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| Wizard | |
|---|---|
 The Wizard as seen inNew Avengers #33. Art byLeinil Francis Yu. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Strange Tales #102 (November 1962)[1] |
| Created by | Stan Lee (writer) Larry Lieber (writer) Jack Kirby (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Bentley Wittman |
| Species | Human |
| Team affiliations | Frightful Four Intelligencia |
| Notable aliases | The Wingless Wizard |
| Abilities |
|
Bentley Wittman is acharacter appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics. Created by writersStan Lee,Larry Lieber, and artistJack Kirby, the characterfirst appeared inStrange Tales #102 (November 1962). Wittman is asupervillain known under thecodenamesWizard andWingless Wizard.[2] He is a recurringantagonist of theFantastic Four.[3]
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Bentley Wittman debuted inStrange Tales #102 (November 1962), created byStan Lee,Larry Lieber, andJack Kirby.[4] He subsequently appeared in several Marvel series, includingAmazing Spider-Man (1963),[5]Avengers (1963),[6]FF (2011),[7] andScarlet Witch & Quicksilver (2024).[8]
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Bentley Wittman grew up possessing near-superhuman levels of genius and was a child prodigy and chess champion. As an adult, he became an inventor of great renown, selling his futuristic inventions to the wealthy and becoming quite rich. He became known as the Wizard by legally assuming this stage name and using his advanced scientific inventions to perform feats of "magic" as astage magician andescape artist. Intellectually bored, however, he decided to become a professional criminal and defeat Johnny Storm, who had just appeared to the world as theHuman Torch.[9] Pretending to be a victim by pretending his attempt to use a new drill had gone wrong and he was trapped, he really had enough air for weeks, he was rescued by the Torch and invited him to his high-tech, futuristic mansion onLong Island. There he captured the Human Torch with ease by pretending to take a three-dimensional photo, but really squirting a liquid onto the Human Torch. The Human Torch was then locked in an asbestos cell at gunpoint. The Wizard impersonated the Human Torch, launching a crime spree to destroy the Human Torch's reputation. However, the Human Torch escaped and with help from theInvisible Girl, got photos showing the Wizard had impersonated him, and the Wizard was sent to prison.[10]
The Wizard had a rematch with the Human Torch before long, escaping from prison using a chemical which melted through stone. He got to his house and used aforce field to prevent the police from entering, but allowed the Torch to enter, threatening to blast the police if they tried to get in. The Torch melted a shell the Wizard fired, then created a flaming barrier to protect himself from nerve gas. However the Wizard succeeded in using the Invisible Girl as a hostage, as she had foolishly entered and the Wizard was alerted by an alarm. He trapped both her and the Human Torch in a chamber with a bomb that would activate if the temperature increased by one degree. However the Torch was able to destroy the device, escape, and capture the Wizard.[11] WithPaste-Pot Pete, he battled the Human Torch again while impersonating him again,[12] and the Wizard captured the Torch and the Invisible Girl after escaping by disguising himself and using an anti-gravity device. However the two escaped when the Torch used his flame to alertMister Fantastic and theThing to their location.[13] The conclusion of one encounter with the Torch sent him flying uncontrollably upward by one of his anti-gravity discs, unable to descend safely. He was rescued by two other adversaries of the Torch: theSandman and Paste-Pot Pete (soon after renamed theTrapster).[14] After he suggested they team up, a suggestion by the Trapster inspired him to form a team that would be a criminal counterpart to the Fantastic Four, with himself, his two rescuers, andMedusa, who was then suffering from amnesia; becoming theFrightful Four.[15][16]
The Frightful Four proved to be one of the most formidable menaces that the Fantastic Four had yet encountered. The Frightful Four raided the Fantastic Four'sBaxter Building headquarters, and affixed the Wizard's anti-gravity discs to the four - minus Johnny. With help fromAlicia Masters, who managed to alert the Torch with the Invisible Girl's flare gun. Johnny soon appeared and forced the Wizard to use his anti-grav ship to free his team members before they floated into airless space. Then, together they beat the Frightful Four until the Wizard and the Sandman exploded the Wizard's ship as a distraction, and escaped.[15] Later, kidnapping the Invisible Girl, they lured the Fantastic Four to a Pacific atoll where they rigged an experimental "Q-bomb" to detonate. The Fantastic Four narrowly escaped.[17]
Weeks later, the Frightful Four made their third attempt. Capturing the Thing, the Wizard used his "id machine" to simulate the Thing's natural tendencies toward violence and brainwash him into obeying the Wizard's commands. The Fantastic Four finally managed to subdue the Frightful Four, then all but Medusa were turned over to the authorities.[18]
In his continued quest to crush the Fantastic Four, the Wizard has tried many iterations of the Frightful Four and has very rarely operated outside the Frightful Four. The Wizard engineered the Sandman's escape from prison, and provided him with a design for a new costume.[19] With the Trapster and Sandman, he battled Medusa.[20] He formed a partnership withMysterio and they battled the Torch andSpider-Man, but were foiled by Spider-Man.[21] He battled the Fantastic Four alone,[22] and later battled them once again with the Frightful Four.[23] With the Trapster and Sandman, he invaded the Fantastic Four headquarters, where they encounteredAnnihilus.[24]
Wizard formed the Frightful Four with Trapster, Sandman, andElectro who would later wear a special outfit that would imitate the Human Torch's powers. They were defeated by Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four.[25]
The Wizard replaced Medusa withThundra in the Frightful Four, and they battled the Fantastic Four and Medusa.[26] However, Thundra also ended up betraying him and allying herself with the Fantastic Four as Medusa did.[27] With the Trapster and Sandman, the Wizard battled the Fantastic Four again.[28]
The Wizard, Trapster, and Sandman eventually captured the Fantastic Four. The Frightful Four held auditions for a fourth member of the Frightful Four.Texas Twister showed off his powers and declined membership when they would not pay him.Captain Ultra showed off his powers, but fainted when one of the Frightful Four members lit a cigarette. Osprey auditioned where he wanted them to give him superpowers. Wizard placed one of his anti-gravity disks on Osprey's back which caused him to take off. Wizard stated to the captive Fantastic Four that the anti-gravity disk would set Osprey down somewhere in the southern parts of Bronx. The Frightful Four eventually recruited theBrute (theReed Richards of the original Counter-Earth) into the Frightful Four, with the group battling the Fantastic Four andTigra.[29]
With the Frightful Four who now haveLlyra as a member, the Wizard later captured Spider-Man andNamor.[30] The Wizard later teamed up withPlantman, helping him to escape prison and providing him a vehicle and equipment,[31] but then ran into a conflict with theAvengers.[32] With theMad Thinker and thePuppet Master, the Wizard attempted to disrupt the wedding of the Human Torch and Alicia Masters (Lyja in disguise).[33] The Wizard also captured the Thing andFranklin Richards in an attempt to use them against the Fantastic Four.[34]
When the Sandman appeared to give up his life of crime, the Wizard formed a new Frightful Four withHydro-Man,Klaw, andTitania. They invaded Fantastic Four headquarters, but sided with the real Fantastic Four against the Fantastic Four clones created byAron the RogueWatcher. After Klaw was defeated, Wizard brought inDragon Man as a replacement.[35] The Wizard later engineered a mass breakout from theVault.[36] He was later broken out of prison byLoki to join the inner circle of villains organizing theActs of Vengeance against the Avengers.[37] He freed theBrothers Grimm from prison, and sent them against Spider-Man.[38] With theMandarin, he then battled the Avengers.[39] However, he then inadvertently led the Avengers to the criminals' base.[40] The Wizard eventually escaped Ryker's Island Prison.[41] With the Trapster, he was also defeated by the reformed Sandman.[42] Often avoiding the limelight that he once embraced, the Wizard hoped to hide from authorities using his former name Bentley Wittman. He was found by theThunderbolts, however, who convinced the Wizard to provide anti-gravity discs in order for them to battleGraviton,[volume & issue needed] and later, to attach to theMagneto Protocol Satellites.[volume & issue needed] Later still, when the Sandman had appeared to reform his criminal ways, the Wizard took it upon himself to subject his former ally to his id machine, re-integrating the Sandman's mind and restoring him to villainy.[43]
Finally, when the Fantastic Four's popularity reached an all-time low, the Wizard decided it was time to re-form the Frightful Four once more. No longer motivated by petty jealousy, the Wizard believed the Fantastic Four to be the source of all his troubles, his fall from grace. He rescued the Trapster from the Negative Zone, boosted the powers of Hydro-Man, and called upon his ex-wifeSalamandra to round out the Frightful Four.[44] He also manipulated Cole, his and Salamandra's daughter, to develop a relationship with the Human Torch in order to teleport to her and bypass the Fantastic Four's defenses. During the resulting battle, the Wizard turned on the Trapster, revealing that he intended Cole to be the next member of the Frightful Four. When the Frightful Four defeated the heroes, the Wizard flaunted his success on television and left them humiliated.[45] However, when the Wizard admitted that he only wanted to include Cole once he saw her exhibit superhuman powers, she turned on him. She sought out the Fantastic Four to lead them back to her father and to try to find a cure for her powers. The Wizard and Cole confronted each other, and Cole used one of the Trapster's traps to ensnare her father, then used her powers over gravity to bring the Wizard's lair down around him.[46]
Wizard plays a small role in the "Secret War" crossover event allied withLucia von Bardas and other B-List supervillains.[47]
He has since returned, alive and well, inFantastic Four #546, with a FrightfulFive (himself, Titania,Trapster,Hydro-Man, and Klaw).[48]
The Wizard is among the characters recruited inThe Hood's syndicate of villains. He is then seen in a blue uniform reminiscent of his original outfit.[49][50] Wizard helped them fight the New Avengers but was taken down byDoctor Strange.[volume & issue needed]
During theSecret Invasion storyline, Wizard is one among many of supervillains who rejoined The Hood's crime syndicate and attacked aSkrull force.[51]
During theDark Reign storyline, Wizard joins with the Hood's gang in an attack on the New Avengers, who were expecting theDark Avengers instead.[52] At the time whenQuasimodo was analyzing the Frightful Four forNorman Osborn, he advised keeping Wizard on a tight leash if Norman is to make use of him.[53]
Wizard later appeared as a member of theIntelligencia.[54][55] Along with a new Frightful Four, the Wizard attacks the Baxter Building to capture Reed Richards. While theRed Hulk, who came to stop the villains, is distracted by the Thing and an open portal to the Negative Zone, Reed is captured.[56]
Lyra and She-Hulk went around hunting for the remaining members of Intelligencia. Wizard was the first to be apprehended by Lyra and She-Hulk, brought toBruce Banner, and imprisoned.[57] Wizard managed to escape from Banner's detention cell and attacked Lyra during her prom. His surprise attack had Lyra on the defensive until She-Hulk arrived and defeated Wizard with his own weapons.[58]
He is committed to the P.A.V.L.O.V. Metahuman Psychiatric Facility, following the events ofWorld War Hulks. Reed Richards visits the Wizard there, and informs him that Wittman's clone Bentley 23 is in the care of Richards' family.[59] Later after the death of theHuman Torch and the reformation of the Fantastic Four as theFuture Foundation, rogue agents ofAdvanced Idea Mechanics break the Wizard out of the P.A.V.L.O.V. facility.[60]
When the Sinister Six attacked the Intelligencia, Wizard tried to reason with Sandman due to their old friendship, but this ended when Doctor Octopus used the Zero Cannon that the Intelligencia were using to send Wizard into the upper atmosphere.[61]
MODOK was able to revive Wizard and the other Intelligencia members, who formulate plans after their predicted shatter of the superhero community.[62]
Wizard collaborated with Blastaar where they enslaved Medusa and wanted to get to know his sonBentley 23. He transported the Baxter Building to the Negative Zone where he and Blastaar had to contend withAnt-Man, She-Hulk, andMiss Thing. When handed over to the Inhumans, Wizard later develops dementia due to Black Bolt injuring him as punishment for enslaving Medusa.[63]
Wizard creates a new Frightful Four with Klaw,Karl Malus, andCarnage. He attempted to controlCletus Kasady's mind, but due to his lobotomization, it was impossible. Wizard instead transferred Kassidy's blood into Malus and made him intoSuperior Carnage.[64] Wizard's goal was to take over NYC City Hall and impress his son, butSuperior Spider-Man was able to stop him. Despite losing the battle, Wizard was able to reconnect with his son and regain his mental facilities.[65]
The Wizard subsequently joined the plans of the behind-the-scenes villain known as 'the Quiet Man' to destroy the Fantastic Four, but after his clone rejected him in favour of his friends, followed by him witnessing the scale of the Quiet Man's plans, the Wizard decided to aid the FF against the villain so that he could ensure that his 'son' would grow up in peace.[66]
Wizard then appears talking to MODOK when he hears that Doctor Doom has gone straight only to confront him. During the battle, he manages to outsmart him with his upgraded tech until Doom in his version of the Iron Man armor becomes distracted by a vision, giving him the chance to defeat him. Wizard then tells Superior what happened to other supervillains until Doctor Doom arrives and defeats all of them.[67]
During the "Opening Salvo" part of theSecret Empire storyline, Wizard joinsHelmut Zemo's Army of Evil.[68]
Wizard later took the Fantastic Four to court to claim custody of Bentley-23 where he claimed that his caregiver Dragon Man is unsuited for the job. This plot was thwarted when a man claiming to be the real Bentley Wittman showed up and claimed that Wizard was his clone. This caused the Wizard to get away. Unbeknownst to anyone, the man claiming to be the real Bentley Wittman was actually a perfect clone of Wizard created by Bentley-23.[69]
Bentley Wittman has no true superpowers, but he is a gifted genius with Ph.Ds for allsciences, particularly in the field of physics. In addition to being an inventor and engineer, Wittman is also a talented stage magician, escapologist, and disguise artist.[70]
The Wizard constructed a number of devices for which he employs in his criminal activities:
He suffers from a non-lethalnut allergy (especially peanuts) and consuming them causes his face to swell up.[71]
The Fantastic Four managed to find an adolescent clone of the Wizard and rescued it from a super robot the Wizard made.[72] He has since been taken in by the Fantastic Four and only refers to himself as 23 feeling he "hasn't earned his name" as the original Wizard did.[72] At first, he was a highly introverted child, who over time becomes far more outgoing, also becoming more openly proclaiming of wanting to grow up to become a supervillain. He has since joined the Future Foundation.[73] While working with them, he has indicated he's at least somewhat evil openly worshiping either Satan orMephisto.[60] He has since said to Wizard that he has earned the name "Bentley".[74]
However, when faced with the chance of working with his father to trap the rest of the Future Foundation and analyze Franklin's powers, Bentley turned against his 'father' because he decided that he wanted to do the right thing, with Wizard accepting his decision as he regards it as an example of how he might have been if he grew up with a more loving family.[63]
When Wizard took the Fantastic Four to court claiming that Dragon Man is unsuited to be a caregiver, Bentley-23 created a perfect clone of Bentley Wittman behind everyone's back and used the perfect clone to fool Wizard into thinking that he was a clone of Bentley Wittman. Afterwards, Bentley-23 left the Baxter Building and became his own version of Wizard with help from Dragon Man.[69]
To avoid getting placed in his creator's custody through the "corrupt" legal system, Bentley-23 created a perfect clone of Bentley Wittman to fool Wizard into thinking that he was the clone of him.[69]
There are other characters who have also called themselves Wizard:
All Winners Comics #17, which was published in 1945, 17 years before the first appearance of the Fantastic Four villain of the same name, depicts a legend about the eldest member of the Carreaux family, who jilted the daughter of a magic practitioner in favor of marrying a different girl. When the jilted girl committed suicide, her brother killed that Carreaux man, creating a curse which held that if an elder Carreaux were to marry, a dead wizard and his witch partner would appear on their wedding night and kill that Carreaux. By 1946, the Carreaux family butler Frank Lavalle took advantage of that legend when he heard that Philip Carreaux was going to marry a woman named Marguerite, with whom Frank was also in love. While he would pose as the Wizard, an unnamed female accomplice would pose as the Witch. When his brother Dale returned home from military service, Philip met William Naslund andFred Davis where he told them about the curse involving the Wizard and the Witch. William Naslund and Fred Davis changed into their Captain America and Bucky outfits where they explored the bayou finding any evidence of the Wizard and the Witch. Captain America and Bucky encountered the Wizard who disappeared from Captain America's grasp. Upon finding Philip dead with a knife in his back, Captain America and Bucky encountered the Wizard in another canoe, though he had to let him go to save Bucky from an approaching alligator. When Captain America and Bucky catch up to the Witch and subdue her, she was shot dead as Dale freed Marguerite. Upon examining the Wizard's footprints, Captain America discovered that it matched Frank Lavalle's shoes as Captain America apprehends him. After Frank Lavalle confessed to his motives and the murders, Captain America handed Frank over to the authorities.[75]
Following the 1984Secret Wars miniseries which concluded with the Thing left on the planetBattleworld, he comes across the kingdom of Leenn which is being terrorized by the Wizard. Thing learns that the Wizard is Laann's version of Doctor Doom and that Laann is this planet's version of Doctor Doom's native country ofLatveria.[76] Thing and his ally, a warrior named Tarianna, vanquishes the Wizard.[77]
An alternate universe variant of the Wizard from Earth-58163 appears inHouse of M: Masters of Evil as a member of theeponymous group.[78]
The Wizard appears inJLA/Avengers #4 as a thrall ofKrona.[79]
AJacobean-themed alternate universe variant of the Wizard from Earth-311 appears inMarvel 1602: Fantastick Four. This version is the self-proclaimed "greatest scientist alive in the year 1602", leader of the Four Who Are Frightful, and husband of Medusa.[80]
A zombified alternate universe variant of the Wizard from Earth-2149 appears inMarvel Zombies: Dead Days.[81]
A possible future variant of the Wizard from Earth-982 appears inFantastic Five. By this time, he has been confined to a hover chair, for which he blames Reed Richards. Seeking revenge, he forms the Wizard's Warriors to attack the Fantastic Five while he locates Richards.[82] He eventually finds Richards'Negative Zone space station, only to be captured by its security system and placed in storage.[83]
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