Magician (comics)

Magician
Magician. Ultimate X-Men #70 Art by Ben Oliver
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Ultimate X-Men #66 (March, 2006)
Created by	Robert Kirkman & Tom Raney
In-story information
Alter ego	Elliot Boggs
Species	Human Mutant
Team affiliations	Ultimate X-Men
Abilities	Reality Warping

Magician is the name of three characters in Marvel Comics.

The Lee Guardineer version of Magician first appeared in Tales to Astonish #56 and was created by Stan Lee and Dick Ayers.

Lee Guardineer is a stage magician who used his stage acts to rob rich party guests. His activities attracted the attention of Giant-Man's ants who reported this to him. Magician then robbed a yacht party run by a rich socialite named Sterling Stuyvesant and kidnapped Wasp to make Giant-Man jealous. In response, Giant-Man set up a phony yacht party which he used to lure the Magician to a trap. Once that trap was sprung, Giant-Man captured Magician and saved Wasp. Magician was fished out of the water by the police and was later taken to prison.

While Hank Pym was out of town, Magician escaped from prison and set up a clothing store with Wasp-inspired clothing. When Wasp arrived, Magician attacks in order to capture Wasp. Wasp soon makes short work of Magician using quick thinking and the store's many toys to take down the Magician who is promptly arrested by the police. (The last name of Guardineer is a reference to the Golden Age comics creator Fred Guardineer who created Zatara, Tor and Merlin the Magnificent who were all magician crimefighters.

Lee Guardineer had a son who took up the mantle of Magician as part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel event. Upon taking his father's mantle, Magician joined the Power Broker II's Hench App (a mobile app that enabled people to solicit the service of supervillains). His first job has him hired by a publicist named Marlena Howard to pretend to have a grudge against Darla Deering (Miss Thing) for not hiring him for the opening act of her show. The Magician interrupted Deering in the middle of her break-up fight against Ant-Man and confronted the two heroes with genetically-modified rabbits and pigeons. After explaining his origin to Ant-Man, the Magician intentionally lost to Miss Thing. The fight between the Magician and Ant-Man and Darla was staged and filmed because it would make a successful pilot episode for Darla's newest reality show.

The Lee Guardineer version of Magician is a skilled stage magician, trickster, and illusionist where his tricks rely on his technology. Besides being a master pickpocket, Magician is an expert animal trainer and can hypnotize anyone at will. Magician has a motorized cane with a hatch on top that can act as a vacuum and be used as a divining rod to seek out his enemies.