Mandrake the Magician
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40 free Mandrake the Magician trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Mandrake the Magician first stepped onto the newspaper page in 1934: a tuxedoed stage conjurer who spent his nights outwitting gangsters, rogue scientists and visitors from other worlds. New adventures kept coming for almost eighty years, and many readers still remember his loyal sidekick as vividly as the magician himself. This quiz covers the whole act: who that sidekick is and where he came from, the princess Mandrake courted for decades, the home he retreats to, the villains who keep returning, and the writer and artists behind the strip. It also follows Mandrake off the page into a movie serial, radio, television pilots and a cartoon team-up. It is written for anyone who grew up with the strip in the daily paper or in reprints around the world, and for newer fans curious about one of the earliest costumed crime-fighters in comics. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which African prince, called the strongest man in the world, is Mandrake the Magician's sidekick?
Lothar
Lothar gave up a throne to travel with Mandrake, debuting beside him in the very first daily strip in 1934. He is counted among the first African crime-fighting heroes in comics.
Q 02Mandrake the Magician's mountaintop mansion shares which name with Kublai Khan's summer capital?
Xanadu
Xanadu sits atop a mountain in New York State and is packed with gadgets, including closed-circuit TV, vertical iron gates and a road that divides in half.
Q 03Some comics historians call Mandrake the Magician, who debuted in 1934, the first of which character type?
Superhero
Superhero is the label historians such as Don Markstein attach to Mandrake, who was using his powers against evil four years before Superman appeared.
Q 04Which Marvel legend wrote the theme lyrics for the 1980s cartoon teaming Mandrake with Flash Gordon?
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is named in the closing credits as lyricist of the main title song, written while Marvel Productions was making the 65-episode series.
Q 05Mandrake the Magician creates illusions with a lightning-fast form of which technique, set off by a gesture?
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is the secret behind the act: when Mandrake gestures, his targets see whatever illusion he chooses, a trick he has turned on gangsters, aliens and beings from other dimensions.
Q 06Which strip about a masked crime-fighter in Bangalla was the second hit by Mandrake the Magician's creator?
The Phantom
The Phantom began on February 17, 1936, two years after Mandrake, and follows a masked hero whose role has passed from father to son for centuries.
Q 07In which 1980s animated series does Mandrake the Magician join Flash Gordon to battle Ming the Merciless?
Defenders of the Earth
Defenders of the Earth ran for 65 episodes, was set in the then-distant year 2015, and gave each hero a son or daughter to fight alongside.
Q 08The bumbling wizard Schmendrick was named as a parody of Mandrake the Magician in which 1968 fantasy novel?
The Last Unicorn
The Last Unicorn author Peter S. Beagle first made up Schmendrick as the hero of family bedtime stories, then wrote the hapless wizard into the unicorn's quest.
Q 09Long before Mandrake the Magician, the word mandrake named which living thing, feared in old superstition?
A plant
A plant with a forked, man-shaped root, the mandrake belongs to the nightshade family; one superstition held that it screamed when pulled from the ground.
Q 10Mandrake the Magician's evil double Ekardnam, his name spelled backward, lives behind which object?
A mirror
A mirror hides Ekardnam's upside-down world, where a lowly private runs the government, generals do the menial jobs, and he works magic with an evil eye.
Q 11Which writer, later a stage director who worked with Marlon Brando, created Mandrake the Magician?
Lee Falk
Lee Falk went on to run five theaters and produce about 300 plays, while still writing Mandrake's adventures until his death in 1999.
Q 12Which princess became Mandrake the Magician's wife after a courtship that began in the strip's second story?
Narda
Narda and Mandrake stayed sweethearts for about six decades of strips before finally marrying in a lavish triple wedding ceremony.
Q 13Which arch-enemy of Mandrake, real name Luciphor, returned in 1965 wearing a menacing silver mask?
The Cobra
The Cobra seemed beaten in 1937 before that comeback, and his main goal is to seize one of the Crystal Cubes that boost mental energy.
Q 21Which cartoonist took over the art of Mandrake the Magician in 1965 and later wrote the strip as well?
Fred Fredericks
Fred Fredericks drew Mandrake for 48 years, added the writing after the creator's death in 1999, and retired in 2013 with a story left unfinished.
Q 22Which centuries-old headmaster of the College of Magic is the father of Mandrake the Magician?
Theron
Theron guards a crystal cube that may be what keeps him alive, and he fathered more than one magician: his eldest son turned to evil.
Q 23Which chef at Mandrake the Magician's mansion is secretly chief of the crime-fighting agency Inter-Intel?
Hojo
Hojo is also a superb martial artist who taught Mandrake's wife to fight, and he often recruits the magician for Inter-Intel cases.
Q 14Which Hearst-owned syndicate has distributed the Mandrake the Magician strip since its first day?
King Features
King Features bought the strip after its young creator pitched it in New York in 1934, the same year the syndicate launched Flash Gordon.
Q 15Mandrake the Magician's stage outfit pairs a scarlet-lined cape and a pencil-line mustache with which hat?
Top hat
Top hat, cape and mustache were also the look of Leon Mandrake, a real stage magician who toured for decades under the same name as the comic-strip hero.
Q 16Don Mueller, nicknamed Mandrake the Magician in the 1950s, earned the name for his skill in which sport?
Baseball
Baseball fans gave the New York Giants right fielder the name because he so reliably put the ball in play and found gaps through the infield.
Q 17A crime ring Mandrake fights, dating to medieval times, is organized like which sea creature?
An octopus
An octopus is the model for the gang known as 8: eight arms of headquarters around the world answer to one head, the unseen leader Octon.
Q 18Which European director, a friend of Mandrake the Magician's creator, planned a Mandrake film in the 1960s?
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini never got his Mandrake picture made, but his 1987 film Intervista shows Marcello Mastroianni dressed as the magician for a commercial.
Q 19Which artist drew Mandrake the Magician for three decades until his fatal heart attack in 1964?
Phil Davis
Phil Davis was drafted for war work in the 1940s, so his wife Martha, a fashion illustrator, helped draw the strip and stayed on afterwards.
Q 20Mandrake the Magician learned his craft as a boy at the College of Magic, hidden in which mountain range?
The Himalayas
The Himalayas hide the Collegium Magikos, run by a headmaster said to be hundreds of years old and possibly kept alive by the crystal cube he guards.
Q 24Which twin brother of Mandrake uses near-identical magical powers for his own short-term satisfaction?
Derek
Derek looks just like his brother, and Mandrake tried to wipe his knowledge of magic but never entirely succeeded.
Q 25The Mandrake villain Saki, a master of disguise, leaves a clay model of which animal at his crimes?
A camel
A camel made of clay is the calling card that gives the Clay Camel his name; he can mimic anyone and change his appearance in seconds.
Q 26The princess Mandrake married comes from which European kingdom, named after a mythical land of plenty?
Cockaigne
Cockaigne in the strip is ruled by the princess's brother Segrid; in medieval legend the name meant a dreamland of ease where food was plentiful.
Q 27Which actor, also the screen's Spider and Green Hornet, played Mandrake the Magician in a 1939 movie serial?
Warren Hull
Warren Hull became one of the most popular serial heroes of his day, and later found a second career as a television personality.
Q 28Which Hollywood studio released the 12-chapter Mandrake the Magician movie serial, its seventh serial overall?
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures sent Mandrake to work the cruise lines, where he protects a professor's radium energy machine from a masked crime lord.
Q 29Which masked crime lord hunts a radium energy machine in the 1939 Mandrake the Magician movie serial?
The Wasp
The Wasp turns out to be Dr. Andre Bennett, a scientist posing as a close friend of the machine's inventor, Professor Houston.
Q 30Which former NFL player turned actor played Mandrake the Magician's strongman partner in NBC's 1954 TV pilot?
Woody Strode
Woody Strode, later the gladiator Draba in Spartacus, starred opposite stage magician Coe Norton; the pilot never became a series.