10 Must-Read Marvel Comics For Agatha All Along Fans

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced Agatha Harkness at the end of their legendary 102-issue run on Fantastic Four, a series that gave the world not just Marvel’s First Family, but also Black Panther, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, and more. Lee and Kirby didn’t get to do much with Agatha before Kirby moved on, just a few spooky suggestions. New penciler John Buscema is an excellent draftsman, but he and Lee didn’t have the same magic on Fantastic Four, which shows in their first year of issues together.

So much of Fantastic Four #109 – 116 repeats the greatest hits from previous stories from the book’s heyday. But the duo uses this time to further develop Agatha, revealing the depth of her witchy powers. Agatha’s presence in these books restores a sense of wonder to Fantastic Four, making it the world’s greatest comic magazine again.

Agatha added a spooky presence to the Fantastic Four during the first few years of her existence. But she never seemed truly terrifying until a panel in Fantastic Four #181, in which she disappears with Franklin and refuses to explain herself to Sue. Agatha and Franklin only get a couple of panels per issue until Fantastic Four #185, written by Len Wein, penciled by George Pérez, and inked by Joe Sinnott. “Here Be Witches” finds Agatha defending Franklin from a coven of magical baddies called the Salem’s Seven.

To be honest, Salem’s Seven aren’t the most dynamic bunch, especially compared to the amazing characters that Wein and Pérez made in other books. But, the duo knows how to create a thrilling fight sequence, even with unimpressive villains. Even better, the story fleshes out Agatha’s dark background, a key aspect of Agatha All Along.

While Agatha was a fun supporting character in Fantastic Four, she truly found her place working with Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch. Like her MCU counterpart, the Wanda of the comics had an undefined power set, as her ability to “hex” people fell between magic and mutant ability. Once Agatha took Wanda under her wing, the Scarlet Witch became the sorceress she always pretended to be.

The twelve-part series Vision and the Scarlet Witch reads more like a series of adventures than a single, coherent narrative, thanks to writer Steve Englehart also working on The Avengers at the same time. But many of the stories involve Wanda getting caught in Agatha’s dark web, especially when the Salem’s Seven return. Penciller Richard Howell and inker Jim Mooney have a blast drawing all of the monstrous creatures who plague Wanda and Vision, and they give readers one of the creepier depictions of Agatha.

Arguably, no creator did more with the Scarlet Witch than John Byrne, at least until the MCU. While Byrne has done some amazing work as a writer and artist, especially on the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Superman, his depiction of Wanda Maximoff remains controversial. And Agatha’s involvement has a lot to do with that controversy as seen in the pages of Avengers West Coast.

In an earlier story, Wanda discovers that the children that she had with Vision were in fact constructions, brought to life through her magic. When the villain Master Pandemonium takes those children away, Wanda loses her mind, embracing her evil self in the storyline “Darker Than Scarlet.” Throughout the story, Agatha tries to help the West Coast Avengers contain their old teammate, but fears that the student has surpassed the teacher.

No WandaVision fan is surprised to learn that the Darkhold shows up here, given the way the evil book empowered Agatha in that show. Like its MCU counterpart, the Darkhold gives the user immeasurable dark powers, which makes it a contested object for almost every magical figure in the universe. Written by Christian Cooper, the ongoing series Darkhold: Pages From The Book Of Sins features a motley group of magic users who try to gather pages from the book before it does more damage.

When one of the users gets badly injured, Agatha arrives to offer consultation. As happens most in these early appearances, Agatha serves more as an advisor than as an active figure in the storyline. However, the three issues in her storyline include guest appearances from more high-octane characters, such as X-Men villain Sabertooth and the Punisher, making Agatha’s calm, if eerie, presence a welcome addition.

Despite the MCU portrayal by Kathryn Hahn, Agatha is almost always a wizened old woman. The Silver Surfer storyline “Leap of Faith” doesn’t completely change that quality, but it does hint toward the more spry character that she’ll become.

Written by J.M. DeMatteis, penciled by Tom Grummettt, and inked by Matt Ryan, “Leap of Faith” begins with the Silver Surfer coming apart after a battle with a cosmic force. He seeks refuge back on Earth, where Alicia Masters—future wife of the Fantastic Four’s the Thing—gets help from Agatha. Although Agatha can hold the otherworldly Surfer together, the exerted effort comes at a cost, sometimes transforming her into a demonic figure and sometimes restoring her youth. Sure, she’s a blonde woman in her youth, not the brunette played by Hahn, but it’s closer than any other version.

MCU fans might not realize this, but Captain Marvel has one of the most convoluted backstories in comic book history. Three other Marvel heroes called themselves Captain Marvel before Carol Danvers took the name, while Carol had other monikers, including Ms. Marvel, Warbird, and Binary. In the storyline “Trials,” Binary returns to take the place of Captain Marvel, who disappears to some unknown dimension.

That unknown dimension is occupied by a council of magic users, led by Agatha Harkness. Agatha and her council put the Captain through a trial, to investigate her decision to strip an evil sorcerer of his magical abilities. Written by Kelly Thompson and illustrated by Juan Frigeri and Álvaro López, “Trials” presents Agatha as a more menacing character than we’ve ever seen before. And that makes sense, given the villainous role she plays in WandaVision, which just came out the year before.

Few people were excited for the 2023 miniseries Midnight Suns. The series had some great characters, including Blade and Magik. And it had a solid creative team in writer Ethan Sacks and artists Alberto Foche Duarte and Luigi Zagaria. But Midnight Suns was clearly an attempt by Marvel to cash in on buzz from the new video game Marvel’s Midnight Suns, which explained the involvement of Wolverine, a character with no magical powers but a lot of popularity.

Despite the low expectations, Midnight Suns manages to tell a fun story about an evil creature invading our dimension via a teen zombie. Instead of playing the consultant, Agatha takes action in the tale, almost playing the hero. By the end of the story, Agatha has been de-aged into a much younger woman, finally bringing the MCU version into the Marvel Universe proper.

As this list shows, Agatha is usually a benevolent figure, not the schemer seen in WandaVision. De-aging Agatha didn’t fix that problem, so Marvel sought to bring the two depictions together with Contest of Chaos, a crossover from earlier this year. Written by Stephanie Phillips with art by Alberto Foche, David Cutler, and Alan Robinson, Contest of Chaos lets Agatha finally possess the Darkhold, which turns her into the villain only hinted at in previous incarnations.

To be honest, there’s not a lot of substance to Contest of Chaos. Most of the chapters just feature heroes fighting one another one-on-one, forced into combat by Agatha’s spells. But as the sole comic storyline in which Agatha is the main character, it’s a must-have for any of her fans.

Agatha All Along has an outstanding cast of actors to play the other witches who reluctantly join Ms. Harkness, including Aubrey Plaza and Patti LuPone. But the most compelling name may be Joe Locke of Heartbreaker fame, who plays a teen called… “Teen,” though most believe him to be named Billy. Okay, that doesn’t sound that compelling, but anyone who knows the comics and has been paying attention to the promotional materials knows that “Billy” is probably Billy Kaplan, who is also Billy Maximoff, the son of the Scarlet Witch and Vision.

Of course, both the MCU and the Marvel Universe revealed that Billy, like his brother Tommy, was not real, just creatures conjured by Wanda. So how can he be in Agatha All Along? The answer to that question is weird, and it comes in Avengers: The Children’s Crusade. Written by Allan Heinberg and penciled by Jim Cheung, The Children’s Crusade stars teen heroes the Young Avengers, which includes Tommy aka Wiccan. Led by Tommy and his brother Billy aka Speed, the Young Avengers investigate the legacy of the Scarlet Witch and the team’s strange connection to her.