The Addams Family’s Best Quote Set Up Wednesday’s Perfect Origin In One Panel

Charles “Chas” Addams created one of the quirkiest, spookiest families of all time thanks to his blend of Gothic and satirical visual styles. It entertainingly portrayed the now iconic Addams Family as a twisted mirror image of what’d come to be known as the nuclear family, while creating non-conformist legends out of several of its members. Enjoying the most popularity currently is Wednesday Addams, whose distinctive braided hair and small stature graced the pages of The New Yorker well before she was even named. But just by being part of this eccentric family, Wednesday obtained some vital Addams-style life lessons well before having adventures of her own.

Immediately noteworthy is her first appearance on August 26, 1944, in which she complains to her mother about her brother, the yet-to-be-named Pugsley Addams, who poisoned her. It’s a memorable exchange charting paths forward for several members of this ghoulish clan, with Wednesday clearly taking her mother, Morticia’s advice to heart. Wednesday’s sadistic origins clearly take root here, alongside her gradually adopting a more emotionally vacuous persona, setting up the future for who’d eventually become positively iconic even decades later.

Wednesday’s Addams Family Origins Set Up Her Macabre Personality

Captioned “Well, don’t come whining to me. Go tell him you’ll poison him right back,” this Addams Family comic confirms how Wednesday was raised, how her dynamic with Pugsley emerged, and how surprisingly wholesome its presentation is. Morticia is the one giving out this advice to Wednesday, and instead of giving into parental clichés in the face of sibling rivalry like “I don’t care who started it, I’m finishing it”, she firmly, but calmly, nudges Wednesday to keep the chaos going. It’s perfectly emblematic of this particular family’s dynamic, but also a good case in seeing how Morticia handles raising her children with unwavering poise. This same poise would manifest differently in Wednesday.

In fact, while Morticia’s personality gives off an effortlessly powerful matriarchal vibe, Wednesday’s is more of a monotonous, rigidly-poised character with a dark heart for mischief. Looking back, it’s a little surprising to see Wednesday sporting an almost sad look in her eyes, seemingly upset that Pugsley would play such a cruel prank. But it’s also clear that she’s looking for the excuse she needed to poison him right back, with Morticia clearly not being bothered. After all, in this cartoonish, inverted nuclear family built on impressive Old-Money origins, siblings poisoning each other is treated as a harmless, juvenile prank, with Morticia enabling Wednesday to take matters into her own hands by pranking her brother right back.

The Wednesday & Pugsley Dynamic Was Built Before Either Sibling Had A Name

Whether someone is watching the newer Wednesday Netflix series or the numerous projects based on The Addams Family across the decades, it’s easy to spot Wednesday and Pugsley’s antics across their entire timeline. Readers of Addams and Evil: An Album of Cartoons can see their earliest forms, setting up guillotines and other execution technology, often with Wednesday strapping Pugsley in. But don’t mistake this for simple sibling rivalry. Despite the poisoning comic hinting at a simpler, more generic dynamic beginning to unfold, the pair certainly terrorize each other, but also those around them. In fact, for as much as Wednesday messes with Pugsley, she is also his fiercest protector.

This case presents itself pretty openly, with the most high-profile case being the series premiere of Wednesday in which she is expelled after getting elaborate, violent revenge against the boys who bullied her brother. Unleashing piranhas in the swimming pool seems understandably harsh, but the boys shoving an apple in Pugsley’s mouth, tying him up, and shoving him in the locker is far from innocent. If anything, the relatively pedestrian cruelty of high school life ought to be even more jarring for the Addams Family, with Wednesday’s intervention, twisted as it may be, indicating that her macabre pranks are more of a love language than a hug ever will be.

The Addams Family