GNOSTIC
WIZARD
Real Name: unknown
Identity/Class: Human, magic
user
Occupation: Holy man for the
Afghani Mujahideen people
Group Membership: none
Affiliations: none;
Formerly the Afghani army; Gargoyle (Isaac Christians)
Enemies: the Afghani army;
(New) Defenders (Angel, Beast, Cloud,
Gargoyle, Iceman, Moondragon, Valkyrie); the Soviet army
Known Relatives: none
Aliases: none known
Base of Operations: currently
unknown (possibly prison);
Formerly a castle in Afghanistan
First Appearance: (in shadow)
(New) Defenders I#135 (September, 1984);
(Fully seen) (New) Defenders I#136 (October, 1984)
Powers/Abilities: (this section
taken from Gargoyle’s OHOTMU entry)
“The Gargoyle could be commanded by wizards who spoke a certain obscure
spell. An Afghan Gnostic wizard once thus took control of the Gargoyle,
imprisoning him by means of mystical pentagrams. The wizard could
somehow give himself various mystical powers by drawing upon the
Gargoyle’s power, and enabled the Gargoyle to exhibit powers (such as
growing to gigantic size) that he either possibly could not or did not
know how to use himself.” The wizard, while in control of the
pentagram crystal, was able to create a giant manifestation of hand in
the sky subject to his control, to have the Gargoyle’s hand replace his
own, to teleport, to control flames and plants, to make the flesh
malleable, and to render others immobile. He could also sense the
Gargoyle’s thoughts and could use the Gargoyle’s sight. Other
powers are unknown.
History: Little is known about
the background of the Gnostic
wizard.
((New) Defenders
I#136 (fb)) – The Wizard lost an eye, though the
circumstances of its loss are unknown. The wizard was considered
a holy man by his tribesmen, the Mujahideen, in Afghanistan. While he
led many local tribesmen in their chants and prayers, he no longer
believed in their religion. He began to believe that the gods of
man no longer answered, and that only certain demons and other beings
would work with man to better the world. He began to commit
himself to the Gnostic religion.
((New) Defenders I#136 (fb)) – One group of soldiers occupied the
wizard’s castle in Afghanistan, where they prepared for battles against
the invading Soviet armies. The wizard promised the Mujahideen
leader that he would find an incantation that would aid the Afghani
armies in battle. He looked for strength in ancient texts and in
simple incantations, but their effects proved limited or only effectual
for a short time. The wizard accidentally stumbled across a
cantrip with which he could control certain demons using pentagrams,
and a particular pentagram crystal. With this cantrip, he could
control responding demons and use some of the demon’s powers himself.
((New) Defenders I#134 (BTS)) – The wizard used the cantrip to summon
Gargoyle, who disappeared from Defenders Mansion in a pentagram
of
flame. (The Gargoyle, while truly a demon in body, was inhabited
by the soul of a man named Isaac Christians who used the body and its
powers as a superhero).
((New) Defenders I#135) – The Wizard, in speaking to the captive
Gargoyle, revealed his plan to achieve justice according to his vows.
((New) Defenders I#136) – Trapped in a pentagram, the Gargoyle pleaded
for release, stating that he was a man and not a demon, but when the
wizard addressed him, the Gargoyle’s demonic side became dominant and
he agreed to follow the wizard’s orders. In a test of the demon’s
powers, the wizard had Gargoyle create a pillar of gold. The
wizard met with the Mujahideen leader and promised results.
Before he could act, a Soviet helicopter fired on the castle, knocking
him aside. The wizard used the Gargoyle’s powers to manifest an
enormous hand in the air that would respond to his own hand’s
actions. He tore the attacking helicopters apart and crushed them
in his grip. This act allowed the Afghani army to win the battle,
but the Mujahideen leader still threatened the wizard’s life unless
greater results were achieved. Perhaps for revenge or perhaps
growing mad with power, the wizard made a pentagram of flame over the
surrounding area, and then manifested a giant likeness of the Gargoyle
which he used to slaughter the Afghani army. He then laughed
madly, forcing the Gargoyle to laugh along with him. The wizard
then approached the Soviet base in Afghanistan and used his powers to
make all the soldiers immobile. He entered the office of the
Soviet general and made the general’s face pliable, stretched it, and
then caused it to melt. He let the two witnessing soldiers go
free, to report what they had seen. Gargoyle, through the
pentagram crystal, tempted the wizard with thoughts of invading
America, where the streets are paved with gold. The wizard
teleported to New York, and immediately sensed the presence of Doctor
Strange, whom the Gargoyle had hoped would stop the wizard. The
wizard quickly teleported to the Rocky Mountains, after seeing them
advertise in a Times Square billboard. Within hours, the
Defenders came looking for Gargoyle (Moondragon had sensed him there),
and the wizard believed they were fellow demons sent to test him.
He restrained them with roots, but they quickly freed themselves.
Valkyrie led a charge on the wizard, so he summoned a giant
manifestation of the Gargoyle to battle them.
((New) Defenders I#137) – The wizard was determined to destroy the
demons, and generated a large garden to do so, but the Defenders
quickly broke free. He repelled Iceman’s attack with flame, and
willed Cloud back into human form and ordered Gargoyle to crush Cloud,
but the Angel rescued Cloud. Valkyrie attacked Gargoyle while
Moondragon tried to contact him telepathically, but the wizard
successfully repelled both of their attacks. As the wizard
continued to attack with roots and flames, the Beast leaped over and
used his knowledge of the wizard’s religion to get the wizard to lower
his defenses. The Angel snatched up the wizard into the air and
tried to rest control of the pentagram crystal unsuccessfully.
Back on the ground, the wizard ordered Gargoyle to crush the demons,
but Valkyrie sliced off Gargoyle’s hand with her sword. The
severed hand turned into a demon which the Defenders slew. The
Defenders used teamwork to temporarily blind the wizard, so the wizard
wrested control of Gargoyle’s sight. The wizard, now using
Gargoyle’s ‘true sight,’ saw each of the Defenders as they truly were,
not as demons. When faced with the truth of who Cloud,
Moondragon, and Valkyrie were (an astral body, a human host for a
universal force, and an Asgardian chooser of the slain), the wizard
panicked and fled. Once he was outside the pentagram, it vanished
and Gargoyle was freed.
((New) Defenders I#138) – The wizard, cowering, was taken into custody
by the Defenders.
Comments: Created by Peter B.
Gillis, Don Perlin, and Kim DeMulder.
The Gnostic wizard makes many references to the Gnostic religion, which
I am largely unfamiliar with. The following comments about that
religion were offered by Doc Savage. Thanks, Doc!
“For those who are wondering, the wizard who enslaves the Gargoyle to
fight in Afghanistan was a Gnostic. Gnostic generally believed in
a one true god from which other cosmic beings emanated. One of these
cosmic beings was named Sophia. Sophia attempted to reproduce by
herself (or tried to make it to the one true god) but either failed or
reproduced improperly. The result was a malevolent entity called
Ialadaboth, whom the Gnostics identified with the deity of the Hebrew
Bible, Yahweh, Lord of Hosts. Ialadaboth (notice how if you slur the
phrase "Yahweh, Lord of Hosts" it comes out Ialadaboth) and his
underlings, the Archons, entrapped spirits from the higher realm in
matter (considered evil) by creating the material world and Eden (as
the wizard notes). The Gnostics-and Thomas Jefferson-considered
Yahweh a malevolent deity as the Hebrew Bible diagetically indicates
that Yahweh ordered the rape and murder of
thousands of people. Some have called Gnostics "anti-Semites" for that
reason, but as can be seen, their critism of the Hebrew Bible was quite
reasonable.
Some Gnostics did believe in Jesus. However, they believe he came from
the higher realm (Pleroma) as an
immaterial phantom to oppose Ialadaboth. He descended to Earth a fully
grown man (Marcion and other writers considered the accounts of Jesus'
birth in the Gospel of Luke and Matthew spurious-and so do I, since you
would have to accept that the Romans would force people to travel 60
miles just for a census! try doing that today, the roads would be
clogged). Offering himself as a bounty to Ialadaboth, Jesus sought to
return entrapped souls to the Pleroma, the higher realm. So, Jesus died
on the cross (or rather tricked Ialadaboth into thinking he had, since
as noted above, Gnostics believed that Jesus did not have a body; this
seems to be how Marcion worked it out in his head.) Those who believe
in Jesus will escape to the Pleroma. This view ties in with docetism.
The Gnostics may have been the first to deny that Jesus was a Jew, in a
characteristically convolated plot twist. The Gospel of John actually
is heavily Gnostic, and
some stories of Jesus from the Gnostic Gospels made into the Koran.
Circa the middle of the 20th century, an Egyptian man named, amusingly
enough, Muhammed Ali inadvertently discovered various Gnostic Gospels
in Nag Hammadi. Gnostice leaders such as Marcion had to edit the Gospel
of Luke and Paul's letters to exclude posit references to the material
world or to Yahweh, or to fufillment of the Hebrew Bible. Marcion
reasoned that the early version of the Gospel of Luke and Paul's
letters had not had such references, but that later copyists had
interpolated or doctored these works.
Gnostics hated matter, but did not believe that you should kill
yourself or that it did not matter what you did with your body. In
fact, they discouraged carousing or drinking, seeking to limit the
influence of the material body on the mind. The wizard in the
Defenders despises Islam as Muslims believe they worship the same god
as in the Hebrew Bible. If the wizard is right, then the one true
god could be the Living Tribunal's unseen master. Also, Yahweh did
indicate he created the world for someone in his Howard the Duck
appearance.”
Profile by Chadman.
Clarifications:
The Gnostic Wizard has no known connections to:
- Wizard, foe of
Conan in the Hyborian age @ Savage Sword of
Conan I#29
- Wizard, Bentley
Wittman, Frightful Four leader @ Strange
Tales I#102
- Wizard, of ancient
Egypt @ Thing I#8
- Wizard
of the West, Rawhide Kid foe @ Marvel Holiday
Special 1996/4
- Wizard-King,
Arisen Tyrk, Defenders foe @ Marvel Premiere
I#45
- Wizards of Torranna,
the Hooded Ones @ Kull the Destroyer
I#22
- Any other wizards
images:
(New) Defenders I#136, p9, pan3
(New) Defenders I#137, p20, pan5
(New) Defenders I#134-137
(September-December, 1984)
Last updated: 09/13/2005
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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