Felix Faust

Felix Faust
Felix Faust Art by Ian Churchill
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Justice League of America #10 (March 1962)
Created by	Gardner Fox Mike Sekowsky
In-story information
Alter ego	Dekan Drache
Team affiliations	Secret Society of Super Villains Injustice League Crime Champions the Conclave
Abilities	Wields vast sorcerous power, expert in maleficium

Felix Faust is a fictional sorcerer and supervillain that appears in stories published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in 1962 as an adversary of the Justice League of America.^[1] The character of Felix Faust was apparently modeled on Doctor Faustus the protagonist of Christopher Marlowe's play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.

Fictional character biography

Origins

The first recorded whereabouts of the mighty sorcerer now known as Felix Faust is from circa 5,000 BC, at which time he appeared in the legendary African empire of Kor. The king of Kor was Nommo, the prime wizard of his time and the guardian of the mystic power called the Flame of Life. The evil sorcerer battled Nommo, attempting to use the Flame's power to his own corrupt ends. Nommo then called the Flame of Life into himself, defeating the sorcerer by banishing him to another dimension.^[1]

In the mid-1920s, a madman and aspiring magician named Dekan Drache stumbled upon the dimension and managed to open a portal to it. Released, the sorcerer destroyed Drache’s soul and entered his body. However, though alive on Earth once more, the sorcerer found his powers drastically reduced.^[1]

Obsessed with restoring his mystic might, the sorcerer read the story of how the man called Faust had sold his soul to the devil for supernatural powers, and decided to do the same. Inspired by the story's main character, the sorcerer now called himself Felix Faust and began a never-ending quest for mystical knowledge.

Felix Faust first appeared in Justice League of America, vol. 1, #10 (March 1962), when he tried to gain some of his lost magical abilities by contacting the Demons Three, three fictional demons in the DC Universe. These three demons were brothers who ruled the galaxy a billion years ago before being banished by beings known as the Timeless Ones. The Demons Three have tried to return time and again, summoned by Felix Faust and others, their attempts always foiled by the Justice League. Felix Faust tried to summon the power of the Demons Three by possessing three artifacts: the Green Bell of Uthool, the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath and the Red Jar of Calythos.^[1]

Over the years, Faust's hunger for magical power proved very costly to him. He has bargained his soul for knowledge away on many occasions, only to buy it back later when his acquisitions failed to help him meet his goals; every time, he'd end up worse than before. Eventually, he found it difficult to find any mystics willing to purchase his tarnished soul. Finally, he tried to trick Neron into giving him power by offering the pure soul of an innocent girl he murdered in lieu of his own. Unfortunately for him, Neron saw through the ruse and punished Faust by setting the girl's vengeful spirit upon him. For a time, Faust's damned soul languished in a hellish plane for magicians who had abused or ignored the laws of magic.

Activities during 52

During the event known as 52, a voice from within the helm of Doctor Fate speaks to Ralph Dibny and promises to fulfill his desires if he makes certain sacrifices. Dibny journeys with the helm through the afterlives of several cultures, where he is cautioned about the use of magic. The Spectre promises to resurrect his late wife Sue in exchange for Dibny's taking vengeance on her murderer, Jean Loring, but Dibny is unable to do so.^[1]

At Nanda Parbat, Rama Kushna tells Dibny, "The end is already written." In Doctor Fate's tower, Dibny begins the spell to resurrect Sue, puts on the helmet of Fate, and shoots it, revealing Felix Faust, who was posing as Nabu. Faust planned to trade Dibny's soul to Neron in exchange for his own freedom.

Ralph reveals that he was aware of Faust's identity for some time, and that the binding spell surrounding the tower is designed to imprison Faust, not to counter any negative effects of the spell. Neron appears and kills Dibny, only to realize too late that the binding spell responds only to Dibny's commands: through his death Ralph has trapped Faust and Neron in the tower.

One Year Later

One year after Infinite Crisis, Faust escapes from the Tower of Fate with the help of Black Adam through the aid of a revived Isis, and contacted Red Tornado's soul which was still adrift after fighting Alexander Luthor alongside Donna Troy, the Green Lantern Corps and their allies. Working with Dr. Impossible, Professor Ivo and Solomon Grundy, Faust posed as Deadman and offered the android his heart's desire: a human body. The Tornado accepted, and Faust bound his soul into his new body. Faust and his allies then stole the Red Tornado's original android body for their own purposes.

After lending his concealment spells to Cheetah, Faust joined with Talia al Ghul in order to corrupt yet another hero: Black Alice. Faust offered Alice power, wealth, a place in the Secret Society of Super-Villains and the resurrection of her mother, but Alice refused, sent Faust out of town and tapped into his powers so she could perform the resurrection herself. After this, Faust seemed to rejoin the Society.

On the cover of Justice League of America (vol. 2) #13, it shows Felix Faust as a member of the latest incarnation of the Injustice League.

Post-Final Crisis

As a member of Cheetah's Secret Society of Super Villains, Felix Faust played a part in the creation of Genocide when he used his magic to animate the collected soil samples.^[2]

Further appearances

Felix Faust has been shown retaining his control over Isis since after he used her powers to free himself from Fate Towers. Forced to keep Isis under a powerful sedation spell at all times, he's implied to regularly sexually abuse the young goddess. Still unable to communicate, Isis manages to signal her husband Black Adam to her aid via a trail of Isis flowers. Once Black Adam discovers Isis he forces Faust to free his wife, who in retailation castrates Faust with her bare hands before leaving, sparing his life.^[3]

Powers and abilities

Felix Faust is unschooled in physical battle, and a sub-par hand-to-hand combatant. He is, however, a master sorcerer able to control vast magical power to affect reality itself. When he first appeared, Faust was unique amongst magicians of his caliber, requiring books or scrolls of spells to focus his powers. However, in recent appearances he seems to have overcome this disadvantage.

When Felix Faust first appeared in Justice League of America #9, he was using the Necronomicon, the occult book from the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, to summon three demons. In a later appearance the title of the work was changed.

Legacy

Felix Faust has two children:

• Fauna
• Sebastian Faust

Of the two, Sebastian's soul was bartered to the demon Nebiros, but the power Felix asked for was granted to Sebastian instead. As a result, the father-son relationship has been adversarial. Sebastian has generally acted as a hero, working with the Outsiders, Justice League and Sentinels of Magic.

Other Versions

• In Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, the anthropomorphic funny animal-dominated alternate world of Earth C-Minus parallels pre-Crisis Earth-One. It has a heroic Just'a Lotta Animals (which parallels Earth-One's pre-Crisis Justice League of America) as well as "funny animal" supervillains like "Feline Faust," an evil cat sorcerer. Feline Faust later re-appeared in the current Captain Carrot and the Final Arc storyline, where it was disclosed that he had created an evil counterpart of the Zoo Crew's resident mage, Alley-Kat-Abra, and framed the original for the murder of her team mate Little Cheese.
• Felix Faust made additional (albeit out of continuity) appearances in Justice League Adventures #32 attempting to control various league members. He would then appear in Justice League Unlimited #26, helping Black Manta to conquer Atlantis.

Other media

Television

• In an episode of The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, Felix Faust (voiced by Peter Cullen) was in a prison with the Penguin. Faust was about to cast a spell to escape by transferring Superman's powers into himself, but Penguin seized the opportunity, stole the Superman powers, and broke out easily, leaving Faust behind. Faust later stripped Penguin of Superman's powers, and gained them himself after he had his spirits apprehend Penguin. He also proved vulnerable to Kryptonite when Firestorm changed his headwear into it. Wonder Woman used her lasso to force Felix Faust into relinquishing Superman's powers. The two were again jailed in the same cell, much to the dismay of both.

Felix Faust as seen in Justice League.

• Felix Faust later appeared in the 2000s animated series Justice League voiced by Robert Englund (best known for playing Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street film series), an archaeologist with a heretic interest in the occult. He became a sorcerer prior to being expelled from the university where he taught, using his sorcery to extact his revenge on those who scorned him. In "Paradise Lost", Faust transformed the resident Amazons of Themyscira into stone to force Wonder Woman to gather the parts of a key to Tartarus, domain of Hades, making a pact with the god for "ultimate knowledge" in return. Wonder Woman managed to get the help of her friends from the Justice League in her quest for the key. But once Batman discoveres Faust's intentions, the League decided not to give Faust the key without a fight. However, Faust got the key and escaped. Faust managed to free Hades and even provided him with Hippolyta as an offering. Hades betrayed Faust and aged him on the spot to a withered old man, claiming that, "Ultimately, pain and suffering are all mankind will ever know". Faust recovered enough to attack Hades, who was busy fighting Hippolyta and her allies. With a second attack, Hades completely annihilated Faust, reducing him to dust as his remains were sucked into the underworld.

• In the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Balance", Tala managed to recover Felix's soul and contain it in a mirror. He tricked Tala into chanting a spell, freeing Faust and trapping Tala in the mirror. Faust then took control of the Annihilator, an extremely powerful magical automaton forged by the Greek god Hephaestus, and used it to take over Tartarus. Eventually, Wonder Woman and Shayera destroyed the Annihilator, leaving Hades to content himself torturing Felix's soul forever.

• Felix Faust appears in Batman: The Brave and the Bold in the episode "Evil Under The Sea!" voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. He plotted to open Pandora's Box only to be defeated by Batman and The Atom. He is later shown in "Day of the Dark Knight!" as an escaping inmate from Iron Heights only to be stopped by Batman and Green Arrow.

References