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The Magician from Mars, or Magician of Mars, was a half-Martian half-Human hybrid who gained supernatural powers from exposure to the rays of a cathode tube as an infant.
In at least one universe, she was born Jane 6em35 at some point in history posterior to the 21st century. After growing up on Mars, she moved to Earth where she lived under the name Jane Q-X3 and became a heroine as the Magician.
In at least one other timeline, a non-binary version of the Magician was active in the 1960s, joining the League of Liberation alongside Jenny Everywhere.
Description
Physical appearance
As was common for half-Earthian half-Martian hybrids, Jane was endowed with “unusual charm, grace, and physical accomplishment”. She had pale, rosy skin and wavy, reddish-blond hair. She wore it in a short bob as a little girl, but, by the time she turned 16, had grown it out significantly. (COMIC: Magician From Mars…) She grew it out even further during her travels through Europe and Asia, until it draped over her shoulders. (COMIC: On Earth)
While growing up on Mars, she principally wore blue clothes. Her guardian Kanza limited her wardrobe to conservative Martian dress, principally a simple blue sleeveless tunic reaching just above her knees, coupled with simple brown running shoes. She disliked this outfit; after she ran away from home, she gleefully adopted a new, more practical Earth-style outfit, consisting of gray riding boots, light brown riding trousers, and a forest-green polo-necked sweater. (COMIC: Magician From Mars…) When she returned from her travels through Europe and Asia, she was wearing a lighter Earth outfit consisting of a sleeveless white shirt with a V-shaped neckline, a short, bright red skirt, and dark blue boots. (COMIC: On Earth)
Personality
Jane had an ebullient, fun-loving personality as a child; her optimistic outlook on life persisted through the harsher years during which she lived under the thumb of her aunt Kanza, whom she persisted in loving (despite recognising her mistreatment for what it was) right up until she learned of Kanza's double life as the Hood. Although proud of her Martian heritage as evidenced by her “Magician from Mars” moniker, Jane was also fascinated by the human side of her parentage, an interest sharpened by Kanza's refusal to let her interact with Earth and its ways during her formative years.
Fundamentally nice, she was not, however, one for following rules; so long as she made sure things worked out for everyone's best interest she had no qualms about deceiving people, including for personal gain; a typical example was her momentous theft of three million dollars in gold from the vault of the ship which took her from Mars to Earth, half of which she gave to a medical researcher to help cure infant paralysis, but shamelessly keeping the other half. (COMIC: Magician From Mars…) She had a mischievous streak, sometimes using her powers to deal petty, comical revenge on everyday bullies on behalf of their victims who did not share her powers. (COMIC: On Earth)
Powers & abilities
As an Earthian-Martian hybrid, Jane was born with unusual physical grace and strength. The additional powers she gained from her early exposure to cathode rays were, however, in another league entirely; as well as increasing her intellect, they were the epitome of “mind over matter”, allowing her to alter the world around her through sheer concentration. (COMIC: Magician From Mars…) It was believed that this was because she used all of her brain-power, whereas most people naturally only had the use of one-fourth. (COMIC: On Earth)
She could wish objects into existence, repair objects even on a molecular level until it was impossible to tell they had ever been broken, and boost her own physical strength to allow herself to break through supersteel walls bare-handed or run impossibly fast. She could even alter her own appearance drastically at will, returning to her original appearance only moments later. (COMIC: Magician From Mars…) This made her functionally immortal, as she could keep herself youthful indefinitely through a simple act of will. However, although she could use her mental powers to neutralise most threats, and temporarily give herself increased durability and strength, she was not physically indestructible, and could be injured or killed if she did not see a threat coming quickly enough to stop it. (COMIC: On Earth)
She also discovered, in her teenage years, that she could fly at high speeds and even travel through Time. (COMIC: Magician From Mars…) She later displayed the ability to cancel out gravity for other individuals than herself, for example freezing people who'd jumped off bridges in place before they hit the ground, allowing them to be “gaffed down” to safety. (COMIC: On Earth)
Biography
A hero of the space age
Birth and childhood
Born to the interspecies couple of Jane Faro and Jarl 6em35, Jane 6em35 received her first name at her mother's request. On the day she was born, the hospital nurse carrying her accidentally exposed her to rays from a cathode tube without realising it. The ray bath interacted with baby Jane's biology, awakening powers which only began to manifest when she reached the age of six.
One day, the young Jane, home alone, accidentally broke a vase belonging to her mother. Wishing for all the world that it would come back together, she saw, to her amazement, that it did. Realising her mind held power over matter, she experimented further, creating an ice cream cone out of nothing, and then a wide array of toys which she levitated in her bedroom in a mad jig. Jane's mother came home to this spectacle and, realising the magnitude of this revelation, told her daughter to keep her powers a secret. In subsequent years, Jane suffered from being ostracised by other children her age, who thought her unusual intelligence and abnormal strength too weird and off-putting to let her join in their games. (COMIC: Magician From Mars…)
Raised by Kanza
After her parents died, Jane went to live with her Martian aunt Kanza, who lived in the Martian countryside. Kanza harboured no love for Jane, but was determined to raise her as though she were a full-blooded Martian, forbidding her from visiting Earth as well as discouraging her from exercising her magical powers — which she continued to do in secret, notably learning how to harness her magical abilities to increase her physical strength. Though Jane blindly loved Kanza as a relative, she was not blind to the stifling influence the old woman exerted over her, leading Jane to decide to run away on her own.
Kanza, somehow foreseeing this development, became more coercive than ever, locking Jane in a windowless supersteel room, but this only inspired Jane to push her powers further than ever before, allowing her to tear through the supersteel room bare-handed. Speeding through the countryside, Jane made her way to the nearest airport, where she snuck aboard a liner headed for Earth. (COMIC: Magician From Mars…)
Becoming the Magician from Mars
On the way to Earth, Jane changed out of her Martian gown and into more practical Earth clothes; she reflected on how odd it was that she now looked just like an Earth-woman despite being a “Magician from Mars”, her first use of a phrase she would come to adopt as her name. When the ship she'd boarded was hit by a meteor, she used the commotion to her advantage to use her powers to steal a three-million-dollar shipment of gold from the ship's vault before repairing the damage to the hull with her mind, leaving the Captain and crew to assume they had simply imagined the entire incident.
Arriving on Earth, she donated half of the stolen fortune to Doctor Clinton, a scientist studying cures for infant paralysis, giving to the nurse who served as his assistant. On a whim, she referred to herself as simply “the Magician from Mars” when speaking to the nurse; after she relayed this to Clinton, he surprised Jane by putting out an open letter in the newspapers thanking the mysterious “Magician from Mars” for the service she had done to mankind. Inspired, Jane decided to use the rest of the money to properly outfit “the Magician from Mars” as an actual superhero. (COMIC: Magician From Mars…) She adopted the civilian identity of “Jane Q-X3”. (COMIC: On Earth)
First exploits
After taking a tour of Europe and Asia, the Magician returned to New York City. Her liner passed under the Manhattan Bridge just in time for her to use her powers to save a would-be suicide; after saving him, she got him to tell her his story. He helped him build a great monument in a few seconds based on his blueprints, freeing him from the control of a crooked businessman; after the latter insulted her, she smacked him around briefly using her inhuman strength to teach him a lesson.
Next heading to a rodeo show on a whim, she saved a rodeo cowboy called Zeke from being impaled by a bull; in turn, he saved her from a different one. This put her name in the papers once again. Caring little for the fame, the Magician noticed, however, a different article in the same newspaper that spoke of air train sabotages; investigating in a flying ship of her own, she was able to down an enemy craft she'd spotted scuttling the magnetic induction coils, and then prevent a coming air train from flying off the damaged rails, but she did not discover the identity of the power which had ordered the sabotage in the first place.
On the way back to her hotel after these tumultuous adventures, she spotted a would-be bank-robber and turned his gun into a wad of cash, preempting his crime. She also dealt a bit of mischievous justice on a rude man who was having a row with the front desk workers in the hotel lobby over the registry pen not having enough rink, causing a sea of ink to briefly flood the lobby, staining his suit and nothing else. Back in her room, Jane reflected that the suicidal builder had been right in telling her that the world needed “the Magician”. (COMIC: On Earth)
With the League of Liberation
In the Collapsed Cosmos, Jenny Everywhere and Glendalf remembered a common acquaintance with a version of the Magician who used “they/them” pronouns and was active in the 20th century. once reminisced about “getting high with the Magician of Mars in Washington to levitate the Pentagon”. In the 1960s, the Magician belonged to a superhero team called the League of Liberation alongside Jenny, Glendalf, Octobriana, Butterfly, Ace Harlem, Trashman and Madam Fatal. Together, they'd fought the Sixth Column, a secret villainous cult who worshipped the “fascist god” Stardust the Super-Wizard. The team disbanded on bad terms after a climactic battle during which Stardust was destroyed but Trashman also lost his life. The Magician left without telling their teammates anything, and they had no further contacts with them. (PROSE: The Hermetic Garbage of Jenny Everywhere)
In the Collapsed Cosmos
In the Collapsed Cosmos itself, Jenny Everywhere, needing the use of Octobriana's Wonder Machine to save Glendalf from the Wild Hunt as well as to find the Legendary Time Crystal, decided to seek out the Magician, believing that they alone could repair the Machine. As Jenny, Glendalf and Octobriana had been reminiscing about their pre-Collapse adventures in the League of Liberation, it was that continuity's Magician whom Jenny appeared to be picturing. (PROSE: The Hermetic Garbage of Jenny Everywhere)
Behind the scenes
Origins
to be written