Agatha Harkness seemingly died and took a new ghostly form in Disney+'s Agatha All Along finale, but some viewers are a little confused about her fate.
After her villainous attempts to steal the Scarlet Witch's chaos magic in WandaVision, Kathryn Hahn's Agatha has been on a quest to walk the Witches' Road and restore her full magical power in Agatha All Along.
Why Agatha Becomes a Ghost in the MCU
Warning - the rest of this article contains spoilers for Episode 8 and Episode 9 of Agatha All Along.
At the climax of Agatha All Along Episode 8, Agatha Harkness and Billy Maximoff escaped the Witches' Road where they were met with Rio Vidal, aka Death, wreaking havoc in Westview and seeking one of their lives.
The two briefly attempted to fight Death after Wiccan shared some of his magical power with his Witches' Road comrade. But, ultimately, they admitted defeat and Agatha sacrificed herself as she embraced Rio for one last kiss.
Agatha's acceptance of death came as a major turning point for her character after spending her whole life and Disney+ series evading it. After all, Agatha had famously killed many witches over the years to avoid Rio's final wrath.
The purple witch spent many years luring in witches with the false ruse of the Witches' Road to kill them and take their powers, all so Death would leave her son Nicholas Scratch alive in exchange for other bodies.
But even after Scratch's death (the reason for which Marvel Studios finally revealed in the Agatha All Along finale), Agatha continued killing witches both to grow more powerful and avoid facing her deceased son.
She declared to Billy in her home basement that she was avoiding the afterlife and sticking around as a ghost "because [she] can't face him," presumably due to her survivor's guilt over his death.
While Agatha became a ghost after death, she shook her head with a resounding "no" to Billy's question of whether their deceased Witches' Road comrades had also taken on a spiritual form, indicating this was a unique case.
As such, Agatha Harkness is very much dead in the MCU but has yet to pass on to whatever afterlife lies beyond, hence her new ghostly presence which ought to linge for more appearances in future movies and shows.
While Agatha becoming a ghost is new to the MCU, this is nothing new to Marvel Comics readers as she has taken on this form multiple times before.
Agatha once became a ghost after she was killed by the Salem Seven and guided Wanda Maximoff to magically conceive her children. The witch was later resurrected only to be killed again, this time by Wanda, who she guided along the Witches Road as a ghost, only to come back to life once more with a youthful look.
Where Will Agatha Return After Her Disney+ Series?
Agatha Harkness now lives on in the MCU in ghost form where she will accompany Billy Maximoff/Kaplan, aka Wiccan, on his quest to find his missing brother Tommy, who has presumably also reincarnated elsewhere in this universe.
As such, Harkness' next appearance will likely come alongside Wiccan, but where will the search for the missing Maximoff twin be explored next?
Daniel Richtman previously reported Wiccan will lead a Disney+ series which could be released before or after Avengers: Secret Wars. A further report from the insider (via MCU Film News) stated that Marvel Studios is developing a series about the search for Tommy, presumably the untitled Wiccan project.
As such, provided the series goes ahead, the Wiccan project ought to mark Agatha Harkness' next appearance in the MCU, meaning she will likely skip out on the Multiversal action of Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars.
In terms of her future beyond that, Agatha could find room in almost any supernatural MCU project, jumping in on a Doctor Strange sequel, the rumored Midnight Sons ensemble, or the long-reported Scarlet Witch solo movie.
For now, Agatha's role ought to be more advisory to other heroes and magical characters while she is restricted to her ghostly form. But, in time, just as took place multiple times in Marvel Comics, it wouldn't be surprising to see her resurrected and involved in the action once again.
Perhaps once Wanda comes back into the MCU fray after her "death" in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Agatha could find herself guiding her former adversary on screens, just as she did in the pages of comics.
All nine episodes of Agatha All Along are streaming now on Disney+.
