Puppet Master (Marvel Comics)

The Puppet Master (Philip Masters) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

As his name suggests, the Puppet Master uses "radioactive clay" to make puppets in the likenesses of real people, allowing him to control and manipulate them. Presumably, he has some sort of psionic ability that enables him to do this. He has a deep hatred of the Thing, who is romantically interested and married to his stepdaughter, Alicia Masters. He once tried to take over the world but was thwarted in this effort by the Fantastic Four.

The Puppet Master's first appearance was in Fantastic Four #8 (November 1962), and he was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. His last name, Masters, was revealed in the letters page of Fantastic Four #42 (September 1965), as suggested by a reader, who was given a No-Prize for her service to Marvel. The Puppet Master's origin is told in Marvel Team-Up #6 (January 1973).

Philip Masters, the man who becomes the Puppet Master, was born in Dragorin, a town in the small fictional Balkan nation of Transia. His family immigrated to the United States when he was eight. Growing up, he was socially maladjusted and had no friends.

After finishing college, he went into business with Jacob Reiss. Overcome with jealousy towards his partner's success and happy family life, he tried to sabotage Reiss' projects but was caught in the act. A fight breaks out, and Phillip uses chemicals to create an explosion that kills Reiss. However, he also unintentionally injures Reiss' young daughter Alicia, leaving her with permanent blindness. Phillip plays the explosion off as an accident, and then starts a relationship with Reiss' wife, Marcia. He marries Marcia and adopts Alicia, who becomes a sculptor after admiring her stepfather's work. Later, Marcia dies, and it is more than he can bear. Blaming the world for his misfortune, he devises a means of creating puppets of real people and using them for crime.

When the Human Torch interferes with one of his experiments and gets him arrested and convicted, he sets about bringing down the Fantastic Four. He captures the Invisible Girl and the Thing, and masterminds a mass jailbreak by fashioning a puppet of the warden's trustee. He then falls through a window after tripping over Alicia's hand.

Though his fatal fall is alluded to in his subsequent appearance, it is never explained how he is still alive. He has himself committed to a sanitorium for several months in the belief that this will allow the world to forget him. Upon release, he takes control of Namor and uses him to battle the Fantastic Four. He also pits the Human Torch and the Thing against each other. He teams up with the Mad Thinker and uses the original X-Men to battle the Fantastic Four. Teaming up again with the Thinker, who would become his frequent ally, he battles the Thing and the Torch again, using animated life-size mannequins to battle the pair.

The Puppet Master is later seen among a group of criminals assembled by Doctor Doom. He then controls Namor again. He opposes the original X-Men through the mind-controlled Mimic. He also sparks a battle between the Hulk and Namor by controlling the Hulk.