Thanos still casts a sizeable shadow over the MCU, even though he turned into Barney-colored skin flakes way back in 2019. New big bad Kang came, went, and did not conquer, only for Marvel to become so desperate to recapture the Infinity Saga heydays that it brought back Robert Downey Jr. to play Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars.
This much we’re all familiar with, but you know what isn’t as often talked about? As great as the MCU’s Thanos was, the Russo brothers really chickened out when it came to adapting one key aspect of the Mad Titan’s character from the comics. Sure, this element is extremely weird and kooky, but it’s also mythical and melodramatic and perfectly in keeping with the larger-than-life fantastical reality that is the Marvel universe.
Thankfully, it seems some other MCU creatives are about to belatedly bring this concept to the screen at long last, in the last place we would’ve expected. It turns out that the true heir to Thanos’ place in the franchise was none other than Agatha Harkness all along!
Is Marvel finally adapting a major part of Thanos’ character through Agatha Harkness?
Agatha All Along episode 4, marking the series’ halfway point, did much to fuel the various fan theories that have arisen around the Disney Plus series concerning this character or that character’s potential true identities. Putting aside the Funko Pop spoilers of it all (you can find them out here, or remain blissfully unaware), episode 4 left many convinced that the real nature of Aubrey Plaza’s Rio Vidal has been outed.
When Teen (Joe Locke) is fatally injured after the coven escapes the second trial along the Witches’ Road, Agatha is left distraught. “Not him,” she tearfully pleads to Rio, in a curiously unexplained moment. Later, when the witches share stories from their pasts around the campfire, Rio admits she once loved someone, but they turned against her when she, Rio, did something she describes as “just doing my job.”
Some believe this indicates Rio is really Death. The idea goes that Rio previously came to kill Agatha’s son Nicholas Scratch when he died and that’s what soured their relationship. It’s clear that Agatha has imprinted on Teen as a replacement for her child, so when she fears he’s dying she pleads with Rio not to take him as well. It’s a compelling theory, especially as Death just made a cameo in Lilia Calderu’s vision in episode 3.
The really interesting thing about this possibility is that a certain character having a romance with a female personification of the Grim Reaper is nothing new in Marvel lore. Yes, Thanos himself is besotted with Lady Death in the comics — the reason he snaps away half of all life in the universe in the original Infinity Gauntlet storyline is in a crazed attempt to woo her. Apparently, they don’t have flowers and chocolates on his planet.
When Avengers: Infinity War failed to bring Thanos’ simping for Death to the big screen, we figured this wild plotline was doomed never to make it into the MCU. And yet the signs suggest Agatha All Along is going to be brave enough to go where Marvel has never gone before: a lesbian love story a Death-defying love story.