Marvel recently released the “Agatha Harkness: Tales of the Witches of Salem” trade paperback, which reprints Agatha Harkness’ appearances in classic issues of “The Fantastic Four” and “The Avengers,” as well as the complete five-issue “Midnight Sun” miniseries coming in 2022.
Most of it is entertainment material. I especially love the first story, “The Return of the Frightful Four,” from Fantastic Four #94 (1969). This issue came towards the end of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run, with Kirby leaving the book a few issues later (Fantastic Four #102 was his final issue, though some of his work was used in Fantastic Four #108). Stan Lee stopped writing the book at #125.
Despite this, there’s no sense of tiredness or “we’ve seen it all before.” Lee and Kirby continue to deliver great action, new characters, new concepts, and Agatha Harkness makes her debut here. And what a debut it is! Within the first few pages, the Frightful Four (whose members at the time were the Wizard, Trapster, Sandman, and Medusa) defeat the Fantastic Four, leading to a showdown between them and Agatha Harkness. Then Agatha (and her familiar cat Ebony) leads the Frightful Four to the woodshed, where they move through the mansion and effortlessly defeat them with magic. It’s like Home Alone 20 years before that movie came out, with an old witch guarding the fort instead of a mischievous boy.
This book is a fun read and pretty revolutionary because at the time, was there any other manga that would have a major character exit so quickly and have a whole new character take over the rest of the book? I’m sure when this book was released, many readers were infuriated that their beloved FF barely appeared in this book, but it didn’t make the leads or any of the other characters any less appealing and it’s one of the best character introductions ever.
The next issue, Avengers #128 (1974) by Steve Englehart and Sal Buscema, marks the beginning of Scarlet Witch and Agatha’s strange relationship. The Avengers and FF battle a Z-class villain while Mantis attacks Vision (???). The issue is relatively uninteresting, with the highlight being Scarlet Witch’s one-on-one battle with the villain at the climax. This issue marks the beginning of the Wanda we know today.
Len Wein and George Perez’s Fantastic Four #185-186 (May-June 1977) follows with a slightly better storyline. The wizard Nicholas Scratch kidnaps Franklin Richards and sends the FF to New Salem, a utopia-like town in the Colorado mountains, to reunite with Agatha Harkness. My biggest gripe with this issue is that Joe Synnott’s inks don’t match George Perez’s pencils. George Perez is a great artist and my favorite, but Synnott dilutes Perez’s work so much that Perez’s signature touch is barely noticeable. The Salem Seven are a formidable force, and I enjoyed battling them against the FF. There’s even a funny twist where Ben Grimm drops a building on one of them at one point out of pure frustration.
Next up is Fantastic Four #222-223 (June-July 1980) by Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz. This is my second favorite story in the book, in which Nicholas Scratch uses the Negative Zone to “possess” Franklin Richards as a conduit back to Earth from the dark dimension where he was banished by Agatha. The first part of the story is heavy on the horror elements, and Sienkiewicz’s art fills the dark corridors of the Baxter Building with dread.
Sienkiewicz’s art in these two issues is beautiful, and very different from the unconventional, impressionistic style he would sadly adopt a few years later. Here we return to New Salem, where we once again see a showdown with the Salem Seven as the story reverts to standard superhero fare later in the story. I love the horror element of the story; at one point a mysterious new character named Gabriel is introduced and the story erupts into Exorcist/Conjuring style horror.
The Fantastic Four works surprisingly well within the horror framework. Nicholas Scratch isn’t the scariest villain ever, but he’s a pretty formidable threat here. Susan is also a very formidable character here, and it’s nice to finally see the writers treat her as a powerful character. In the past, it sometimes felt like this book should have been titled “The Fantastic Three and Their Helpless Women,” because all Sue did was cry for Reed, faint, or become the lustful object of Namor and Victor Von Doom. Here, we get inside her head, she uses her powers expansively, and sets the stage for John Byrne’s serialization a few years later. Byrne transforms Susan into one of the most fascinating and powerful characters in the Marvel Universe.
The book will conclude with a full Midnight Sun miniseries in 2022 (written by Ethan Sacks and illustrated by Luigi Zagaria and Alberto Foch), in which Blade, Wolverine, Niko, Magik and Kushal (the 1800s Ghost Rider) come together to battle the “god” Valtor. It’s a very fast-paced story, the equivalent of a big bag of potato chips, fun to devour but not very memorable afterwards. This story seems to exist only to turn Agatha into the WandaVision incarnation of Kathryn Hahn, young and beautiful, because god forbid there isn’t a single older character in the Marvel Universe who isn’t someone’s aunt or uncle.
Nico is a great character, but writer Ethan Sacks makes it hilarious by having her repeatedly say throughout the story that she no longer has a wand. Not only does she say it over the course of five issues, but she sometimes says it multiple times in the same issue. If I drank a glass of whiskey every time she said it, I’d pass out under the table halfway through the miniseries.
I found Kushalla very interesting and this miniseries set me on a quest to find other appearances of her. Wolverine has appeared in so many books that he’s on the verge of becoming a parody, so it’s nice to see a character like this get some more time in the spotlight.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it. It’s a perfect overview of Agatha Harkness and her history in the Marvel Universe.
Agatha Harkness: The Salem Witches Review
Agatha Harkness: A Salem Witch Story
The Agatha Harkness: A Salem Witch Tale trade paperback contains most of the great stories and is the perfect introduction for anyone interested in the character.
This book is a fantastic introduction to the character, laying out her history in the Marvel Universe and setting readers up to follow her future adventures.
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s story shines and is a wonderful reminder of how they thought outside the box to create some of the best stories ever.
George Pérez’s artwork for the Fantastic Four issue appears to have been watered down by Joe Synnott’s inks.
The Midnight Sun storyline is fun but completely boring, and why did Wolverine have to be in this story at all?
