Agatha Harkness

Agatha Harkness survived the Salem witch trials by being considerably more powerful than the people conducting them. Centuries old, she surfaced in Marvel continuity as the improbable governess hired to look after Franklin Richards, which is exactly the kind of arrangement that makes sense once you understand she was assessing the most powerful child on Earth at close range.

Her most consequential role is as Wanda Maximoff's teacher. Agatha trained the Scarlet Witch in genuine witchcraft, gave her access to power she had only been improvising with, and has spent every appearance since either helping Wanda or being the reason Wanda is dangerous. Their relationship has ended in mind-wiping, betrayal and death more than once. Kathryn Hahn's WandaVision and Agatha All Along performances turned that dynamic into the most enjoyable villain-adjacent arc of the Disney+ era.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced Agatha in Fantastic Four #94 as Franklin Richards' governess, a genuinely bizarre premise that Kirby sold through sheer design confidence. Her Salem history and the New Salem colony followed, along with her son Nicholas Scratch and his children, Salem's Seven.

Her defining relationship began when she became Wanda Maximoff's tutor, giving the Scarlet Witch formal magical training for the first time. It was Agatha who later wiped Wanda's memory of her twin sons, an act of supposed mercy that detonated years later in Avengers Disassembled and House of M.

Wanda killed her in Avengers West Coast #52 in 1989, and Agatha has since returned repeatedly, in astral form, as a spirit guide, and as a corpse that keeps giving advice. She remains one of Marvel's most reliably ambiguous magical figures.