DORMAMMU

 

DORMAMMU

Real Name: Dormammu

First Appearance: Strange Tales (Vol. 1) #126, November 1964

Powers: The Dread Dormammu is a renegade member of the Faltine, a race of immensely powerful non-humanoid beings composed of pure magical flame and energy. The Faltine are said to be on par with the Vishanti or Galactus. Dormammu is a renegade because he (and his sister, Umar) chose to experiment with and become matter, shaping humanoid forms for themselves. Dormammu took a human shape and appearance centuries ago, and gained control over the Dark Dimension. He has risen to the level of a god by tying his magical strength and power to his worshippers and so, like the Vishanti, draws strength from whenever someone casts spells or evokes incantations in his name. Even Doctor Strange used to unwittingly cast in the name of Dormammu before first encountering the villain. As a being of pure energy sustained by worship, Dormammu can never truly be destroyed. He can eventually reconstruct himself so long as at least one entity in the multiverse worships in his name.

Umar is much like her brother, but she experimented too much with the sins of matter, and became trapped forever in flesh after becoming pregnant and giving birth to Clea. Because of this, she can no longer easily ascend to the same levels of energy and power that Dormammu can. By resuming his energy state, Dormammu has a vastly greater storehouse of self-generated mystical energy than Umar can ever produce trapped in her human form -- she must rely on naturally-occurring sources of magic in her environment, or the invocation of other powerful forces. However, it has been decreed that the Flames of Regency will surround the head of whomever rules the Dark Dimension. During the times when Dormammu has been deposed, Umar has claimed that power and, with the flames, is nearly the equal to her brother without them.

Dormammu can confer mystical power upon beings who call upon him through spells and invocations, but he never does so without requiring them to pay some kind of price that will increase Dormammu's own power. Nor does Dormammu confer part of his own personal power from another, undisclosed source. Dormammu can bestow enormous quantities of power upon another, as he has done with Baron Mordo on occasion. Even Doctor Strange, early in his career, invoked the power of Dormammu before he learned Dormammu's true nature.

Dormammu can manipulate his magical power to accomplish a vast number of feats: interdimensional teleportation, size transformations, time travel, elemental control, telepathy, matter transmutations, energy manifestations from extraordinary powerful bolts of magically-constructed beings, and many other. Furthermore, he is of sufficient might to be able to cancel out or tamper with the magic of others. For example, he once caused Thor to revert to his former mortal guise of Don Blake in spite of Odin's enchantment.