerful children who called themselves Salem’s Seven. Nicholas took control of the town and accused Agatha of betrayal for allying with the Fantastic Four. She was put on trial, but the Fantastic Four rescued her and Franklin. Nicholas was then banished to another dimension. Salem’s Seven eventually took over New Salem, capturing Agatha again and burning her at the stake. Despite this, Agatha resurfaced mysteriously and continued working with Wanda, even forming an odd teacher-mentor relationship that sometimes resulted in the teacher’s death.

In WandaVision, Agatha sensed a peculiar magical energy emanating from Westview, New Jersey. Upon arrival, she discovered that the town was under a warped reality controlled by Wanda. Intrigued by Wanda’s extraordinary magic, Agatha sought to understand it by infiltrating the town as Agnes, the nosy neighbor, and used the Darkhold to amplify her powers. Throughout the series, Agatha tried to glean the secrets of Wanda’s magic but was eventually outsmarted and rendered powerless by Wanda. Wanda imprisoned her in Westview, leaving her as the ordinary neighbor Agnes.

Despite Agatha’s primary goal being the accumulation of power, she possesses a unique sense of justice, criticizing Wanda for holding Westview’s residents hostage to live out her ideal life with Vision. Yet, Agatha’s main objective remains to become the most powerful sorceress, even if it means using dark magic.

In Agatha All Along, Agatha remains trapped in Westview and powerless. Her plan is to regain her powers with the help of her coven. The show’s coven includes the warrior witch Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza); the 450-year-old Sicilian witch Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone); Alice Wu-Gulliver or The Wu (Ali Ahn), who inherited her powers from her mother; Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), a witch trained by Dakimh the Enchanter; Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp), a human and former neighbor of Wanda and Vision; and a yet-unnamed teenage boy (Joe Locke).

Speculation suggests Sharon joins the coven out of resent for Wanda, while the teenage boy might be Billy Kaplan aka Wiccan, the reincarnated son of Wanda and Vision. In the trailer, it appears the teen will serve as Agatha’s familiar or attendant in exchange for something, possibly related to the Witches’ Road, which grants magical trials and rewards survivors with what they lack.

Agatha All Along will premiere on September 18 with two episodes on Disney+.

Source: ClutchPoints