Magician From Mars… (comic story)
Magician From Mars… was the first-ever The Magician from Mars comic story; written and pencilled by John Giunta, it was inked by Malcolm Kildale, it has fallen into the public domain like its protagonist, who would go on to be integrated into the Jenny Everywhere mythos.
Plot
At a point in history when Martians and Earthians have close relations, the child of a particularly close human-Martian relationship — that of the interspecies couple of Jarl 6em35 and Jane Faro — is born. The baby, whom they dub Jane 6em35, is accidentally exposed by the nurse to the rays of a cathode tube carelessly left running inadidst the medical equipment; this “ray bath” has an unusual effect on the hybrid child, though no one yet notices.
At the age of six, Jane is more mentally mature than would be expected of a child her age, but has not, as of yet, displayed any other unusual abilities. However, one day, while home alone, she breaks a large decorative case in her play. Her intense wish for it to be magically fix results, in her surprise, to the broken pieces indeed flying back together into a complete vase. Realising she has the power to make matter obey her mind, Jane keeps experimenting with her newfound abilities; when her mother comes home, it is to find little Jane's bedroom a veritable bedlam of flying toys she has brought into existence for herself. Realising the magnitude of what these powers could mean, Jane's mother tells her to keep them a secret.
Things take a turn for the worse in Jane's life; though she does not overtly display her more extravagant powers, she cannot disguise her unusual intelligence and physical strength from the other children her age, who ostracise her for being too weird. To make matters worse, at some point before she turns 16, her parents both die, leaving her in the care of her next-of-kin, her harsh and cantankerous Martian aunt Kanza. The old woman neither loves Jane, nor is cowed by her powers, insisting that she refrain from using them until she is older; Jane keeps practicing in secret, however, and the idea grows within her mind to run away from her aunt and make her way to Earth, home to the other half of her heritage.
Somehow foreseeing her intentions, Kanza locks her in windowless supersteel room. However, this overtly tyrannical act is enough to induce Jane to push further with her abilities than ever before, tearing through the wall with her bare hands to get free. She then runs on foot across the countryside to make her way to the nearest space-port, where she manages to board a Mars-Earth liner just before it takes off. In her cabin, she changes her Martian dress for practical Earth clothes; she remarks that she now looks just like an “Earth-woman”, despite being a “Magician from Mars”.
A day's transit passes without incident, but a small meteor hits the hull of the liner. While passengers hurriedly put on space-suits as air begins rushing out, and the frantic Captain has his men go out into the actual void of space to repair the damage on the outside as best they can, the Magician, having learned of a shipment of three million dollars in gold on the ship, takes advantage of the confusion to steal the whole lot. After scaring the guard silly by instantaneously changing her appearance to a wacky monster, and knocking him out (with apologies), she tears through the vault's door, takes the gold, and uses her mind-powers to repair it behind her, leaving no trace of her misdeed unless the vault is open. Noticing that the air actually is getting thin even by her standards, she goes back to the hub area of the liner to speak with the Captain; after he explains the damage to her, she remotely repairs it (at great mental effort), leaving the baffled captain and crew to assume they experienced some kind of freak collective dream or hallucination.
Absconding with one of the rocket life boats, the Magician makes her own way to Earth without going through customs, with her stolen gold. Giving her name as simply “the Magician from Mars”, she gives half of this money to Doctor Clinton (a scientist researching cures for infant paralysis). When the Doctor publishes an open letter in the newspaper congratulating her for the service she has done to humanity, Jane is inspired to use the rest of the money not just to set up a new life for herself, but to properly outfit “the Magician from Mars” as a superheroine.
Worldbuilding
Universes
- This story takes place all in one universe.
Behind the scenes
Read online
Being in the public domain in the U.S., the comic is available for free on the Digital Comics Museum website.
