Who's been messing up everything? It's been Agatha
all along. Who's been pulling every evil string? It's been Agatha all along.
While Agatha Harkness' not-so-surprise reveal on WandaVision finally confirmed
a long-standing theory about the true identity of Agnes the nosy neighbor,
it also left a burning question. What are the origins and limits of Harkness' power?
Let's look at everything we know so far about Agatha Harkness, both in the show
and her comic book appearances, to try and come up with an answer.
"Who are you?"
In Marvel comics proper, Agatha Harkness is an old woman. An old,
old woman. She's got memories stretching back 500 years before Atlantis sank,
which Marvel's in-universe historians place around 10,500 BC.
Basically, Harkness predates every known human civilization, and she's outlasted all of them.
You know what they say: with age comes wisdom. And since wisdom is power for the magically inclined,
essentially Harkness is powerful because of her age, but that's only part of the equation.
She draws from three sources of magical power: her own personal well of energy,
ambient magic that pervades the Marvel universe, and extra-dimensional energy
that exists in entities and objects housed in tangential dimensions. These
three sources give Harkness a near limitless source of power — but we're still not done.
In the Marvel universe, witches and warlocks rely on the Goddess of Witchcraft — even the
Sorcerer Supreme is powerless without her. At one point in Marvel canon, the goddess was,
for lack of a better term, killed by another supreme deity, Chaos. When Wanda Maximoff and the
ghosts of her mother and Harkness resurrected the Goddess of Witchcraft, that act also resurrected
Harkness herself. This could imply some special link between her and the goddess
that goes far beyond what normal spell-casters experience, which could explain her power.
But there's an important point to consider about the Marvel Comics version of Agatha Harkness.
In the source material, she's not inherently evil -- she's not even really a villain.
"And I killed Sparky too!"
Stay with us here.
It's true that witchcraft is traditionally associated with darkness. Those who deal in
the macabre are typically considered evil; it's why the Salem Witch Trials
were a real thing. But Marvel Comics makes it clear Harkness is anything but a baddie.
As Stephanie Williams wrote in a rundown of Agatha Harkness for Marvel,
"Agatha Harkness may be a lot of things, but inherently evil is not one of them. Sure,
she does things that may make you raise an eyebrow (or at first glance project villainous energy),
but upon taking an in-depth look, it's not that black and white."
Not convinced? Consider this: in her very first appearance in Marvel Comics,
Reed and Susan Richards of the Fantastic Four hired Agatha Harkness as a nanny.
In 1970's Fantastic Four No. 94,
they enlisted her to watch over their newborn son, Franklin Richards,
and she was more than up to the task of defending the powerful infant from the Frightful Four.
On the other hand, Harkness did also kind of kidnap Franklin a few years later
in Fantastic Four No. 185 -- but hey, long story short, it was for a really good reason.
Of course, the as-seen-on-TV version of Agatha Harkness has definitely been cast in a villainous
light so far. But we wouldn't be surprised if she ends up going the way of Loki, and becoming
a fan-favorite antihero after this first, let's say 'awkward' encounter, gets all cleared up.
Most of Agatha Harkness' comic history is unaccounted for — there's a huge gap
between 10,500 BC and the 1600s, after all. But it's implied that she's always been powerful.
Conversely, the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Harkness had to struggle a bit for her powers,
which came at a huge cost. During a flashback scene,
WandaVision reveals that the MCU Harkness wasn't in charge of the Salem coven;
her mother held that position. But even being the boss-witch's daughter didn't immunize
Harkness from being charged with essentially stealing knowledge beyond her age and station
and practicing "the darkest of magic." These crimes were punishable by death. Unfortunately,
whatever Harkness did granted her powers she couldn't quite control,
including the ability to seemingly reflect spells back at her executioners with fatal results.
This "darkest of magic" is clearly the source of Harkness' strength in WandaVision,
but as the series gears up for its big finale, the origin of her magic in the MCU remains a mystery.
"That's something special, baby."
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