The Darkhold has been hunted, hoarded and fought over on network television, on Hulu, on Disney+ and in a Sam Raimi movie. Almost no object in the MCU has changed hands this often, and few have looked so different from one show to the next. It matters again now, because “Avengers: Doomsday” arrives on December 18th and TV Insider calls it the beginning of the end of the Multiverse Saga.
Here is a guide to the hands that held the Darkhold and what each one did with it. The Darkhold corrupts everyone who touches it, and it has touched a lot of people. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, “Runaways”, “WandaVision”, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Agatha All Along”.
The Darkhold corrupts everyone who touches it, and it has touched a lot of people.”
Start with the problem, because it shapes everything after it. In “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Runaways”, CBR says the Darkhold has a pristine dark red cover and looks and works the same way in both shows. Inverse describes the same red book with white pages and its name in big gold letters, and The Direct says the design carries across the two shows. In “WandaVision” it is a dark gray book with worn, messy pages, again according to CBR. Tom’s Guide flagged the clash after the finale: “either there are two Darkholds in the MCU or these two shows are not in the same universe.” Director Matt Shakman told Screen Rant, as GamesRadar quotes him, “we designed it anew.” He added that he would imagine it is “the same book.”
The S.H.I.E.L.D. book comes first. Marvel.com says Eli, the uncle of Ghost Rider Robbie Reyes (Gabriel Luna), is after a book called the Darkhold that lets the reader create what they want the most. He keeps trying even from prison. Den of Geek says Eli pushed his experiments with it too far at the lab where he worked and the blast he caused killed people and created ghosts. It also says one of those ghosts hunts for the book. Melinda May ends up with it and hides it. Den of Geek says that when Phil Coulson, Fitz and Robbie vanish in a blast she gives it to Holden Radcliffe. Radcliffe has his android Aida read it instead of a human.
After that the book keeps moving. Marvel.com says Coulson sends it to Billy Koenig for safekeeping. Den of Geek says Radcliffe takes it from the Koenigs’ secret base. Collider and The Direct both say the book is what gives Aida a human body. Marvel.com says the industrialist Anton Ivanov wants it next to use against the Inhumans. S.H.I.E.L.D. takes control of it again. In the finale Robbie takes the book to another dimension to keep it out of the wrong hands.
Then the trail goes cold. Season three of “Runaways” puts that same red book in the hands of Morgan le Fay (Elizabeth Hurley), who rules the dark world the heroes are pulled into. Collider says the book supercharged her magic as she tried to drag Earth into the Dark Dimension. Inverse says its contents were later used to build a banishment spell for her. The Direct says the show never explains how she got hold of it. That leaves a gap between Robbie’s portal and her hands.
The second book arrives in “WandaVision”. Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) keeps it in her basement and CBR says it protects her from the Hex that Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) casts over Westview. CBR also says the series never explains how Agatha got it. Screen Rant says she opens it in the finale to show Wanda a whole chapter on the Scarlet Witch. Wanda beats Agatha and takes the book. Marvel.com says she walks away from Westview with it. Collider says the post-credits scene has her reading it and hearing her children’s voices. Inverse says head writer Jac Schaeffer was asked whether this was the S.H.I.E.L.D. book. She said it was her impression “that this is the MCU Darkhold.” She added, “Other projects will tell you more, probably.”
One project did. In “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” Wanda uses the book to chase her sons across universes and tells Strange it “only showed me the truth.” Marvel.com calls it the tome that “propels the film forward”. Nerdist says she uses its Dreamwalking spell to take over her counterpart on another Earth and Strange uses the same spell on a dead version of himself. At Kamar-Taj a sorcerer destroys Wanda’s copy and Wong blurts out the truth: “The Darkhold was a copy!” He points her to a mountain with the spells “carved into its walls.” On Mount Wundagore he says the first demon, Chthon, “carved his dark magic into this tomb.” The same spells, Wong says, were “later transcribed into the Darkhold.” Marvel.com and Nerdist both place the original spells on the walls of the mountain. Marvel.com quotes co-producer Richie Palmer saying the team worked with the prop master “to make sure it had the same throughline” as the book from “WandaVision”.
The film never refers to the television books and it does not have to. Tom’s Guide objected after the finale that the comics Darkhold is “one of a kind” and cannot be run off at a printing press. The film’s answer is a transcription. A book transcribed from a wall is a copy and copies can differ. CBR files the S.H.I.E.L.D. book as “a separate copy”. GamesRadar says the film’s copies across different universes leave room for the S.H.I.E.L.D. and Runaways books to come from another one.
The film also ends the chain. CBR and Screen Rant both say Wanda turns on the book after the sons she finds in another universe run from her in fear. She brings Mount Wundagore down on herself and Nerdist says every copy of the Darkhold in the multiverse burned away with it. Palmer puts it plainly: “Wanda destroyed the Darkhold in all universes.” Wanda’s own last word on the subject is “No one will ever be tempted by the Darkhold again.” Nerdist adds that the film left her fate ambiguous.
That should be the end but “Agatha All Along” keeps the book alive as a memory. CBR says Agatha starts the series without her powers or the Darkhold and learns in the first episode that the book was destroyed. Screen Rant adds that every copy is gone. The book returns in the third episode. Nerdist says Jennifer Kale tells the goth teen traveling with Agatha that nobody knows for sure what happened to her son but some say she traded him for the Book of the Damned. The same episode puts the Darkhold in Agatha’s poisoned vision. She lifts the blanket in a baby’s bed and finds the book instead. Screen Rant says the image points to that trade. Nerdist argues she wanted the book to get her son back.
Count the owners and the two books separate cleanly. The red book passes from Eli’s lab to S.H.I.E.L.D., Radcliffe, Aida, the Koenigs and Robbie, and then somehow to Morgan le Fay. The worn gray book passes from Agatha to Wanda and ends with the mountain.
That brings the chain to “Avengers: Doomsday”. TV Insider counts “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” among the projects that had characters explore different universes and timelines before the film. In that film, Nerdist notes, the Illuminati’s Doctor Strange used the book and inadvertently triggered an Incursion that destroyed a universe. Nerdist defines an Incursion as two parallel worlds colliding. TV Insider quotes the official logline for the new film, which has heroes from “three distinct universes” on a “deadly collision course”. Marvel has not said what part the Darkhold plays, if any. Palmer’s question is still the open one: “The hole that leaves going forward, who knows what that can bring?”
What Do You Think? Is the S.H.I.E.L.D. book just another copy from another universe? Did Agatha trade her son, or chase the book to get him back? And would you want the Darkhold back in “Avengers: Doomsday”?
Catch up properly: every MCU movie and show in chronological order on the MCU+ Universe Tree.
See you on the next binge!
