Magicman

Real Name: Tom Cargill

Identity/Class: Magician

Occupation: (formerly) Soldier

Affiliations: Kilkenny (roommate to Tom, sidekick to Magicman - and he doesn't know the two are the same man!); The Three Musketeers (the other members being Nemesis, Fat Fury)

Enemies: Augie O’Meara; Roderick Bump, Moronman, Garbageman, Halfaman, Monkeyman, Pigman, Pizzaman, Frogman; Dragonia

Known Relatives: Cagliostro (father)

Aliases: None known

Base of Operations: Unknown

First Appearance: Forbidden World #125 (ACG, 1964)

Powers/Abilities: Various magical powers, including telekinesis, the ability to induce nightmare, esp, superhuman strength, shapeshifting into animals, and even summoning tornadoes. He has to be able to gesture to use most of his powers.

History: Tom Cargill was a Vietnam vet who was also secretly the son of the medieval sorcerer Cagliostro. Now demobbed, he shared an apartment with Kilkenny, his former sergeant, while maintaining a double identity as the hero Magicman.

(Forbidden Worlds #125) The star attraction of Cummings' circus is a gigantic ape named Jocko, until he is stolen by Augie O'Meara, a fugitive crimelord from Europe now hiding in the U.S.A. The crook and his gang steal Jocko, and train him to rip open bank vaults for them. Several robberies later and the police call in the help of Magicman and his assistant Kilkenny. The next time the gang strike, attempting to waylay armoured cars delivering a payroll, Magicman catches them in the act. Jocko manages to knock Magicman out, but as he goes down, the hero returns the favour, dropping a large slab of rock on the giant ape. The gang take advantage of the situation to grab the loot and their simian cohort, and make good their escape.

Later that night Magicman senses telepathically that O'Meara is now planning to rob Fort Knox. Rushing to the famous vault, he uses a telephone pole to knock around the crooks while Jocko is busy dealing with the tanks defending the facility, but the hero is then distracted by his sidekick at a crucial moment, and Jocko manages to grapple him. Magicman transforms into a giant cobra, then summons two monstrous ghosts to battle his foe. When neither of these work, he calls down a tornado, which manages to stun his opponent. Kilkenny expects Magicman to kill his downed attacker, but the hero declines to do so - it is not the animal's fault that he is commiting crimes, but O'Meara's. Jocko has recovered in the time they debate this, and renews the attack, but suddenly, when he has Magicman helplessly pinned, the ape hesistates, then releases him and starts to walk off. O'Meara, watching this tableau through binoculars, orders a jet plane to drop a bomb on the ape. Magicman and Kilkenny manage to capture all the crooks, but Jocko is mortally wounded. As the hero returns to help, Jocko suddenly speaks. He reveals he is the last of a race of intelligent super-apes who were killed off during the Ice Age; only Jocko survived, frozen in suspended animation. When he had been revived, he played along as the dumb but obediant primate, rather than reveal his true nature in a world where he was so badly outnumbered. He had spared Magicman because the hero had spared him, but now humanity has killed him. And with this, he dies.

Comments: Created by Richard E. Hughes.

Magicman appeared in Forbidden Worlds between #125 and #141. In #136 he encountered Nemesis for the first time, and both of those worthies teamed up with the Fat Fury in Herbie #14

CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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