[1] His hat, cloak, and wand, passed down from his father Theron, possess great magical properties, which in time Mandrake learns how to manipulate.

[citation needed] Although Mandrake publicly works as a stage magician, he spends much of his time fighting criminals and combatting supernatural entities.

Xanadu's features include closed-circuit TV, a sectional road which divides in half, and vertical iron gates.

[1] Leon Mandrake, a real-life magician, had been performing for well over ten years before Lee Falk introduced the comic strip character.

The resemblance between the comic-strip hero and the real-life magician was close enough to allow Leon to at least passively allow the illusion that the strip was based on his stage persona.

[7] Leon Mandrake was accompanied by Narda, his first wife and stage assistant, named after a similar character, who appears in the strip.

Velvet, his replacement assistant and eventual lifetime partner, would also later make appearances in the strip along with his real-life side-kick, Lothar.

Lothar was the Prince of the Seven Nations, a mighty federation of jungle tribes but forbore becoming king to follow Mandrake on his world travels.

Lothar is often referred to as "the strongest man in the world", with the exception of Hojo — Mandrake's chef and secret chief of Inter Intel.

Lothar is invulnerable to any weapon forged by man, is impervious to heat and cold, and possesses the stamina of a thousand men.

One of the first African crimefighting heroes ever to appear in comics, Lothar's début alongside Mandrake was in the 1934 inaugural daily strip.

When artist Fred Fredericks took over in 1965, Lothar spoke correct English and his clothing changed, although he often wore shirts with leopard-skin patterns.

Hojo, who knows six languages, is Mandrake's chef at his home of Xanadu and the secret chief of the international crimefighting organization Inter-Intel.

The Clay Camel, real name Saki, is a master of disguise, able to mimic anyone and change his appearance in seconds.

In one episode, the Octon of 8 is revealed as Cobra, but the name later refers to an artificial intelligence wielded by Ming the Merciless in the television series Defenders of the Earth.

Like his world, in which the government is run by the Private of the Armies and generals do menial tasks, Ekardnam is an exact opposite and uses his "evil eye" to work his magic.

Italian publisher Fratelli Spada produced a considerable amount of original Mandrake comic-book stories in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mandrake has also enjoyed great success in comic books published in Britain, Australia, Brazil, India, France, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Turkey, and Sweden.

In 2013, Dynamite Entertainment launched a mini-series, Kings Watch, in which, much like Defenders of the Earth, Mandrake and Lothar teamed up with the Phantom, Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, and Hans Zarkov.

[14] In July 2020, King Features Syndicate, Red 5 Comics, and StoneBot Studios announced the series Legacy of Mandrake the Magician, written by Erica Schultz and drawn by Diego Giribaldi, Juan Pablo Massa, and Moncho Bunge.

In the 1960s, Federico Fellini, a close friend of Falk, intended to make a Mandrake movie, but the project was never realized.

In the early 1980s, within two weeks of signing with his first agent, American filmmaker Michael Almereyda was hired by Embassy Pictures to rewrite a script for Mandrake the Magician.

He told Filmmaker magazine that, upon receiving the assignment, he flew to New York City and checked himself into the Chelsea Hotel to work on the rewrite.

[22] In 2009, Hayden Christensen replaced Rhys Meyers in the title role of the film with Djimon Hounsou co-starring and Mimi Leder directing.

Mandrake and Lothar first appeared in animated form with the Phantom, Flash Gordon, and Steve Canyon in 1972 television special The Man Who Hated Laughter.

[25] In the animated series Defenders of the Earth (1986–87), Mandrake the Magician teams with fellow King Features adventurers Flash Gordon and The Phantom.

Mandrake is a character in the play King Kong Palace, written by Chilean playwright Marco Antonio de la Parra.

In the play, Mandrake is now a performer at birthday parties, in which he attempts to seduce Jane, the ambitious wife of Tarzan, in order to satisfy his lust for power.

2 (August 1986) is a short story by Alan Moore and illustrator Don Simpson, which takes place in a limbo world of comic-book characters.

New Zealand-born Australian country and western singer Tex Morton had a successful song "Mandrake" recorded in 1941.