Umar (Marvel Comics)

Umar
Enter Umar! Art by Bill Everett (1966)
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Strange Tales #150 (November, 1966)
Created by	Roy Thomas (writer) Bill Everett (artist)
In-story information
Full name	Umar
Team affiliations	Lords of the Splinter Realms
Partnerships	Dormammu
Notable aliases	Umar the Unrelenting
Abilities	Vast control of magic and cosmic energy

Umar is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character resides in the "Dark Dimension" of the Marvel Comics multiverse. She is a Faltine, a higher-dimensional energy being, but is trapped in human form. Although she is a sorceress and has vast magical powers, she is still second to her brother Dormammu. Umar is commonly a foe of Doctor Strange as well as the mother of his wife, Clea.

Umar first appeared in Marvel Comics' Strange Tales #150, in a Doctor Strange story written by Roy Thomas, and illustrated by Bill Everett under the editorial eye of Stan Lee. In the final panel of the previous month's Strange Tales #149 (written by Denny O'Neil), however, her debut appearance was foreshadowed under a different name.

The cover of #150, however, ran the teaser "Exit Kaluu... enter Umar!" with her initial rendering. Appearing within on the final (tenth) page, Umar then spends most of issue #151 as a narrative tool, recapping the events which occurred during her banishment, for the benefit of the returning and new reader alike.

Umar and her brother Dormammu were spawned in the Faltine Dimension by Sinifer, a Faltine. The Faltine are beings of pure magical energy that exist in their own universe. It's implied that normally when Faltine spawn, that the new beings are exact copies of the previous, but in this instance, the spawn were different. Unlike Sinifer, the siblings craved physical matter. When Sinifer tried to stop them, they transmuted him from energy into matter, essentially killing him. This angered the rest of the Faltine, and so Dormammu and Umar were exiled from the dimension of the Faltine.

The two fugitive Faltine then entered a universe known as the Dark Dimension, which was inhabited by sorcerers known as the Mhuruuks. Their ruler Olnar dreamed of returning to the days of warfare and conquest. Umar and Dormammu befriended Olnar and played upon these desires. They showed Olnar how to make conquest of other dimensions and bond them with his own. Olnar greedily subjugated several dimensions and added them to his own domain. In time, the rogue Faltines led Olnar to shatter the barrier between his dimension and that of the Mindless Ones, a horde of soulless brutes that exist simply to destroy anything that lies in their path. The Mhuruuks were beaten back by the onslaught and many were slain, including Olnar. Dormammu and Umar then slew or exiled any wizards that might oppose them. Then they barred the Mindless Ones behind a great mystical barrier.