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Victoria Bentley was the daughter of a wealthy professor (and secretly, a sorcerer), Sir Clive Bentley, and an unknown mother.

When her dead father was impersonated by Baron Mordo to call upon Doctor Strange, Strange arrived to investigate. He confronted Mordo, who had laid a vapor trap. Strange was able to summon Victoria to help. Mordo noticed her potential and claimed Victoria would be a threat if she ever learned to use it. Strange defeated Mordo, and told Victoria to lead whatever life she deemed fit. He decided against taking her as an apprentice, as Mordo would certainly attack again.[2]

Much later, the Living Tribunal sent Dr. Strange on a quest to restore balance to the reality: Strange had unwillingly released a great amount of evil magic power, so that many potential wizards were discovering great power and using it for crimes. Victoria Bentley, her will bended by the circumstances and her memory fuzzy, became one of those evil sorcerers. The sorcerers gathered as a team, the Circle Sinister, and released Mordo from an extra-dimensional bondage so that he could lead them, while Strange was doing his best to prevent that.[1] However, Strange failed in his quest and Mordo exiled him to a different dimension ruled by Nebulos, Lord of the Planets Perilous.[4]

Bentley, still Mordo's servant, returned to her London flat and, distrusting her master, used her powers to clear her own mind. She remembered her previous encounter with Mordo and Strange, and immediately was sent to the Planet Perilous.[4] Nebulous intended to use Bentley as his hostage to make Strange perform a quest for Nebulos.[5] Indeed, Nebulos sent Strange to Earth so he could defeat Mordo and absorb all the evil power in a Staff - and meanwhile, he sent Bentley to a different world,[6] the one ruled by the so-called supreme scientist Yandroth.[7] Strange defeated Nebulos and followed Bentley's track to Yandroth's world.[6]

The alien Yandroth determined through calculations that she was the most suitable being on Earth to become his bride and queen, and abducted her.[7] Doctor Strange was able to free her, in a fight that took them to the Dimension of Dreams and ended with Yandroth being exiled there, becoming a dream himself. After being released, Bentley's memory became blurred again, unable to retain memories of the unusual events.[8]

Bentley returned to her previous life as a British socialite but, when she was magically summoned to the Americas by Doctor Strange, she quickly agreed to help him in a dangerous inter-dimensional quest to find Clea, a trapped woman from a different dimension for whom Strange had romantic feelings.[9] While Bentley herself secretly loved Strange[10] and had hoped for him to reciprocate her feelings, she agreed to help him, understanding the gravity of the situation. Bentley still did not have magic powers herself, but Strange needed a female magician to cross to that dimension. Once there, however, she was paralized by fear, and Strange agreed to leave her under the protection of the Shield of the Seraphim - while he had expected her to be braver, he could not judge her because she had done everything she could with her light training.[9]

Unfortunately, even with the Shield, Bentley was captured by the same villain who had captured Clea: Dormammu. Dormammu then captured Strange and, leaving a Guardian, left to conquer a different dimension. Strange then released himself, defeated the Guardian and released the female captives. Hearing him speak romantically to Clea, Bentley retired to weep. Strange, wanting to confront Dormammu on his own, then sent Bentley and Clea[10] to his mansion on Earth, where they were welcomed by Strange's butler Wong and then confronted by rude, sceptical interloper Charles Benton. Dr. Strange was captured again and sent a mental command to his female friends: Clea then found a way to help Strange even from Earth: By using the Orb of Agamotto, Clea and Bentley planted a suggestion in the mind of Dormammu's ambitious sister Umar to release Strange. While Bentley's powers were dormant, Clea used her own magic to channel those to Umar, unleashing a decisive event that allowed Strange to claim victory and return to Earth.[11]

Immediately after that, Strange received a telegram summoning him to meet an English sorcerer, Lord Nekron. Strange and Bentley went together to England and to Nekron's home. Nekron agreed to receive Strange's date, even if he was unfamiliar with her. Once in the mansion, Nekron offered them a secretly drugged drink that left Bentley unconscious. Nekron then sent Strange to "a world gone mad", intending to defeat him - but, as Strange knew that Nekron had limited time, he magically sped up time and thus defeated Nekron forever. When Bentley woke up, with no memory after the toast, Strange explained his victory to her while she drove them both to London - and, once there, Strange flew away, with Bentley sighing for him.[12]

Returning to her privileged life, Bentley took home in her family castle and hosted a number of social events, including a masquerade where she met her new neighbor, American Dane Whitman (a descendant of the British Garretts living at Garrett Castle), whom she also found attractive. Secretly, Whitman was the Avenger called Black Knight, and indeed he had attended the masque in his superhero uniform.[13]

Meanwhile, Doctor Strange had the need of an allied sorcerer to anchor him while he travelled on a mission to the Sixth Dimension and, discarding the old Ancient One and the weakened Clea, he resorted to Bentley. He astrally visited her in her party, and there he met the Black Knight, whom he recognized as a supernaturally-induced hero and whom he recruited as a partner for his quest. In the process, Whitman revealed his identity to Bentley, who assisted them in their interdimensional quest. The mission was again successful.[13]

Some time later, most magicians -including Bentley at her home- suddenly perceived the importance of the duel that Dr. Strange was having at that same moment against the demon Shuma-Gorath: While Bentley and the other magicians may have been unaware of Strange's quest, they knew that Strange was battling to protect the soul of the whole humanity. However, nor Bentley nor any other person could have done anything to affect that fight - which ended with Strange's victory.[14]

Victoria also helped a young Betsy Braddock learn to control her telepathy. When the reality-warping mutant Mad Jim Jaspers was elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, he persecuted other mutants and superhumans, having them captured and put in internment camps. Victoria was one of those captured, and became close to both Betsy and her friend Alison Double, who had both been interned as well. When Jaspers had been defeated and the camp dismantled, Victoria invited the two women to recover from their ordeal at her castle.

While Dane Whitman's soul was living centuries in the past, Victoria maintained his castle. However, she had no legal power of attorney over his assets so, when Garrett Castle was in danger of being seized for non-payment of taxes, the only way that she could keep it from being auctioned off was by mortgaging her own properties and buying it herself. The caused some friction when Dane eventually returned to the present.[15]

As Doctor Strange began his struggle against the Ancient Evils that he had released by destroying many of his talismans, he decided to cause the world to believe that he had died so that he could fight them unencumbered.[16] Part of the powerful and complex enchantment that he cast was a memory spell that made Victoria and a number of other people believe that they had attended his funeral in New York.[3] That spell also created an audio-visual recording of the funeral in which Victoria appeared amongst the mourners.[17]

After Strange began using black magic in his attempt to prevent those Ancient Evils from conquering mankind, he found himself in need of additional power and appeared before Victoria who was shocked to see that he was still alive. After Strange explained the situation, Victoria mentioned her power, told him that she loved him and said that everything she had was his. Strange then kissed her, using the kiss to steal all of her magic potential, and then left to continue his war. Her home, Bentley Manor, caught fire and was destroyed, leaving her with nothing.[3]

Having lost the mystic talents that made her feel worthwhile, Victoria withdrew into herself. Refusing to talk or eat or even acknowledge the outside world, she wasted away, cared for by her butler, Edward Catherwood, as they stayed at the Hotel Replendent, a resort on the southwest coast of England. While there, the void left within her by the removal of her powers was filled by dark energies. When Strange, after defeating Shuma-Gorath, came to check on Victoria, he discovered what had happened and sought to banish the darkness by apologizing to her while letting his magical defenses down. Although Victoria was very upset when he confirmed that he loved someone else and she inflicted some pain on him during her resulting burst of anger, the emotional release helped her to recover and Strange made what amends he could by restoring to her more power than he had taken from her.[18]

Later, after a curse on the Ebony Blade had turned Dane's body to solid steel, Victoria and Catherwood travelled to Garrett Castle in Virginia in an attempt to find a way to save him.[19] She and Catherwood continued to live in the castle even after Dane was restored to his flesh-and-blood self.[20]

Victoria was accidentally killed by Bloodwraith during his fight with Deadpool on a street in Washington, D.C.[21]

Since her death, Victoria's soul has remained trapped in an ethereal realm of darkness within the Ebony Blade. When Namor was later impaled by the Ebony Blade during a battle with the Bloodwraith, he found himself in that ethereal realm and soon encountered the souls of Victoria, Marrina, Sir Percival of Scandia, Sean Dolan (while his body was controlled by the Bloodwraith), and a "dark brigade" of undead demon-knights. Victoria explained that a battle for control of Dolan's soul was fought between good and evil within that inner dimension whenever he drew the sword. They were soon joined by the soul of Andromeda after Morgan Le Fay had used the Ebony Blade to kill her. Andromeda informed Namor that he could return to life through the band of light that still connected her to life. Namor did so and was restored to life within his body while Marrina's soul, which he had taken with him, was also finally freed.[22]

Attributes

Powers

Magic: Victoria possessed great magical power, although she seemed to be unaware of it herself. This power could be detected by others, especially magic users.

It was claimed by Mordo that she would be a threat to him and others if she ever gained control of her powers.

Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange) was able to temporarily gain her power through the use of black magic. It is unknown if Baron Mordo or other sorcerers planned to do this as well.

Notes

  • There is some confusion regarding her relationship to Sir Clive Bentley.
    • In her first appearance, Victoria and Baron Mordo both stated that she was the daughter of Lord Bentley who had died ten years earlier. Doctor Strange seems to have assumed that they were referring to his old friend, Sir Clive Bentley.[2]
    • Years later, while speaking to Victoria, Catherwood stated that Sir Clive had always been pleased that his niece displayed strong latent occult power. The fact that Victoria did not correct him implies that Sir Clive was actually her uncle instead.[3]

See Also

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