WARNING: The following contains spoilers for WandaVision Episode 7, "Breaking the Fourth Wall," now streaming on Disney+.
The revelation of Agnes' ulterior motives was the least surprising yet most well-executed reveal on WandaVision so far, but it's so rewarding that it's easy to miss the first chance viewers get to examine the witch's hidden lair. There's something off about the underground structure, as the tone of the show shifts into horror with eerie smoothness. Earning a moment under the spotlight is a leathery grimoire, and while it immediately caught the eye of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans who remember the Darkhold's prominence in the series, it's a different diabolical text. It's the Necronomicon itself.
The Necronomicon was H.P. Lovecraft's go-to book of horrors, a mythic tome written in-universe by the mad sorcerer Abdul Alhazred. It's one of the few texts to discuss the Old Ones thriving beyond the veil of reality, and it's been a common artifact in horror for decades. Marvel Comics began absorbing fragments of Lovecraft's mythos into its universe in the early '70s, with the Necronomicon itself introduced in Journey Into Mystery Vol 2, #3. Scripted by Ron Goulart, penciled by Jim Starlin and adapted from a story by Lovecraftian writer Robert Bloch, the tale recounts an attempt to bring a horrific otherworldly being to Earth.
The grimoire continued to appear in various Marvel comics, often mentioned in ones featuring Doctor Strange and, perhaps surprisingly, Namor. It's actually the latter who gets a chance to clarify the Necronomicon's place alongside the Darkhold, his royal heritage hiding a chilling Lovecraftian secret.
Namor: The First Mutant #3 by Stuart Moore, Ariel Olivetti and Fernando Blanco takes the underwater king to the first iteration of Atlantis, a city lost for good reason. The city's true name is R'llyeh, and though its spelling is changed, it's a deliberate call back to dread Cthulhu's underwater home. Scrawled into the city's ruined walls are the mind-warping words of the ancient beings that once lived there. The First Mutant states that the Darkhold and the Necronomicon are separate tomes, two attempts to translate and use these horrible teachings.
The Necronomicon earned Wanda Maximoff's attention for the first time in 1994. In the pages of Scarlet Witch #1 by Tom DeFalco and John Higgins, Wanda reaches out to Agatha Harkness in fear of her own fracturing sanity and a new surge of demonic attacks. Agatha acts in a helpful fashion in this issue, not yet the destructive advisor she's better known as today. Agatha guides Wanda to a hidden library in a New England town called Unity. There waits the demonic book, and also the revelation that Wanda holds a unique identity as a "nexus," a sorceress specializing in chaotic Hex magic.
To find the Necronomicon in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a terrifying expansion of the horror themes WandaVision is leaning into. As a book that chronicles the evilest arts available to a magic-user, its place in Agatha Harkness' lair paints her as a foe more dangerous than fans may have guessed at so far. It's an artifact that's more than earned its reputation, and it continues to suggest a future tie-in to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It's the exact sort of threat both the Sorcerer Supreme and Kamar-Taj's chief librarian, Wong, would be prepared to contain.
Right now the Necronomicon might be only a potent Easter egg, a clue towards the future of the horror genre's presence in the MCU. But it's also possible the presence of the book is a warning to Wanda, and to viewers, that the situation underneath Westview is far more dire than anyone could expect.
Written by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman, WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision, Randall Park as Agent Jimmy Woo, Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau and Kathryn Hahn as Agnes. New episodes air Fridays on Disney+.
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