You may have heard the news: Death, or rather Death itself, is present along Agatha all along in the supplemental series to WandaVision. This is right: Death with a capital “D”.
Described in the series as “The Original Green Witch” – due to the process of decomposition leading to the formation of carbon dioxide, water, and minerals that are then absorbed by plants through their roots – and Marvel’s long history has given her various titles, including Lady Death, Mistress Death, Reaper of Souls, Ultimate Goddess, Dark Beauty, and the most famous of all, Lady Death (though, the character is no longer called that as the name has been usurped by a completely different and independently-published character).
So, what sets Marvel’s embodiment of the cessation of life apart from others? Well, she’s officially a cosmic entity, for example – conceptually opposite to her peer, Eternity (who first appeared in the live-action motion picture in Thor: Love and Thunder, in case you forgot) and often portrayed as a woman. Marvel’s incarnation of Death was created by Mike Friedrich and Jim Starlin, making her first appearance in Captain Marvel #26 way back in the summer of 1973.
While Marvel has not given Death her own title, she came close in the seventies The Infinity War, a comedic story set during World War II with a very tv-ready premise, it wouldn’t be surprising if Agatha left Rio in order to take her place in the Wolf by Night – Marvel Presents-style. In that book, Death decides to punish a soldier named Jon Kawalski for his failure to intervene during the invasion of Poland. In a kind of horrific activity aptly named Quantum Jump each issue in the series sees Death tasking Kawalski with inhabiting the body of a condemned man in order to effect change something for the better before their host succumbs to their final fate.
However, in the comics, she’s probably best known for her unrequited flirtation with Thanos, the former MCU villain. Thanos had romantic designs (unreciprocated) on Death throughout his appearances in the seventies and eighties, routinely attempting to earn her affections by killing as many people as possible. As seen in the 1991 event series The Infinity Gauntlet, where his plan to wipe out half of life with the power of the original macguffin was another attempt to win Death’s favor – a cosmic sacrifice she carried out in the MCU adaptation for The Infinity War and Endgame, where Death herself was entirely removed from the picture.
While Death is fascinated by the gesture found in The Infinity Gauntlet, she isn’t inside – Thanos as such, and rarely gets involved with characters beyond that. Instead, her motivations have since been focused on a greater concern with immortal jobbers in the universe who constantly elude her icy grip. Yes, Death is one of those people who want what they can’t have, demonstrating a greater interest in characters like the ever-renewing Deadpool, or more recently, the clone of Spider-Man, Ben Reilly, who has repeatedly returned from the dead, but she can’t help but notice.
But if Death is largely a leftover from a seventies whimsical war movie and a tangential romantic interest to a cosmic despot, why is she still around? What does it mean in Agatha all Along? We don’t yet know. As a former paramour of Agatha’s seemingly rejected, the series seems to be taking a page from the comics to make Death a possible romantic tale. Except this time, rather than relying on cosmic scope, she operates within the boundaries of the series’ exploration of the MCU’s magical side. But why the ruse of portraying a character named Rio Vidal?
We’re not sure either, but in the comics, Death occasionally took on a woman named Marlo Chandler to experience life in a physical form. While that character was named after author Raymond Chandler and his fictional detective Philip Marlowe, “Rio” is a Spanish name meaning river, and “Marlo” means “lake residue.” There’s some resemblance there. “Vidal” is also a Spanish name meaning “small life” or “lively life,” which is ironically humorous, I believe (Chandler means candle maker if you’re hoping for a potential connection to the last name). Also in a previous episode, she was dressed in a rock star outfit resembling a Spanish bullfighter, and since Mexico is one of the few cultures that has a feminine embodiment of Death (in this case, Santa Muerte), perhaps there’s some logical thread there in the name after all?
If Death’s motivations for getting involved in Agatha’s affairs are revealed, it’s likely to happen next week, when Agatha all Along concludes its season on Disney+ the day before Halloween. And we may see whether Death has a future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe beyond the screen… as a concept physically embodied, of course. We’re sure there will be plenty of deaths, either next week Agatha all Along or in the future of the MCU, regardless of whether Rio is present or not.
Do you want more io9 news? Learn about the expected release dates of the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe in cinema and television, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
