Darkhold

A boy who manifested when Agatha Harkness attempted to make a second Darkhold.

Name:

Darkhold

Publisher:

Marvel

Real name:

Aliases:

Birth date:

None

Gender:

Male

Powers:

Magic

First issue:

Avengers Annual #1 Contest of Chaos: Finale

See at ComicVine

Origin

After Scarlet Witch had absorbed the original Darkhold to contain Chthon, her old mentor, Agatha Harkness, believed she needed to create a second edition or else chaos magic would run rampant on Earth. First, she needed to focus chaos energy by forcing heroes to fight each other. This unfortunately got the attention of The Avengers, who attempted to stop Agatha. Their intervention caused an interruption in the spellwork which materialized The Darkhold as a young boy.

Creation

Darkhold first appears in Avengers 2023 Annual by Stephanie Phillips and Alberto Foche.

Major Story Arcs

Blood Hunt

Darkhold remembered the intentions of every user who possessed him in book form. He yearned for freedom and eventually ran away from Agatha Harkness, who had been pretending to be his mother while they traveled. He escaped to Madripoor, but a vampire cult called The Structure filled the sky with darkforce energy as a first step to their plan for world domination. Seeing them as an obstacle to his freedom, Darkhold started to prepare the Montessi Formula to end all vampirism.

Just then, he was found by a scrappy group of Strange Academy students. They were trying to prove themselves by finding the book that no one knew was turned into a boy. He started to activate the spell but was attacked by Pia, a vampiric student. Believing they all wanted to hurt him, Darkhold tried to run, but the kids tried to negotiate. They didn't want vampires like Pia to be caught in the spell. Unfortunately, Agatha, an occasional professor at the academy, followed them to reunite with Darkhold. He teleported away with Pia as his prisoner.

Darkhold decides to give Pia the chance to fight for her life against a number of demons, proving that Darkhold shouldn't use the Montessi Formula on all vampires. The fight was interrupted by Agatha Harkness, who wanted to take guardianship of Darkhold. Pia was forced to defend Darkhold, sharing her own guardian familiar with Darkhold for extra protection. Darkhold was moved by her sacrifice and eventually joined her classmates in the fight against Agatha before being invited to the Strange Academy.