Magic has long been used as a canonical explanation for the origin of superpowers in the Marvel Universe, dating back to before the modern superhero boom period. Thanks in large part to his fan-favorite portrayal by Benedict Cumberbatch in the MCU, Doctor Strange has become the most recognizable Marvel magic user.
- Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness showed Marvel fans two very important things. First was that, even in Strange’s hands, magic in the MCU can be very dangerous. The second thing it showed was that Doctor Strange was not the most important magic user in the MCU, as that would be Scarlet Witch by a long shot. The comics are the same. While Doctor Strange is all-powerful, the Marvel magic users have a wide range of power levels, and many of them surpass what Strange is capable of. Marvel Comics is a very strange place, and like the movies, when someone masters magic, it can end up with devastating results.
But the Sorcerer Supreme is far from Marvel’s only magically inclined character, and the often hard-to-define nature of magic as a power set has led to a Universe populated by wielders of numerous and drastically different forms of mysticism.
Wong
For many years, Wong was nothing like the character fans have fallen in love with in the MCU. He had no powers and was just basically Doctor Strange’s butler. However, when the years passed, Wong learned that he actually did have magic powers.
UPDATE: 2022/10/28 17:17 EST BY SHAWN S. LEALOS
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness showed Marvel fans two very important things. First was that, even in Strange’s hands, magic in the MCU can be very dangerous. The second thing it showed was that Doctor Strange was not the most important magic user in the MCU, as that would be Scarlet Witch by a long shot. The comics are the same. While Doctor Strange is all-powerful, the Marvel magic users have a wide range of power levels, and many of them surpass what Strange is capable of. Marvel Comics is a very strange place, and like the movies, when someone masters magic, it can end up with devastating results.
Wong not only proved to have magical abilities, but he was so good that he became a candidate for the new Sorcerer Supreme by Agamotto. Wong can cast spells among the best Marvel heroes, and he can also teleport, cast protective shields, and alter his size.
Dormammu
Most comic book readers know Dormammu as a demon from the Dark Dimension, but this also means he is one of the most powerful Marvel magic users. Dormammu is Clea’s uncle, and she is the new Sorcerer Supreme in Marvel Comics. He is also more powerful than his niece.
Not only is Dormammu one of Marvel’s mightiest magic users, but he is considered more powerful than Lucifer, Mephisto, and Satannish. There is only one problem. When Dormammu leaves the Dark Dimension, his power level falls drastically.
Adam Warlock
Adam Warlock has always been one of the most powerful characters in Marvel Comics. It was Warlock that helped bring down Thanos in the comic version of the Infinity Gauntlet Saga, and it was Warlock that almost destroyed the world when his dark side Magus came out.
However, Warlock gained even more power when he became a Marvel magic user. This is through his energy manipulation after receiving the Soul Gem. He had the gem for so long that he maintained the magical abilities even after losing it. His powers include exorcism, body transmutation, and astral projection.
Hela
Hela is different in Marvel Comics than she was in the MCU. She was incredibly powerful in the MCU as Odin’s eldest daughter. However, in the comics, her father was actually Loki, and she inherited his magical powers. Her powers include magic manipulation thanks to the use of Asgardian magic.
She is very powerful, can use unlimited astral projection, and she can shoot magical blasts that could even kill an immortal. Add to this that she is the Goddess of Death, and she is undeniably one of the most powerful Asgardians.
Nico Minoru
One of the youngest powerful Marvel magic users is Nico Minoru. She got her start in the series The Runaways, which saw some teens run away when they learned their parents were supervillains. Each of the teens inherited powers from those parents, and Nico’s was magic.
Now older, she has joined Strange Academy as a professor, teaching the younger Marvel magic users creative spell casting. She practices what is known as Blood Magic, which she learned with almost no training. She has magical telekinesis, teleportation, and shielding, but her one downfall is that she can’t repeat spells.
Daimon Hellstrom
Magic in Marvel comes from many sources. In the case of Daimon Hellstrom, it comes from Hell itself. Daimon almost made it into the MCU, but the Hulu shows ended up removed from canon, so the one season of Helstrom there is no more. On that show, Daimon showed how powerful his magic was.
In the comics, Daimon draws his power from Hell and performs demonic spells. While he once tried to give up his legacy as the Son of Satan, trauma caused him to embrace it and become even more powerful. To understand his full magic power, he was able to kill and strip all the magic powers from Marvel villain Doctor Druid.
Enchantress
Amora the Enchantress never appeared in the MCU, despite being a major player in the comics when it comes to the Asgardians. This Marvel magic user has few equals in Asgard when it comes to her powers, and she is often able to use them to mess with heavyweights like Thor and Loki.
She is also physically stronger and more durable than humans, thanks to her Asgardian physiology, but she prefers to get by with her magic powers and manipulation of men. Even Captain Marvel knew how powerful Enchantress is, as she went to her for help when Doctor Strange refused to teach her magic in the comics.
Loki
Loki learned magic from his adoptive mother and even in the MCU, Odin had mentioned how proud Frigga would be to see how proficient Loki had become with his magical powers. In the Marvel Comic world, Loki is also very powerful depending on what stage of life he is in.
In the pages of Young Avengers, Loki returned as a child and only had limited use of his magic powers, but was still a threat. As an adult, there were few who used magic powers in Marvel to cause more havoc than Loki, although he now serves his King, Thor, and has no use for his old evil ways.
Morgan Le Fay
Morgan Le Fay is easily one of the most powerful magic users in Marvel Comics, and she has been for a very long time. She was an evil magic user who lived in Arthurian times and has a long history with the hero known as Black Knight. With Dane Whitman showing up in Eternals, there is reason to think Morgan Le Fay could one day show up as well.
She is a dangerous Marvel magic user and has warped reality more than once. She was even one of the main threats during the comic book version of Age of Ultron and is a rival to Doctor Doom with her boasts of power.
Clea
Clea just made her big return to Marvel Comics after years of being missing in action. She is a long-running character in Doctor Strange comics, a love interest who also happens to be Dormammu’s daughter. For years, she had her memory of loving Doctor Strange removed from her mind by the Sorcerer Supreme himself.
However, this was undone after Strange’s death, and she is back and more powerful than ever. If there was any doubt that Clea was a powerful Marvel magic user, that was dismissed the second she became the new Sorcerer Supreme upon her former lover’s death.
Shaman
Shaman is a founding member of the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight and an accomplished physician. After failing to prevent his ailing wife from dying, Michael Twoyoungmen turned away from Western medicine and embraced the teachings of his late grandfather, a member of the First Nations Tsuut’tina people.
His subsequent mastery of various magical abilities put him on the Canadian government’s list of candidates when building their premiere superhero team. Shaman primarily utilizes these powers in the form of his medicine bag, essentially a “bag of infinite holding” from which he is able to summon any object he desires.
Wiccan
As the reincarnated son of one of the most powerful Avengers, The Scarlet Witch, Wiccan was born with a natural affinity towards the same chaos magic wielded by his mother. A frequent member of the Young Avengers alongside his husband Hulkling, Wiccan’s mystical powders have continued to grow, but his relative inexperience has limited its use.
Wiccan is proficient in the casting of force fields, teleportation, and energy bolts with minimal concentration. More complicated spells allow him to manipulate reality but he needs to focus on the desired outcome, requiring Wiccan to repeatedly chant his intended results, and he is often disrupted when he is unable to hear himself speak. Despite these limitations, he was once a candidate for the vacant title of Sorcerer Supreme and some notable time travelers and precognitives have described him as having the potential to become one of the most powerful mages alive.
Amanda Sefton
Foster-sister and former lover of the X-Men’s Nightcrawler, Amanda Sefton, also known as Daytripper, is a sorceress following the “Path of the Winding Way”. A frequent X-Men ally as well as a member of the European superhero team Excalibur, Sefton was also once the Sorceress Supreme of Limbo, one of Marvel’s many Hell dimensions.
Her mystical abilities include but are not limited to teleportation, shape-changing, and illusion-casting. The Winding Way, however, is not only a mystical discipline but a “journey one must travel,” and her ability to manipulate its energies wax and wane over time in conjunction with her high and low points along this path.
Doctor Druid
Created by the legendary team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Doctor Druid first appeared in 1961, two years before fellow sorcerer, the more famous Doctor Strange. After the success of his contemporary, Druid fell into obscurity for years, save for a handful of uneventful appearances that arguably did more damage to his reputation than good.
Although Druid attained Avengers membership years before Strange, he was always depicted as significantly less powerful than the latter and his tenure with the team is mostly unremarkable. It wasn’t until his own 1995 self-titled miniseries Druid that he would finally display his full potential as a sorcerer, simultaneously falling from grace in one of Marvel’s greatest-ever horror comics.
Baron Mordo
Karl Mordo was a student of The Ancient One before the arrival of Doctor Strange, but secretly sought to eliminate his mentor to claim the title of Sorcerer Supreme. When Strange arrived and thwarted this plan, Mordo was exiled, resulting in Strange’s ascension to Sorcerer Supreme as the two became bitter rivals.
While his tutelage included multiple forms of mysticism, Mordo has proven to be especially proficient in black magic, frequently utilizing dark and corrupting spells that Strange himself is unable or unwilling to perform. One of the Sorcerer Supreme’s most powerful foes, he was portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor in the MCU’s Doctor Strange and its sequel, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Agatha Harkness
While Kathryn Hahn’s fan-favorite portrayal of the Scarlet Witch’s mystical next-door neighbor in the Disney+ series WandaVision made her the show’s breakout character, her Agatha Harkness comic book depiction is much different. Appearing older and less antagonistic, comic book Agatha was first introduced as the nanny of a young Franklin Richards, son of The Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic.
Both versions, however, are presented as powerful witches wielding vast control over multiple forms of magic. Although unashamedly versed in many of the most sinister mystical arts, Agatha has generally been presented as an ally to heroic teams such as the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. Similar to her onscreen counterpart, Marvel Comics’ Agatha is responsible for unleashing Wanda Maximoff’s full potential as a Marvel magic user.
Doctor Voodoo
Haitian-born Jericho Drumm spent much of his early adulthood studying in the US, where he eventually became an accredited psychologist. Meanwhile, his twin brother Daniel remained in Haiti, where he became his village’s houngan, a male priest in Haitian Vodou. With his dying wish, Daniel summoned Jericho home to succeed him as houngan. After studying under Daniel’s mentor, Papa Jambo, Jericho proved even more proficient in this role than his brother. Guided by the spirit gods of voodoo called the Loa, he quickly mastered the associated magics.
Drumm’s abilities include astral projection, resistance to pain, and control over flames and “lower lifeforms” such as animals and plants. Amongst the Loa who guide him is the spirit of his late brother, with whom Jericho can merge to increase his strength, or project into others to control their actions. Although he was sporadically used for years following his initial 1970s comic book appearances, Brother Voodoo was returned to prominence by writer Brian Michael Bendis in 2009 when he was selected among nearly 30 potential candidates to replace Doctor Strange as Sorcerer Supreme.
Magik
As a child, Illyana Rasputin tragically became lost in the hellish Limbo dimension. Due to time flowing differently in Limbo, years passed for Illyana before she returned to earth, reappearing only moments after her disappearance. During her time in exile, Illyana was “raised” by the demon Belasco, who trained her in the use of demonic sorcery. These dark magics are most commonly depicted by the use of her “Soul Sword,” a weapon manifested from a portion of her own mortal soul that, while extremely powerful, also allows dark energies to fill the resulting void.
Upon her return from Limbo, Illyana joined the X-Men’s junior team, the New Mutants, taking the codename Magik before later being promoted to the primary X-Men team. In recent times, she has become the apprentice of Doctor Strange, who has helped Illyana to reconcile her mortality with the dark energies she wields.
Scarlet Witch
In her earliest appearances, Wanda Maximoff’s powers consisted of a vague ability to “alter probability,” essentially casting bad luck upon her opponents. Despite her name, the Scarlet Witch’s powers were not based on witchcraft but were instead a low level of reality manipulation.
After studying magic under the tutelage of Agatha Harkness, Wanda became a powerful witch in an authentic sense and learned how to better control her inherent hex powers. As her abilities grew over time, Wanda gained enough control over both her natural and learned talents to combine the two, allowing her to manipulate the fabric of reality on a massive scale, notably resulting on one occasion in the creation of the “House of M,” one of the most important multiversal worlds in Marvel Comics.
Doctor Doom
Arguably Marvel Comics’ all-time greatest villain, Doctor Doom possesses a genius intellect, which he has used to master both scientific and occult disciplines. Primarily taught by Tibetan monks, he further increased his magical abilities by studying under the ancient sorceress of Arthurian Legend, Morgan Le Fay.
One of the few Marvel characters to successfully combine the arcane with technology, Doom has held his own against Marvel’s most powerful magic users and defeated many of them. When Stephen Strange once relinquished his role as Sorcerer Supreme, he readily admitted that Doom had the necessary mystical abilities to take his place, if not for his unchecked hubris.
