Warning: This article contains (very minor) spoilers for Agatha All Along episode 4.
Although much of the conversation surrounding it revolves around Wiccan this and Mephisto that, Agatha All Along is actually a refreshingly standalone Marvel outing — a crowd-pleasing slice of spooky season entertainment that works better as a double-bill with Hocus Pocus than it does with Hawkeye. And yet the series is still firmly rooted in the MCU, with a pleasingly tongue-in-cheek approach to its Easter eggs and references.
Episode 3, for instance, casually name-dropped Mephisto for the very first time in this franchise, blowing the fans’ minds with a wave of its hand in the process. Episode 4 continues on in the same vein, going so far as to confirm that a whole new superhero team exists in the Sacred Timeline… and then revealing that they’re already toast in the very same breath. R.I.P. Daughters of Liberty, we hardly knew you.
Who are the Daughters of Liberty in the Marvel universe?
In a much-needed bonding moment between the members of our favorite chaotic coven, the witches rest up on the Road and share the stories of their various bodily scars. When it gets to Agatha’s turn, she shows them a scar on her funny bone. “Knitting needle to the elbow,” she explains. “Ever heard of the Daughters of Liberty?” When everyone says no, Agatha retorts, “Exactly.”
In the comics, the Daughters of Liberty is a centuries-old society of heroic women, and what’s ironic about Agatha battling them in the MCU is that she is actually a member of their ranks in the source material. As created by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Adam Kubert in the pages of 2019’s Captain America #7, the group were once known as the Daughters of Light, based in 18th century Europe. However, they were beheaded for their heathen ways of daring to be independent women. Only one survived and escaped to America, going on to found the Daughters of Liberty.
The Daughters are a sisterhood of guardians sworn to protect freedom at all costs, as well as the welfare of humanity as a whole. Unlike showy superhero teams like the Avengers, though, the Daughters prefer to keep their existence a secret, with their leaders over the ages going by the codename Dryad. The Dryad of the 1800s, for example, was Harriet Tubman!
By the 1940s, Peggy Carter was Dryad and she went undercover to protect Steve Rogers/Captain America, although she ended up falling in love with him for real. In the present-day, her niece Sharon Carter is the current Dryad, and she has assembled many of Marvel’s best female secret agents and vigilantes, including Spider-Woman, Mockingbird, Invisible Woman, Misty Knight, White Tiger, and Echo. Not to mention Agatha, who shares her magical expertise with the group. Remember, Comics Agatha is much less ruthless than her MCU counterpart.
Considering the Daughters of Liberty’s skill in the source material, it’s curious that the Sacred Timeline version attacked Agatha with only a knitting needle, but it’s likely that she fought an earlier incarnation of the group in some previous era. What’s notable about this name-drop is that the Daughters of Liberty are the first confirmed all-female superhero team to exist in the MCU (the Marvels are a trio, not a team, if you ask me). We’re still waiting on that A-Force movie, Kevin Feige!
Published: Oct 3, 2024 08:59 am