When Marvel Studios first announced plans for Agatha All Along, then titled Agatha House of Harkness, on Disney+ Day in November 2021, the general fan responses tended to be “Why” or “Who asked for this?”. Kathryn Hahn’s depiction of Agatha Harkness was no doubt popular with fans, but many questioned the idea of why Marvel Studios would give a supporting character in a television series with not much of a fanbase in the comics her own television show as opposed to a more prominent name. Just months before Agatha All Along debuted, some said it would be the “least watched MCU series ever” and a sign that the MCU was going downhill because they were oversaturating the market with a television show that seemingly nobody wanted.
Cut to November 2024, and it turns out Agatha All Along was precisely what many people wanted. The first four episodes of Agatha All Along that were screened for critics got positive reviews, and as the series went on, the reviews got stronger. Audience reaction to the series was also incredibly strong, with social media engagement for each episode harkening back to the early days of WandaVision. In fact, the viewership for Agatha All Along grew week after week, in contrast to other shows, which debuted big and then lost viewership. There was a clear appetite for Agatha All Along, but one outside the traditional Marvel fandom.
A recent report revealed that studios have become so fearful of fan backlash that they have started to assemble teams of superfans to assess possible marketing materials for big franchises, and studios have even begun to take control of stars’ social media accounts to help them avoid the negative backlash. The idea of creatives being afraid to make new exciting spins on franchises is depressing, but Agatha All Along shows why it isn’t always smart to listen to these types of fans. In fact, Agatha All Along makes a good case for sometimes needing to break away from the traditional “fan” and court a new audience.
‘Agatha All Along’ Looked to Be Different
For all the pre-release talk around Agatha All Along, it is often overlooked how obvious the idea of the series is from a business standpoint. From a cynical-minded business perspective, it just made sense. WandaVision was clearly the most successful MCU Disney+ series regarding reviews and audience engagement, so in line with Season 2, Marvel and Disney extended that corner of the franchise with one of television’s most reliable formulas: a spin-off.
Agatha All Along is a lot like classic television series like Mork & Mindy, Angel, and Fraiser in that they took a character or idea that popped into another show and decided to give them their own series. Agatha All Along might be another entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it is designed as a spin-off of WandaVision, giving the series’ breakout character her own show while trying to tap into the magic (mind the pun) of that series with audiences. While the MCU has been criticized for not fully integrating the television format, with many criticizing their episodes as feeling like a long cut-up movie, Agatha All Along shows they know how to follow the basic rule of spin-offs.
Agatha All Along also clearly follows Marvel Studios’ habit of finding a niche or culture subset and finding one of their own properties that can fill the void. Agatha All Along was a series aimed to tap into an audience that grew up on films like Hocus Pocus or the television show Charmed. It captured what many call the “witchy girls fall” vibes, from the obvious Wiccan subject matter to Disney perfectly timing the series to debut in September and air throughout the spooky season, wrapping up the day before Halloween. It was the goth Marvel series.
Agatha All Along also looked to cater to an LGBTQ+ crowd, one that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has often ignored or coasted on. While some might have rolled their eyes at the decree that “it was Marvel’s gayest show” as another possible empty promise, the truth of the matter is that when all was said and done, Agatha All Along truly delivered. The series wasn’t vague or brief about it; they prominently featured same-sex kisses between Billy Maximoff/Wiccan and his boyfriend Eddie, and the series’ epic climax concludes not with a firey blast of energy but a kiss between Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha and Aubrey Plaza’s Death.
After years of queer fans feeling left out and pushed to the side, Agatha All Along provided an MCU series where they were the stars. That might have angered some more close-minded viewers, but they made up for that loss with new viewers who could see themselves reflected on screen and returning viewers who might have lost faith in the MCU brand because it offered something different.
All of these ingredients, from a strong LGBTQ+ focus, a cast prominently of women, and an aesthetic and vibe looking to capture the interest of those fascinated with tarot, witchcraft, and crystals, might not seem like the traditional “Marvel” audience, and that is the point. There are many Marvel fans whose interests overlap with one or many of those, but Agatha All Along looked at attracting an audience outside of the MCU fandom. Possibly a crowd that was tired of what they saw as “superhero” stories or ones that might have felt overwhelmed by 16 years of continuity. Agatha All Along welcomed new audience members into the MCU while enticing existing viewers with something different.
Now the MCU has characters like Agatha Harkness and Billy Maximoff that audiences will likely want to see in other MCU projects, even if they might not have initially, similar to how the founding Avengers like Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America did for the Infinity Saga. Agatha All Along was wise to ignore the “nobody wants this” criticism because they knew there was an audience for Agatha All Along. They trusted creator Jac Schaeffer and the creative team to take chances and challenge the preconceived notions of what a “Marvel show” could be.
Fans Don’t Always Know What Is Right
The relationship between fan culture and a given property has often been tricky. Many long-running franchises owe their continued existence to passionate fandoms. Star Trek as it is today wouldn’t exist without fan support (notably led by a woman named Bjo Trimble’s letter-writing campaign, so don’t let anyone try to dismiss the role of female fans) and franchises like Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and many more owe their continued popularity to fans keeping them alive. Yet there have also been plenty of cases where fandom has gotten far too possessive over a franchise, mistaking enjoyment of something as ownership. This toxic level of behavior takes the form of death threats, doxxing, and harassment, all of which can be seen in the Star Wars fandom in the past few years.
Sometimes, fans can be right from criticism over Michael Bay’s treatment of the Transformers less as characters and more as excuses for set pieces to critiquing major changes to fan-favorites like Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine or Galactus in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Yet there are plenty of cases of fans having strong negative reactions to something before changing their minds after watching the finished project and finally seeing the filmmaker’s intended vision.
The most obvious example is Michael Keaton being cast as Batman, which fans rejected so much they started a letter-writing campaign to Warner Bros. Once Batman opened in theaters in 1989, everyone changed their tune, and Keaton is to this day regarded as one of the best Batman interpretations. There were many homophobic jokes made when Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker, with people underestimating director Christopher Nolan’s intuition and the late great actor’s body of work, and the finished project is considered one of the best performances of all time, not just for a comic book movie. Fans today might love Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, but fans were originally very skeptical of his casting back in 2000 because of his musical theater background and his being too tall for the part.
While Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is regarded as the best film in the Star Trek franchise, before the movie came out, fans of Star Trek were widely against it. They objected to series creator Gene Roddenberry no longer having creative control of the film. Also, they opposed the franchise being handled by director Nicolas Meyer and producer Harve Bennett, two men who had made it known they were not fans of Star Trek and had never seen an episode of the Original Series. Today, that revelation would send a certain corner of fandoms into a meltdown. When news of Spock’s death leaked, fans quickly mobilized and sent angry letters to Paramount Pictures and even death threats because, sadly, fans taking fictional material too far is nothing new.
Yet despite all the fan’s outrage, once they saw the movie, they loved it, and now nobody ever talks about the pre-negative buzz but only The Wrath of Khan’s influence. What’s more, The Wrath of Khan was just what the Star Trek brand needed as it created new fans, ones that keep the franchise going today. This is what Agatha All Along did, as it attempted to broaden the audience and fandom from what a “Marvel” project can be, and that is an investment that will pay off in the long run.
Along with X-Men ’97 and Deadpool & Wolverine, Agatha All Along helped rebrand the MCU brand after 2023 misfires like Secret Invasion and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Now, fans are back on board with the MCU into 2025’s exciting slate of projects. Like The Wrath of Khan, Agatha All Along helped its franchise regain its groove.
The MCU Has Worked Because It Knows How to Balance Old and New Fans
Agatha All Along is less proof of what the MCU “needs to do” and more another example of what they do best. With Agatha All Along, Marvel Studios did listen to “the fans,” but what a fan is to the MCU now is very different from when Iron Man first came out and launched the franchise.
Due to the increased popularity of the MCU, fans of Marvel now mean more than just the legion of people who read the comics, but now large groups of young kids, teens, and adults who likely were exposed to the Marvel Universe thanks to the MCU. There is nothing wrong with that, and it doesn’t make anyone less of a fan of Marvel anymore than someone whose first exposure to Marvel was the Ultimate Comics, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, or any of the countless video games. Marvel as a brand is bigger than ever in its history, which means more people have a seat at the table. That is a good thing because it means the franchise will live on.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a franchise that has succeeded by balancing the needs and desires of hardcore comic book fans while getting general audiences engaged. They’ve given the passionate fans the classic costumes, interconnectivity, and elements that previous film versions downplayed, but they also knew how to balance those elements with what would make for the best film and or Disney+ series to an audience member who never picked up a comic book. The MCU has turned minor characters like The Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Shang-Chi, and Ant-Man into household names. 20 years ago, when the MCU began, probably many would have said, “Who wants those movies?” but it took looking outside the small fan bubble of comic readers to see the mainstream potential of these characters.
Fans should be critical of adaptations within reason but also be willing to approach something with an open mind. Allowing creative teams to take big swings led to developments in their favorite franchises that likely made them fans in the first place. They might also realize that just because something might not be targeted at them doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile and that it might not be for someone else. Agatha All Along is streaming on Disney+.
