The Wizard's first appearance was in Strange Tales #102 (November 1962) and was created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby.

[2] Bentley Wittman grew up possessing near-superhuman levels of genius and was a child prodigy and chess champion.

Intellectually bored, however, he decided to become a professional criminal and defeat Johnny Storm, who had just appeared to the world as the Human Torch.

The Torch melted a shell the Wizard fired, then created a flaming barrier to protect himself from nerve gas.

[7] The conclusion of one encounter with the Torch sent him flying uncontrollably upward by one of his anti-gravity discs, unable to descend safely.

The Frightful Four raided the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building headquarters, and affixed the Wizard's anti-gravity discs to the four - minus Johnny.

Johnny soon appeared and forced the Wizard to use his anti-grav ship to free his team members before they floated into airless space.

[9] Later, kidnapping the Invisible Girl, they lured the Fantastic Four to a Pacific atoll where they rigged an experimental "Q-bomb" to detonate.

[18] Wizard formed the Frightful Four with Trapster, Sandman, and Electro who would later wear a special outfit that would imitate the Human Torch's powers.

[24] The Wizard later teamed up with the Plantman, helping him to escape prison and providing him a vehicle and equipment,[25] but then ran into a conflict with the Avengers.

He was found by the Thunderbolts, however, who convinced the Wizard to provide anti-gravity discs in order for them to battle Graviton,[volume & issue needed] and later, to attach to the Magneto Protocol Satellites.

He rescued the Trapster from the Negative Zone, boosted the powers of Hydro-Man, and called upon his ex-wife Salamandra to round out the Frightful Four.

[38] He also manipulated Cole, his and Salamandra's daughter, to develop a relationship with the Human Torch in order to teleport to her and bypass the Fantastic Four's defenses.

[40] Wizard plays a small role in the "Secret War" crossover event allied with Lucia von Bardas and other B-List supervillains.

[volume & issue needed] During the Secret Invasion storyline, Wizard is one among many of supervillains who rejoined The Hood's crime syndicate and attacked a Skrull force.

While the Red Hulk, who came to stop the villains, is distracted by the Thing and an open portal to the Negative Zone, Reed is captured.

[55] MODOK Superior was able to revive Wizard and the other Intelligencia members where they began to formulate their plans after their predicted shatter of the superhero community.

[56] Wizard's mind began to shows signs of dementia, due to punishment inflicted by Black Bolt,[57] so he decided to create a new Frightful Four with Klaw, Karl Malus, and Carnage.

[59] The Wizard subsequently joined the plans of the behind-the-scenes villain known as 'the Quiet Man' to destroy the Fantastic Four, but after his clone rejected him in favour of his friends, followed by him witnessing the scale of the Quiet Man's plans, the Wizard decided to aid the FF against the villain so that he could ensure that his 'son' would grow up in peace.

During the battle, he manages to outsmart him with his upgraded tech until Doctor Doom in his version of the Iron Man armor becomes distracted by a vision, giving him the chance to defeat him.

[61] During the "Opening Salvo" part of the Secret Empire storyline, Wizard is recruited by Baron Helmut Zemo to join the Army of Evil.

[65] However, when faced with the chance of working with his father to trap the rest of the Future Foundation and analyze Franklin's powers, Bentley turned against his 'father' because he decided that he wanted to do the right thing, with Wizard accepting his decision as he regards it as an example of how he might have been if he grew up with a more loving family.

[volume & issue needed] Bentley Wittman has no true superpowers, but he is a gifted genius with Ph.Ds for all sciences, particularly in the field of physics.

[66] The Wizard constructed a number of devices for which he employs in his criminal activities: He suffers from a non-lethal nut allergy (especially peanuts) and consuming them causes his face to swell up.

[67] There are other characters who have also called themselves Wizard: All Winners Comics #17, which was published in 1945, 17 years before the first appearance of the Fantastic Four villain of the same name, depicts a legend about the eldest member of the Carreaux family, who jilted the daughter of a magic practitioner in favor of marrying a different girl.

When his brother Dale returned home from military service, Philip met William Naslund and Fred Davis where he told them about the curse involving the Wizard and the Witch.

William Naslund and Fred Davis changed into their Captain America and Bucky outfits where they explored the bayou finding any evidence of the Wizard and the Witch.

[68] Following the 1984 Secret Wars miniseries which concluded with the Thing left on the planet Battleworld, he comes across the kingdom of Leenn which is being terrorized by the Wizard.

[75] He eventually finds Richards' Negative Zone space station, only to be captured by its security system and placed in "cold storage".