The Justice League has encountered a slew of adversaries, but none compare to an ancient master sorcerer who knows everything there is to know about occult magic. Felix Faust is DC’s worst fear and the universe’s most powerful sorcerer. There is no magic that he is not aware of in the world. Felix Faust has done it all, from losing his native magical abilities to regaining them by sheer effort and years of investigation.
In the goal of attaining ultimate knowledge, he literally sold his soul to the devil. Who could possibly be more zealous for power than he? His talents have also provided him with the knowledge of exactly what to utilize at any given time. But did the devil play a role in shaping him into the person he is now? And what exactly does he have the ability to do? So, let’s jump straight into the video to address all of these questions and learn more about Felix Faust’s amazing origins.
The first comic book appearance explored
Felix Faust made his first appearance in the DC Comics in the Justice League of America, Volume 1, issue #10, which was published with a cover date of March 1962. He was created by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky.
The issue is titled “The Fantastic Fingers of Felix Faust!” It begins with the rise of three huge demonic figures. The first one rises from deep inside the solid ice near an Antarctic expedition base. The second one rises from the heart of the mighty Sin-Kiang desert in western China. And the third and final figure erupts from the water in the vast wastes of the South Atlantic. They have risen from the depths of Ice, Sand, and Water and along with them, there is a scent of magical herbs brewing in the air.
We see a bright green light emitting from an abandoned lighthouse off the rocky coast of Maine. And there appears before us, for the first time, Felix Faust, dabbler in the occult arts, master magician, and seeker of sorcerous powers. He introduces us to the three demons he has summoned. They are called Abnegazar, Rath, and Ghast. Together they are known as the Demons Three, and they used to rule the galaxy billions of years ago before man walked the earth but they were banished by beings known as the Timeless Ones.
Felix has summoned them with the hopes of taking their supernatural powers. But there is a twist in the story. He has only freed their spirits and not their bodies. As long as their bodies are asleep, so will their powers. And freeing their bodies will certainly not be as easy as releasing their spirits. Before being captured by the overwhelming powers of the Timeless Ones, the Demons Three created three different objects that would now contain their powers.
As a result, they can never be entirely destroyed and can only lie buried until someone finds those three objects, even if it takes millions of years. These three objects were the Red Jar of Calythos which belonged to the demon Ghast, the Green Bell of Uthool which belonged to the demon Abnegazar, and the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath which belonged to the demon Rath.
But the demons believe that no mere man could ever find these three objects because the Timeless Ones hid them well under the protection of supernatural guardians. Even if Felix somehow managed to find it, it would take at least a hundred years for them to be completely free. But they notice Felix’s dedication to setting them free, so they are ready to assist him in whatever way they can.
They suggest he attain superpowers in order to overcome the guardians and get the three objects. And the ones who immediately come to his mind are the members of the Justice League of America, who obviously will not help him in his devious plans. So, they ask Felix to gather nine different objects for them, after which they start a weird and ancient enchantment that includes the names of all the nine members of the Justice League of America. Once the enchantment is finished, Felix sees that his fingertips have changed into the actual manikins of the justice league members.
The three archdemons tell him to touch the nine different objects before him with his fingers one by one. So, Felix begins by touching Flash to the wing of a bat, Batman to a shell from the great seashore, Superman to the hide of a cat, Snapper Carr to a chip of an elephant’s tusk, Wonder Woman to a pomegranate, Martian Manhunter to a white death’s head, Green Arrow to a goose feather, Aquaman to a mallet, and Green Lantern to the skin of a sheep.
This resulted in the completion of a sorcerous circuit and soon the nine members of the Justice League of America would literally be at the fingertips of Felix Faust.
Now, the dread talisman for Batman is a sea shell, and for Flash, it is the wing of a bat. So, while battling a new enemy, Flash accidentally gets caught up in a piece of Batman’s cape that essentially resembles a batwing, and he starts to fade away. In the next moment, Batman ends up headbutting a light switch that is made of mother of pearl, which is another form of a seashell. This means that Felix has now successfully captured both the heroes.
In another fight, Superman ends up laying his hands on a Mongol who wears the skin of a tiger, a species of cat, which leads to his doom as he starts to fade away as well. Next, Wonder Woman utters the word “grenade,” which is derived from the Spanish word Granada, meaning pomegranate, thus she also falls into Felix’s trap. His fifth victim is Martian Manhunter, who accidentally drives through a cloud formation that resembles a death’s head moth.
On the other side of the world, Green Lantern heads toward a fight and a battering ram hits him, which is another form of a sheep, adding another victim at Felix’s fingertips. Now moving to Aquaman, he steps on the head of the great hammerhead shark, representing just another kind of a mallet, which confirms his fate. Snapper Carr falls under the same trap when he touches his opera glasses with an ivory casing. Ivory is the same as a chip off an elephant’s tusk.
And finally, Green Arrow also follows the other members after touching one of his arrows made of goose feathers. As if in the blink of an eye, all the members of the justice league of America stand before Felix Faust in the lighthouse. He orders Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow to get the Red Jar of Calythos, Flash, Batman, and Martian Manhunter to get the Green Bell of Uthool, and the trio of Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Snapper Carr to get the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath.
All the heroes seem helpless against the spell of Felix Faust, and as commanded by him, they head out to search the world until they find the three dark objects. Struggling to make it through every obstacle in their path, the heroes go beyond the depths of the earth, volcano, and water to successfully attain the jar, bell, and wheel and bring them to the lighthouse. Felix Faust feels victorious after achieving the three objects. So, he commands the Justice League of America to stand still and watch him perform the incantation which will set the three demons free to roam this world.
Felix takes the incense from the red jar, a peal from the green bell, and spins the silver wheel to start his magic. It looked like soon the three demons, Abnegazar, Rath, and Ghast, would grant Felix Faust such immense power that he would become the greatest sorcerer in the entire universe. But his plans meet with a disaster when suddenly a number of flying fish from the sea fly into the lighthouse through the open window and attack Felix Faust.
As it turns out, although motionless himself, Aquaman was able to send out a mental command to his friends, the whale, and the flying fish, to come to their rescue. The attack left Felix defenseless, resulting in his fingers returning to their normal state. This breaks the spell that left the Justice League members helpless, and now they can move freely. Wonder Woman captures Felix Faust with her lasso, and Green Lantern puts a stop to his spell with a beam from his power ring. But did he? The issue ends with a slight surprise.
The Justice League of America is unaware of what Felix has actually set in motion. His incantation lasted long enough to put into operation the forces which would release Abnegazar, Rath, and Ghast in about a hundred years. So, perhaps the Earth is only safe for now. Who knows what the future holds?
The origin of Felix Faust explored
The character of Felix Faust is named after the famous German folklore character Doctor Faust, an intellectual astrologer who sold his soul to the demon Mephistopheles in order to achieve worldly knowledge and pleasure. Much like Doctor Faust, Felix is also known for making many different pacts with devils.
Now, seven millennia ago, in around 5000 BC, there was a legendary African empire called Kor. The king of Kor went by the name Nommo. He was the greatest wizard of his day and the keeper of the mystic power of the burning enigma known as the Flame of Life. This empire is where the wicked sorcerer Felix Faust originally came from. He wanted to harness the power of the Flame for his own malicious activities.
So, he fought Nommo in an attempt to steal the Flame’s power. Nommo was well aware that if the Flame of life ended up in the hands of Felix, it would cause great danger to their empire and the world. So, Nommo summoned the Flame of Life within himself and sent Felix to another dimension, thereby putting an end to him.
Now, much later, in the mid-1920s, a maniac occult dabbler who was known as Dekan Drache somehow discovered the banished realm and managed to open a gateway to it. As a result of this, Felix Faust was now free, and he crushed the soul of Drache in order to take over his body.
Since then, he went on a path of self-discovery and read the story of how his namesake Faust had sold his soul to the devil for supernatural powers. Naturally, he wished to do the same thing. So, he studied dead languages in Vienna, Archaeology in London, and history at the Sorbonne. To seek more knowledge, he also visited the ruins of Ur and Lagash in Chaldea, which is famous for its magicians.
When even that did not feel enough, he unearthed a copy of the almost fabled Necronomicon, the book of Black Magic, which was written by the mad Arab known as Abdul Alhazred. He did all of this research for only one purpose. And that purpose was to learn the conjuration through which he could unleash the three demons, Abnegazar, Rath, and Ghast, and attain their supernatural powers for himself. And that is how his comic book appearance came into being.
Felix Faust in the Constantine TV series: live-action adaptation!
The Constantine TV series that was adapted from the comic book series Hell blazer and ran for one season of thirteen episodes featured the character of Felix Faust. His role is played by the American actor Mark Margolis. Felix appears as an enemy of John Constantine, the protagonist and master of the occult in the series. Constantine always considered Faust to be just another old, mediocre second-rate magician, while on the other hand, Faust despised Constantine, seeing him as a fake and a con artist.
Faust had finally succeeded in inventing a spell that could extract human souls from the bodies that were still alive. At that point, this task was considered impossible. He then relocated to New York City and set up shop in a warehouse at the abandoned Haskins railroad yard just outside of Brooklyn. He started stealing the souls of people in the neighborhood and also ended up taking the soul of Geraldine, the daughter of Chas Chandler, who was Constantine’s oldest friend.
Another partner in their team was a girl named Zed. So, Chas, Zed, and Constantine met a local medium named Fennel to enquire about the stolen souls. But before he could help them, Faust managed to kill Fennel. Sadly for him, Zed had psychic powers through which she located Faust’s hideout at the Haskins railroad yard. However, Constantine was in a dilemma because if he were to kill Faust, he might risk losing all the souls he had captured, including that of his friend’s daughter.
Faust had his own secret motives, so he proposed a deal in which he would free Geraldine’s soul in return for Constantine to banish a local soul-devouring demon named Karabasan to Hell. But when John and Zed tried to capture the demon, things escalated, and John was forced to kill it. Since he had failed at his task, Faust refused to release Geraldine. Now, Chas, who had 32 souls trapped inside of him, offered himself up to Faust if he agreed to release his daughter.
Faust did not believe his words, so Chas slit his own throat, died, and then came back to life, thus proving himself. The two of them made a deal that Faust would return the soul of the girl back into her body and, in return, take the 32 souls from Chas, including his own. But the deal turned out to be a double-cross with Chas’s sacrifice. He conveniently used the mystical Sinew of Achilles to bind his hand with that of Faust, pull a grenade from his back pocket, and blast himself along with Faust. Fortunately, after Faust’s death, the souls that he held captive returned to their original bodies.
Mark Margolis certainly did a fantastic job of portraying the depth and dilemma of Felix Faust’s character and how he struggled to achieve power by studying his entire life as opposed to John Constantine, a sorcerer who had natural magical powers.
Felix Faust in the DC Animated universe
In the DC Animated universe, the character of Felix Faust was voiced by Robert Englund. He appears in the Justice League as an archaeology professor with an obsessive interest in magic and the dark arts. Eventually, he became a sorcerer, and he would use his sorcery to seek revenge on those who mocked him. So, he was dismissed from the university where he taught.
Later on, we find out that Faust plans on getting a key to open the gate to Tartarus, the realm of Hades, because he has made a deal with the god to obtain “ultimate knowledge” in exchange. So, he uses a Gorgon talisman to turn the Amazons of Themyscira into stone, forcing Wonder Woman to acquire the pieces of that key. Now, despite the attempts of the Justice League to stop him, Faust succeeds in freeing Hades and even offers up Queen Hippolyta as a gift.
But Hades betrays Faust by making him age quickly, which immediately turns him into a frail old man and tells him that “Ultimately, pain and suffering are all mankind will ever know.” Although Faust soon somewhat recovers and casts a spell against Hades, the spell turns him into his more powerful form instead of hurting him. In the end, Wonder Woman manages to break the key which returns Hades to Tartarus, while Faust starts to fade into dust and is pulled into the underworld.
Felix Faust later returns in the Justice League Unlimited episode “The Balance.”. Tala, another supervillain, rescues Felix’s soul and traps it in a mirror. But he manages to trick her into casting a spell that frees Faust and locks Tala in the mirror instead. Faust then takes command of the Annihilator, an incredibly powerful magical machine that was constructed by the Greek god Hephaestus.
It was hijacked by the Justice League and later stolen by Cadmus. Now under the hands of Faust, he uses it to defeat Hades and take control over Tartarus. Towards the end, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl manage to rescue Hades and with his help they shatter the Annihilator, thus defeating Faust for the final time. Faust’s soul is then in Hades’ possession, and he chooses to torment him till the end of time.
What makes him so incredibly powerful
Felix Faust initially possessed innate magical powers, but after he took over the body of Dekan Drache, he lost his native abilities to perform magic at will. Since then, he has had to extensively study the occult powers, black magic, and other forms of demonic powers in order to attain the knowledge of powerful spell casting. It also means that he has the ability to transfer his energy and soul into another being. After all, he is a master sorcerer who can manipulate organic matter.
His obsession with ultimate knowledge has helped him become the dreadfully strong sorcerer that he is today. Apart from that, in order to satisfy his everlasting hunger for more power, he also constantly makes pacts with different kinds of demons by summoning them and using their powers as his own.
He also has an enhanced vision, telepathic and psychic powers, and the ability to communicate with the souls of the deceased. He can use illusion casting, which is the ability to generate illusions that appear real, and on several occasions, he has also resurrected the dead. There is no doubt about it that he is fully immersed in the dark side. As a DC supervillain who has immense knowledge of the field in which he excels, Felix Faust certainly stands as one of the most formidable enemies that the Justice League has ever seen.
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