Marvel Database
Register
Advertisement

Orini was a native of the Dark Dimension, the father of Clea, and the closest disciple of Dormammu.[1] Unlike his daughter, Orini remained loyal to his master and his mistress.[3]

History

Orini was the son of Olnar, the wizard-king who once ruled the Dark Dimension, When Orini was still an infant, his father and mother were both killed by the Mindless Ones.[2] Although he was Olnar's heir, Orini was then too young to rule so the people of the Dark Dimension chose Dormammu and Umar to be their regents.[4][5] Orini was raised as a ward of Dormammu and grew to become his closest disciple.[2]

During his childhood, Orini never saw Umar because she dwelt apart from them but Umar saw him.[3] One night, soon after Orini had assumed the countenance of manhood,[2] Umar approached Orini and seduced him. However, Umar found the act of sexual intercourse to be disgusting and she ran from Orini.[3][2]

Six lesser-cycles later, Umar gave birth to Clea. She then gave the baby to Orini to raise alone, with only the two of them knowing that she was Clea's mother.[3][2] As Clea grew up, Orini often left her alone as he tended Dormammu's affairs.[6]

In October of 1944, Dormammu sensed where the Amulet of Agamotto was on Earth and opened a portal that sucked the amulet and whoever had it into the Dark Dimension. Orini and some warriors were with Dormammu when he found and confronted the Red Skull who admitted that he had had the amulet but had lost it to an enemy after arriving there. Orini objected when the Nazi tried to bargain with Dormammu, stating that they could find the amulet and did not need the Red Skull's help, adding that he didn't trust the human because he was devious. Dormammu agreed with Orini but stated that the creature might be useful to him after he conquered Earth and so he decided to test the Red Skull, giving him until a certain moon set to find the amulet. Later, after that moon had set, Orini was with Dormammu when he banished the Red Skull for failing to obtain the amulet. Dormammu then attempted to force Nick Fury to give him the amulet but a group of Mindless Ones appeared, running straight at a group of nearby villagers. Orini urged his master to save them and Dormammu did, only then discovering that they had only been phantoms created from afar by the Ancient One as a distraction to give the humans time to escape.[7]

Years later, a masked Orini announced to his master that someone had come to the palace. Dormammu was surprised and disappointed to see that it wasn't the Ancient One, but merely his disciple, Doctor Strange.[8]

Not long afterwards, when Dormammu was using Baron Mordo in a scheme to destroy Dr. Strange, Clea asked her father what new, fantastic plan the Dreaded One was plotting. Orini told his daughter that it was not safe to ask and assured her that Dormammu would tell them, in his own good time.[9]

Some years later, as part of a plot to enable Dormammu to be reborn on Earth, Umar lured Doctor Strange to the Dark Dimension and then began battling him. As Umar had instructed, Orini waited until Strange was fully immersed in Umar's threat before attacking, causing the sorcerer to be distracted long enough for Umar to render him unconscious. On her orders, Orini then brought Strange to the G'uranthic Guardian and laid him down before it so that it could absorb his knowledge, his power and his life. Although a precaution taken by Strange enabled him to survive, he lost all his mystical knowledge and Orini, who had sensed both that loss and Strange's reawakening, came to kill him. However, before he could do so, Clea appeared to help him but froze when she saw Orini, revealing that he was her father.[1] Although unable to fight her father, Clea was able to use the Cloak of Levitation to carry herself and Strange out of immediate danger. Clea told Strange about her childhood and then went to her father to ask for his aid. Orini refused but did not prevent her from leaving. Later, after learning from a little girl where the "bad peoples" were, Orini led the people of the city after Clea but by the time they had caught up to her all of Strange's powers had been transferred into her. Angered that she had wasted the one chance he had given her to leave in peace, Orini tried to kill both Clea and Strange. Upset that her father had struck at her with such hate, Clea almost retaliated with a lethal attack of her own but, when Strange reminded her that his power was not anti-life, she instead used the Flames of the Faltine to drive them back. After Clea returned Strange's powers to him, the two of them left for Earth.[6]

Later, after Dormammu had been reborn on Earth and tried to banish Umar to a nameless nether-void but had instead had his power drained into her, Orini appeared on Earth seeking his master. Once Umar stated that she was master now, Orini revealed that Doctor Strange had escaped and was closing upon her. Umar then ordered Orini to return to watch the dark domain but Orini instead asked her if she must always treat him that way. He reminded her of that night, so long ago, when they had their single brief sexual encounter and of the fact that Clea was their daughter. Umar didn't want to hear anymore about that and, when Strange and Clea arrived, she thought it would be entertaining to cloud Orini's mind and body again and send him to attack the duo, believing that Strange destroying him would be a just reward for his loathsome lusts. Empowered and controlled by Umar, Orini was a real threat to Strange until he used the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak to separate Orini from his mistress. Within seconds, Clea's plan to free the captive Mother Nature had succeeded, and the freed Earth-goddess quickly defeated first Umar and then forced Dormammu to flee. With the battle over, Strange released Orini who gathered up the unconscious Umar and returned with her to their realm.[3]

Years later, after Umar had become ruler following Dormammu's disappearance, a rebellion against her rule began, led by Clea.[10] When two captured rebels refused to reveal where Clea was, Umar ordered them to be thrown to the Mindless Ones and Orini, now the captain of the palace guard, carried out her orders. However, just after Orini opened a warp in the barrier, a third rebel attacked. Orini pushed the two captives through but then the third rebel jumped on him, sending them both through as well. As the barrier sealed itself, the other guards saw all four being overwhelmed by the Mindless Ones and left to report back to Umar, unaware of the fact that those Mindless Ones were merely an illusion cast by Clea. Under the influence of a somnolent spell, Orini was brought to the hidden stronghold of the rebels where he awoke to find himself Clea's captive.[11]

Several days later, Clea attempted to interrogate the bound Orini but was unable to penetrate the deep psychic shield in his mind. Soon afterwards, Doctor Strange arrived in the Dark Dimension disguised as an Mhurruk and managed to follow some rebels to their stronghold. Once inside, Strange revealed that he had come to aid their rebellion but Orini told the Earthman his support would do them no good because Umar already thought that he was part of the rebellion.[4]

After some success, the rebellion reached an impasse and needed more information about troop movements in order to plan effectively. Since Clea had been unable to crack Captain Orini's psychic shields, some members of the council wondered if their relationship had impeded her efforts. Doctor Strange suggested that she might have a subconscious block that was keeping her from probing Orini's mind as deeply as she wanted and volunteered to assist Rahl. Orini was defiant against the Earthman he blamed for turning his daughter against him and boasted that the shields implanted by Umar herself could not be broken so Strange simply used the all-seeing light of the Eye of Agamotto on him. After using it to reveal many useful military secrets, the Eye forced the old man to reveal his deepest secret: that Umar was Clea's mother. Orini was confident that discovering this secret would doom the rebellion because Clea would never again be able to oppose her own mother. Although shocked by this revelation, Clea soon recovered and used the other secrets to plan a very important mission that required the involvement of all the other rebels. Once she was alone, Clea released her father from his bonds so that she could ask him why he had never told her the truth. His response upset her, giving him an opportunity to physically attack her, but she defeated him and cast a spell that made them each look like the other. After Umar's guards counter-ambushed and captured the rebels and Strange was teleported away by the real Outcasts, "Orini" made her way to the palace royal and presented "Clea" to Umar.[2]

After placing the unconscious "Clea" in a capsule, Umar used a magic gemstone that projected audio-visual images throughout the realm to announce that the rebellion had been broken. Umar then had a private conversation with "Captain Orini" in which she revealed that, once Strange was captured, she would have both he and "Clea" put to death before the eyes of their rebel force. When Umar was informed that Strange and a horde of Outcasts had invaded the palace, Umar realized that Clea must have been preventing her from sensing Strange's aura and concluded that "Clea" was only feigning unconsciousness. Clea then dropped her spell, allowing Umar to see that it was Orini in the capsule while "Orini" resumed her true form. As the mother and daughter began to battle, Clea secretly activated that gemstone, enabling everyone in the realm to witness the battle, including Umar's statement that she would draw power from the Great Barrier even though doing so would weaken it and allow the Mindless Ones to sweep across the realm and kill thousands. As the rebels and the Outcasts demonstrated their heroism by protecting the city-dwellers from the Mindless Ones that Umar had released, the people turned against the treacherous tyrant and, deprived of the psychic power that she had received from their worshipful support, Umar was soon defeated by Clea to whom the Flames of Regency passed.[12]

With Clea as the new, benevolent queen of the Dark Dimension, Orini and Umar were both locked in spells of stasis, and Clea and Strange jointly cast a spell that sent them to eternal banishment.[13]

About a year later, Dormammu's spirit returned to the Dark Dimension, created a new body for himself, and was able to overcome and mesmerize Clea before she knew what was happening.[14] Then, after defeating Doctor Strange when he visited, Dormammu cast a spell that brought the cylinders containing Umar and Orini back into the Dark Dimension. Dormammu released and awoke Umar but, since Orini's cage had merely been pulled back in the wake of Umar's capsule, Dormammu then returned Orini to oblivion.[5]

Years later, as Clea was about to sign a peace treaty with Dormammu in order to end a mutually-destructive civil war, she recalled how Orini had been killed by Dormammu.[15]

Attributes

Powers

Orini possesses an unspecified level of mystical skill. As Dormammu's chief disciple, he was allowed to attain a higher level of ability than most other inhabitants of the Dark Dimension but not enough to challenge either Dormammu or Umar. Umar was once able to vastly increase his power to a level rivalling that of Doctor Strange but only did so while she was controlling him,

Orini is known to have been born thousands of Earth-years ago. The source of his longevity has not been revealed.

Notes

  • The idea that Orini is the son of the wizard-king Olnar is a bit problematic because it means that he must be thousands of years old, having been a infant when Dormammu took over the Dark Dimension. Such extreme longevity requires an explanation. Are all denizens of the Dark Dimension so long-lived? Or is his longevity a result of his ancestry? Or did Dormammu cast a spell to drastically slow his aging?
    • Furthermore, the fact that Orini was "barely past boyhood" when Umar seduced him and became pregnant means that Clea must be almost as old as he is. While her longevity is clearly a result of having an unaging Faltine as her mother, it still means that she is far, far older than her beloved Stephen Strange.
  • There have been three retellings of Orini and Umar's single brief sexual experience and all of them have told the same story. However, Orini's appearance has been different in each of them:
  • In a flashback in Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #73, Clea recalls Orini telling her that it was better to serve a devil than to be destroyed by him. This is odd because every other story in which Orini appears depicts him as being unwaveringly loyal to Dormammu and/or Umar.

See Also

Links and References

References

Advertisement