Scarlet Witch Annual: Which Witch Can Trip?

The teacher and the student come face to face as Agatha Harkness, in her newly rejuvenated body, comes to Lotkill. Wanda’s shop to discuss Wanda’s current role as the prison for the Darkhold, as well as the elder god, Ch’Thon, and what we get is a magical battle across several planes of existence, as we set up the upcoming magical event, Contest of Chaos, that’s going to have Agatha as the lead set for later this summer. 

Steve Orlando has been world-building a community for Wanda in Lotkill, including Darcy Lewis, from the MCU and neighbors. This humanizing of Wanda has been a central tenet for Orlando’s run and has helped develop her as someone more than just a superhero. Giving her a supporting cast allows the writer to express just how fantastical these heroes’ worlds are and can connect fans more profoundly and meaningfully. With this issue, we finally get to see Wanda’s reaction to Agatha’s glow-up, and it was a fun little magical mystery tour through some of the weirdest ports not explored in your average Dr. Strange arc. 

One favorite part of the issue was the dynamic between Agatha and Wanda. They’re battling each other through various scenes, but they’re not trying to kill each other; Agatha’s testing her former pupil because Wanda is not just the Scarlet Witch, but her soul is holding Ch’Thon, the elder god of chaos, who was trapped inside Wundagore mountain, and used Wanda’s body to ingratiate his presence into her soul and have her as a vassal on Earth. Without Ch’Thon’s influence, she would have just been an energy manipulation mutant instead of what she is now. It’s an exciting concept that certain writers have explored well, and I would like to see Orlando go to the next step. 

The biggest issue was the changes to Agatha Harkness and de-aging her to match her live-action counterpart as one of those fans who has a deep love for these older characters but is not bothered when some of the newer interpretations often lead to gender or racial changes, seeing Agatha de-aged to match her MCU counterpart disappointed me. There are not a lot of older women in comics. First Destiny was resurrected during the Inferno mini and now lost Agatha to cinematic synergy, but one should be willing to give the creators a chance to work with this and change the reader’s mind. 

As this event heats up, Steve Orlando is building up to something that could rock the foundation of several facets of the Marvel universe, from the X-world to the Avengers franchise, to Doctor Strange, and the rest of the much-maligned and underutilized magical corner of the Marvel Universe, that Marvel has been working on building over the last couple years, thanks to Orlando, as well as Jed MacKay through his work on the death of Dr. Strange, Clea’s solo book, and the recently released Doctor Strange solo. There are rumors of the Scarlet Witch ending, which I think is a bad idea. It’s filling a niche in mainstream comics that sorely needs to be at the big two.