Agatha Harkness Fact — November 1, 2026

Today's Fact

Checked against independent sources — the issues are cited below.

AGATHA’S OWN SON PUT HER ON TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT — AND SENTENCED HIS MOTHER TO BURN!

The Featured Fact

New Salem was the hidden Colorado town Agatha Harkness had led for generations, and leaving it broke its oldest law: never risk the secret. When she took the governess post with the Fantastic Four, her son Nicholas Scratch stayed behind, inherited her pulpit, and began preaching that his mother was the traitor who would expose them all.

In Fantastic Four #185 (1977), Scratch’s followers snatched Agatha from Whisper Hill and dragged home young Franklin Richards as a second prize. Before the assembled town, Scratch prosecuted his own mother for consorting with outsiders, and the verdict his frightened congregation reached under his coaching was death by burning.

The prosecution had miscalculated its guest list. The Fantastic Four tracked the kidnappers to New Salem, fought Salem’s Seven to a standstill, and turned the crowd by exposing whose recklessness had actually endangered the town. The townspeople banished Scratch to the Dark Realm, and Agatha walked out of her own trial free — a result her son spent years trying to appeal by possession, puppetry, and worse.

Why It's Obscure

Family court in New Salem came with a stake, a torch, and a prosecutor who called the defendant ‘mother.’

1977

A debut in the dock’s shadow — Scratch first appears in Fantastic Four #185 as New Salem’s leader; within two issues he has indicted the woman who founded the town and raised him.

Franklin

The hostage who ruined the plan — Kidnapping Franklin Richards converted a closed community’s internal purge into a rescue mission for the most connected family in Marvel.

The Seven

Grandchildren as bailiffs — Scratch’s seven children, Salem’s Seven, supplied the muscle for the abduction, which made the trial a three-generation family affair.

Later

The sentence, postponed not pardoned — Years afterward the Seven seized New Salem again and actually burned Agatha at the stake in The Vision and the Scarlet Witch Vol. 2 #3 (1985); her spirit simply reported for teaching duty anyway.

Gallery

Comic art of Agatha Harkness and the figures named in today's fact.

Nicholas Scratch confronts Agatha and the Fantastic Four in a comic page — **The prosecutor, in person**Scratch announces himself to his ‘dear mother Agatha’ with the Fantastic Four in the room — the family dispute that began with a kidnapping and a show trial.

Agatha Harkness speaks with Wanda Maximoff and the Vision in a comic page — **What the stake could not settle**Wanda greets an Agatha she believes was burned at the stake — ‘a terrible inconvenience it was, my dear’ — and the old witch promptly turns the conversation to somebody else’s children.

Sources

Every claim above checks out against at least two of these independent sources.

Bullpen Bulletins

10 Things Only Comic Book Fans Know About Nicholas Scratch — Screen RantScreen Rant’s Scratch dossier: introduced in Fantastic Four #185 (1977), he led New Salem’s charge to burn his mother before the community turned and freed her.
Who Are Salem’s Seven? — ComicBookComicBook’s Salem’s Seven explainer: Scratch abducted Agatha and put her on trial for revealing New Salem, the Four rescued her, and the Seven later burned her in Vision and the Scarlet Witch #3.