We’ve reached Day 12 of this year’s Jack Kirby Tribute Month, curated by Howard Simpson. This time out, it’s all about Fantastic Four-related characters from Jack Kirby’s and Stan Lee’s 100+ issues of “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.” We’ve been doing allies and supporting characters for the moment, and today’s prompt is Agatha Harkness.
She shows up very late in Jack and Stan’s run, in issue #94. Reed and Sue are looking for a child-rearing specialist who can protect newborn Franklin when they need to go off on missions, and have decided to hire Agatha Harkness. In that introductory story, “The Return of the Frightful Four!,” Miss Harkness proves herself to be more than capable of handling that job!
I would guess that Agatha Harkness was probably inspired by some of the other monster/horror material that was around in pop culture at the time. On TV, you had shows like The Addams Family, The Munsters, and newcomer Dark Shadows. Ben Grimm even references Barnabas from Dark Shadows, Dracula, and late show horror movies in his dialogue. I’d suggest the story is one of the better ones from the latter part of the Kirby/Lee FF run. It gives Kirby a chance to stretch some of the horror muscles he’d later go on to use in The Demon for DC.
Hope you enjoy my take. Come back tomorrow if you’re curious to see who shows up next!