PASHA EMIT ERUT-UF

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Unknown (see comments) (1950s)

Occupation: Stage magician

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Eve Namada (assistant), Marvel Boy (Bob Grayson)

Enemies: A gang of crooks (including Big Dan, Boss, George, Mac, Pete, and Shorty)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: "The Greatest Magician of All Time," "Magician Extraordinary" (theatre billings)

Base of Operations: An unidentified American city

First Appearance: Astonishing#6/1 (October, 1951)

Powers/Abilities: Pasha Emit Erut-Uf demonstrated such abilities as telepathy, levitation, teleportation, and the creation of incredibly realistic optical illusions; however, it is unclear whether he accomplished these feats by his own natural abilities or by the use of some futuristic technology (see comments).

History: (Astonishing#6 (fb) - BTS) - Pasha Emit Erut-Uf and Eve Namada appeared in the year 1951 and set up a magic act that astonished everyone with their tricks, scientists included.

(Astonishing#6) - News of the Pasha's magic act reached Uranus, and Professor Grayson dispatched his son Bob (Marvel Boy) to Earth to investigate.

While attending the magic show, Bob was quite impressed by the stunning tricks the Pasha and Eve performed.

(Astonishing#6 - BTS) - After the show, the Pasha was kidnapped by a gang of crooks who made him use his magic to open a bank's time-locked vault. The crooks then robbed the bank of one hundred thousand dollars, and held the Pasha captive at their hideout in the country.

(Astonishing#6) - Eve was concerned about the Pasha's disappearance, so she went to Bob to get him to investigate the kidnapping. Bob disguised himself as the Pasha and made a public appearance, where he was spotted by two of the gang members, George and Pete. Surprised by the apparent escape of their captive, the two gangsters drove back to their hideout to check on the Pasha to make sure he was still their prisoner...with the disguised Bob discreetly following them in a car.

When George and Pete reached the hideout, they found the place a shambles, the Pasha gone, and Shorty and Big Dan dead...although they didn't have a mark on them. Meanwhile in his car, Bob was stunned when the Pasha suddenly appeared out of thin air in the seat next to him.

After they formulated a plan, Bob drove the Pasha back to the theatre for his next scheduled performance. Seeking revenge, the remaining gang members were hiding in the audience waiting to shoot the Pasha. But during the show, the Pasha sensed the gangsters evil intentions, levitated them from their seats, then dissected them in midair, bloodlessly separating their heads and arms from their bodies!

The gangsters were still alive, but had passed out in a state of total shock. After revealing that it was all just an illusion, Pasha Emit Erut-Uf and Eve Namada said their goodbyes, then disappeared in a puff of smoke as they told Marvel Boy, "...we'll be seeing you in a couple of hundred years!!!"

When a dumbfounded police lieutenant came up to Marvel Boy and asked him to explain what happened, Marvel Boy cryptically told him that the first clue was in the names of the Pasha and the girl...

Comments: Created by an unknown writer and Bill Everett.

"Pasha" is a title of Turkish/Persian origins and roughly equivalent to "Sir".

NOTE: For the benefit of any readers who don't have Marvel Boy's superior I.Q. -- "Emit Erut-Uf" spelled backwards is "future time," and "Eve Namada" backwards is "Adam an' Eve".

I'm guessing that the Pasha and Eve were supposed to be time-travellers from some future world, and they were either using their era's super-science to work their "magic," or else maybe they had evolved to the point where they could accomplish "magic" with the powers of their minds. Maybe they were colonizers from a dying future world trying to set up a new civilization in the past (thus the "Adam an' Eve" reference)...or I guess they could have been mutants and the whole time-travel angle was just to throw Marvel Boy off...or maybe Inhumans...or Eternals...it's anybody's guess, the world may never know the truth.

And although they said that they would meet Marvel Boy again, this was actually the last issue of Astonishing that had Marvel Boy as the featured character -- the title continued on for several more years as a sci-fi/horror title -- so it's unknown if Marvel Boy ever encountered (or will encounter) the Pasha and Eve again, unless maybe it happened in some "Untold Tales of Marvel Boy" story or something.

This story -- "Murder by Magic" -- was reprinted in Marvel Super-Heroes I#19 (March, 1969) and retitled "Verdict by Magic" -- I guess the Comics Code objected to the word "Murder" in the title, but curiously enough they let that dissection scene pass.

Profile by John Kaminski

CLARIFICATIONS:
Pasha Emit Erut-Uf has no known connections to:

• Emir Ali Bey, alias used by Baron Strucker @ Strange Tales I#152
• any other similarly named characters

Eve Namada

The beautiful assistant of Pasha Emit Erut-Uf in his magic act, she demonstrated no unusual powers. After the kidnapping of the Pasha, she went to Marvel Boy and asked him to investigate. In the end, she returned with the Pasha to...(?)

--Astonishing#6/1

A gang of crooks

A group of thugs who kidnapped Pasha Emit Erut-Uf and made him use his magic to open a bank vault so they could rob it. After the heist, the gangsters took the Pasha to their hideout in the country, where Big Dan and Shorty held him captive.

When Marvel Boy disguised himself as the Pasha and made a public appearance, he was seen by two other gang members, George and Pete, who drove back to their hideout with the disguised Marvel Boy following them. Arriving at the farm house, George and Pete found the place a shambles with Big Dan and Shorty dead.

After hearing of the Pasha's escape, Boss wanted to get revenge, so he called together the remaining gang members, and they all tried to shoot the Pasha during his performance. But sensing their evil intentions, the Pasha levitated the gangsters from their seats and performed an illusion that he had dissected their bodies, removing their arms and heads. The illusion was so realistic that the gangsters (quite understandably) passed out from the shock.

--Astonishing#6/1

images:
Astonishing#6, p3, pan2 (main image)