A few 90’s Scarlet Witch comics could disclose Agnes’s real identity, the cause behind Wanda’s breakup, and the mystery of her twin sons.
WARNING: Wanda Vision Episode 5 and 6 spoilers, which are now available on Disney+, are included below.
The answers to the biggest questions of WandaVision might lie in a few cryptic 1990s Scarlet Witch comics. If the Scarlet Witch television series of Andy Lanning, Dan Abnett and John Higgins, and Cefn Ridout and Charles Adlard’s Scarlet Witch: Siege of Darkness yet another have some hint, the fall of Wanda Maximoff could have something to do with Lilith, Mephisto’s wife and Mother of Ghosts, and Lore, Wanda’s own multiversal equivalent.
Next, let’s look at Scarlet Witch, who appeared in Marvel Comics Presenting #143: Siege of Darkness. The one-shot was part of a broader plot. The devil sorceress Lilith was mistakenly freed from the Shadowside Realm, her otherworldly dungeon. She called her pets, the demonic Lilin, now free to roam the World to avoid anyone who could want to destroy her. She faced off with Doctor Strange and Ghost Rider, who nearly killed Lilith herself by decimating all but one Lilins. She did survive and swore vengeance, however.
She rebirthed the Lilin using her body as a portal. She exercised her revenge on Earth by covering it in a magical mist that allowed her children to travel secretly.
Wanda had the misfortune of facing one such Lilin in Scarlet Witch: Siege of Darkness. The magical mist sank into West Coast Avengers HQ while she and Janet van Dyne, aka the Wasp, shared some design tips. This allowed Pixil, a Lilin, to grab Wanda and drag her into a virtual terrain he called the Cess, defined as “the detritus of your age of information.”
It’s the accumulation of missing files and mistakes carelessly trashed… Intent and waiting… He described how his mother Lilith ordered him to infiltrate the Web with the cloud, but his desires led him to conquer it “at the expense of my demon soul.” He now decided to use the forces of the chance of Wanda to amplify his own and complete his conquest.
Wanda sought to strike back with sheer physical force with her abilities hindered by Pixil. Pixil did her temporary job and tried to turn her into text just as he had been himself.
Instead, the Ars Magna, an ancient instrument invented to “divine the mind of God by charting the cycles of nature,” was unintentionally unleashed, awakened by a spike of the force of Wanda. It set out to kill both Wanda and Pixil in its drought but only trapped the Lilin. As she latched out to a hacker’s signal and pulled herself out of the virtual universe, Wanda was able to run.
Also Read, WandaVision Episode 6 analysis, what more they had to offer?
You are probably curious what this has to do with WandaVision at this stage. Ok, if a picture is worth a phrase, this Scarlet Witch: Siege of Darkness panel says a tale in its entirety:
If this sounds familiar, that’s because a similar aesthetic is used by the WandaVision end credits. WandaVision credits use flickering red, green, and blue pixels to produce images, such as Scarlet Witch’s tiara and her wedding rings. Of note, both this panel and the credits pay tribute to analog displays, which use red-green-blue pixels to produce dynamic on-screen images. However, this unmistakable resemblance between the two might hint at the show’s oldest mystery: who is Agnes?
Marvel Cinematic Universe fans took to the Web with some insane ideas since Kathryn Hahn was introduced as Agnes. Many assumed Agnes to be Agatha Harkness ahead of the launch episode.
Wanda’s friend and a fellow witch who, over the years, has played a vital part in her life.
However, that doesn’t look to be the case when the episodes roll by, as Agnes appears to have an agenda that requires keeping Wanda in this Westview fantasy version. That is, in Episode 3, she deliberately stopped Herb from ruining Vision’s illusion. As the nosy neighbor of the Dreams, she has repeatedly badgered the pair about getting kids. Then, in this latest episode, when Tommy and Billy unexpectedly got older, she was there. Agnes is at the forefront of Wanda’s dispute somewhere, even though it is unclear what, precisely, she wants. It’s clear, though, that her plan entails holding Wanda right where she is.
The link with WandaVision and Scarlet Witch: Siege of Darkness might mean that Agnes is a character even more magical than Agatha. After all, the Devil is in the specifics, as Agnes said in Episode 2. She might be closer to him than just about anything else. Agnes may be nothing other than the Queen of Demons herself if our theories are correct.
But what exactly would she want with Wanda if Agnes is Lilith? That’s where the Scarlet Witch miniseries by Lanning, Abnett, and Higgins fall in. The 90s series discusses Wanda’s status as a Node Being, for short, simply defined as a Nexus.
She came across a book after a fight with Master Pandemonium that broke down the position of the Nexus in the multiverse:
The Nexus, in other words, is the anchor of the cosmos in the greater multiverse. The cosmos would be thrown out of control if the Nexus were to drop; its collapse would leave her planet vulnerable to multiversal attacks. As Wanda does with her probability-altering hexes, they also harness vast quantities of magical energy.
So, Wanda finds herself under threat from another Nexus in the Scarlet Witch miniseries: Lore, her dark counterpart from a distant universe.
Lore traveled from planet to World with her gift of necromancy, making her fellow Nexi nuts degrade them so that she could possess them. She would drain energy from the World until the Nexus body was hers and continue on to the next. This is precisely what she wanted to do with Wanda. Still, she was finally overpowered by the Scarlet Witch and her fellow Avengers.
It would definitely make sense for WandaVision to shift the character in this direction as the MCU starts to lean towards the multiverse. It will also understand her drastic rise in strength in Episode 5, which showed that she can now influence matter and her presence in the Multiverse of Chaos with Doctor Strange. For the character, being a Nexus seems like an inevitable development, given the way the show has treated her so far and her continued relevance to the MCU as a whole. Notably, the Time Variance Authority is also tracking Nexi, which is due to debut this May in Loki.
What’s more, she would find a different kind of goal on her back if Wanda was the MCU’s Nexus. After all, as Vision pointed out in Captain America: Civil War, that kind of force invites a challenge. Besides, as Pixil did in Scarlet Witch: Siege of Darkness could attempt to use her strength for their own benefit. That leads us back around to Agnes, who may be exploiting Wanda’s sadness for sinister purposes.
She can see Wanda as the way to an end if Agnes is Lilith: to get her kids into the MCU. Like Lore, by improving this fantasy universe she built as a coping device, Agnes may be chipping away at Wanda’s sanity.
Then, only as Wanda was no longer able to discern the difference between what is true and what isn’t, Agnes was able to force her to open the doorway to the Shadowside Realm version of the MCU and an untold number of horrors.
This won’t be the first time an alternate reality has threatened the MCU. In Doctor Strange, the Supreme-to-be Sorcerer brings an end to the advances of Dormammu on Earth. Dormammu had intended to devour the World of the Avengers and make it part of his Dark Dimension. Strange eventually outwitted the interdimensional being to a time bubble. Still, Dormammu’s assault confirmed other universes are trying to intrude on the MCU if provided the chance.
Lilith/Agnes is a Nexus Entity, possibly, like Lore. The latter can move across worlds but lacks the strength to take her family with her. In an attempt to trick her into opening a portal that would allow her evil family to cross through from her home’s dimension, she could have targeted Wanda. This could also floor the way for the MCU debut of Mephisto, as Agnes listed “Ralph” to her husband many times over—even though we still have to see him on video. WandaVision will definitely MCUize the characters by adapting them as beings from another world. Marvel Studios has mostly shied away from purely demonic names like the Devil, his queen, and their demon brood.
Besides, this will clarify the fascination of Westview with “the children.” As Vision correctly ascertains, apart from their twins, no children live in Westview. The town (and Agnes in particular) definitely seems fascinated with children, though. Both Agnes or Mrs. Heart requested the first episode to know why Wanda and Vision had no twins. Episode 2 featured a “for the children.” talent show. Episode 3 made way for the twins, while Episode 4 had Agnes fussing with them—until they were aged from babies to five years of age, and she didn’t even bat an eye.
This is especially remarkable, seeing as Wanda used her reality-warping abilities subconsciously to create her twins in the comics from fragments of Mephisto’s spirit, which ties them back to the family of Lilith.
Though Wanda is definitely pleased with her status quo, WandaVision is more than the story of a woman who has become mad with grief. While she would go to great lengths to protect her new family and her fiction realm, she really has no idea how she ended up there, revealing that any power on her is exercised by an outside entity. Suppose this hypothesis is right in her attempt to inflict literal hell on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In that case, the power may be Lilith as Agnes.
