Time Wizard

The time wizard was a Chinese mutant super-villain. UNTIL classified him as an Omega-level threat, indicating he had the capability to conquer or destroy the Earth.

The Time Wizard was finally slain by Bugaboo, who tracked him relentlessly through time after the Time Wizard slipped away from his last defeat in 2020.

## Biography

Despite exhaustive investigation by UNTIL and the Chinese government, the Time Wizard's true origin is still unknown. It has been speculated that he may be native to another timeline, or a refugee from the distant future. Whatever the truth, the Time Wizard is unfortunately here today and causes major (albeit infrequent) crises for the heroes of Earth.

The Time Wizard has been attempting to conquer the world for decades, with limited success. He first attacked the world in 1939, and only a joint force comprised of the Freedom Squadron and the Sinister Seven managed to force him into retreat, with heavy casualties among those sent to fight him. This would be typical of confrontations with the Time Wizard going forward: he is never definitively defeated, only forced to withdraw, and usually at a great cost of life. He appeared again in 1954 when he placed the entire city of Washington D.C. in a frozen stasis and demanded that the United States name him its new Emperor. Most of the city's defenders were trapped inside the bubble and helpless to resist, but surprisingly a force of super-villains commanded by none other than Dr. Destroyer himself assaulted the Time Wizard to foil his schemes (four of these villains died during the operation and are memorialized in a monument in the National Mall).

The Time Wizard never gave up his dreams of conquest, and has made a highly public move every ten years or so towards his goal, though each time he has been defeated by the narrowest margin. When routed, he escapes by jumping forward in time, traveling through time but not space, and reappearing sometimes years later in the same place he vanished. This method of escape was observed by UNTIL who, after the Time Wizard's defeat outside Chicago in 1999, built a secure jail surrounding the place where he disappeared. This cell was teleportation-proof, and would prove inescapable for the Time Wizard until 2015, when the Alchemist unwittingly set him free while on an unrelated mission. After slaying the Alchemist, the Time Wizard fled along with his accomplice, Neutronium, and vanished from the public eye.

When Mechanon attacked major cities around the globe in 2016, the Time Wizard reemerged in Dubai, the city most devastated by Mechanon's drone armies. He offered to rebuild the city and return the nearly 100,000 dead Emiratis to life if the UAE government let him form a permanent base in the city and protect him with the full force of its sovereignty. The sulanate agreed to his demands, formally revoking their membership in the UNTIL charter and forbidding any outside force from crossing its borders to confront the Time Wizard. With his safety assured, the Time Wizard did indeed reverse the destruction of Dubai, returning its people to life and restoring all of its ruined infrastructure. He then established a secure compound in the city and again faded from view.

In 2020, Nighthawk saw disturbing signs of the Time Wizard beginning his endgame. Not knowing the villain's plan but hoping to circumvent it based on data recorded from his previous attacks, he dispatched the Contenders to the secure UNTIL prison where the Gorgon was held in secret. Unfortunately, the Time Wizard was faster than anticipated, and his agent Old Mentat was already in place, with the Gorgon released, when the Contenders arrived. The Contenders only fled with their lives thanks to the surprising aid of Visage, who tragically gave her life to buy them the time needed to escape.

The Time Wizard, in spite of all his preparations, was eventually defeated by a strike force of heroes who confronted him at his Dubai compound. After a fierce battle, he lost his Chroniton Rod and was forced to flee into the future. He no longer exists in the Prime Timeline and it is unsure when he will ever return, though if history is any guide it will likely be several years at least.

## Personality

The Time Wizard is a true psychotic. He kills without thought or remorse, and treats all human life as either primitive tools or just useless annoyances. Though he does not go out of his way to kill, it is so simple for him to do that he routinely "ties up loose ends" with anyone he encounters who might ever conceivably pose even the slightest challenge to his schemes.

The Time Wizard displays a cool, unruffled attitude no matter what setbacks he encounters. He knows that he has the luxury of trying to conquer the world a nearly infinite number of times, and thinks nothing of waiting another decade or so for another try. UNTIL psychologists have hypothesized that the Time Wizard operates in a state of suppressed, near-catatonic rage, but there is no way of knowing for sure.

## Powers

The Time Wizard is a mutant with the ability to control chronitons, the mysterious particles that cause what humans perceive as the flow of time. He is the only mutant known to possess this ability.

By controlling chronitons, the Time Wizard can achieve a huge variety of nearly miraculous effects. He can cause a person to age until they turn old and decrepit, or even collapse into dust; he can also reverse the process, restoring a person's youth, or pushing them all the way back to a state before their own birth (this was the method by which he murdered the Alchemist). He can apply these effects to a single person or spread them out to cover an area of several square miles and everything within.

The Time Wizard can move easily forward though time, propelling himself into the future. Moving backward seems to be more difficult; each time he does so, such a journey is followed by a lengthy recuperative period. He can also step into alternate Earth timelines, doing whatever he wishes on these other worlds and returning when he sees fit. He recruited Old Mentat from such a place, sifting through infinite timelines until he found one in which the psychic was amenable to his offers.

Perhaps the greatest power of the Time Wizard is his ability to cheat death. Whenever he is harmed in any way, his body protects itself by reflexively time-traveling, reverting itself to a prior stage of existence. This allows him to recover from even fatal wounds, instantly resurrecting himself even if he is utterly destroyed.

The Time Wizard has other, more mundane powers that he doesn't care to use except on rare occasions. He can manipulate the chronitons in his rod to alter its velocity, swinging it with impossible force, or he can convert the chronitons into an explosive blast to fire at his foes. The Time Wizard considers these to be frivolous uses of his powers, though they are relatively easy to wield and use up little of his energy, so he recognizes their tactical value.

## Weaknesses

The Time Wizard's only known weakness is the limitation to the usage of his powers. He must expend stored chronitons to utilize his abilities, and he can only carry so many within his body. His chroniton rod is the source of most of his energy, and without it he can only accomplish a handful of feats before he is completely drained. Of course, should anything happen to the weapon, he can easily revert it back to perfect condition, but even doing that much draws on his reserves of power.