Nicholas Scratch

Nicholas Scratch is the son of Agatha Harkness and a powerful sorcerer who rules New Salem, Colorado — a hidden community of witches. He manipulates the town's citizens against the Fantastic Four and his own mother, wielding dark magic to pursue his sinister ambitions.

Few villains make their Bronze Age entrance quite like Nicholas Scratch — conjured into the Marvel Universe in Fantastic Four #185 by the legendary team of Len Wein, George Pérez, and Joe Sinnott, he arrived with an air of dark authority that immediately set him apart. A figure steeped in the mystical and the sinister, he's spent nearly five decades haunting Marvel's pages, crossing paths with Reed Richards, Susan Storm Richards, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm — the very heart of the First Family — which tells you everything about the scale of trouble he represents. His affiliations with both the Fantastic Four's world and Salem's Seven give him a uniquely eerie foothold in Marvel's supernatural corners, and his appearances across Fantastic Four, Hellcat, and Marvel Knights 4 speak to a character who refuses to stay buried. Fifteen catalog appearances may sound modest, but for a Bronze Age original with this kind of staying power into 2025, Nicholas Scratch is absolutely worth seeking out.