The Mole (character)

The Mole
First appearance:	"The Mole"
Created by:	Lee Falk and Phil Davis

The Mole is a character from the Mandrake the Magician comic strip that first appeared in "The Mole".

Lee Falk never wrote any kind of background for "The Mole", and his real name was never mentioned either.

Fictional Character Biography

Mandrake said that "The Mole" was one of the strangest and most deadly thief in the history of crime.

He encountered "The Mole" while investigating a series of unexplained robberies that all had one thing in common. A three-foot-high tunnel led in and out of the crime scene. When Mandrake finally managed to capture "The Mole", he found out that he was a physicist working with laser beams. He had developed a super-laser beam, a hundred times more powerful than any known. It was so powerful that it cut through stone, like a hot knife thru butter. When he developed a powerful jet motor, he made himself an outfit, with a super-laser beam on his helmet and powerful jet motors on his back. With this outfit he could move underground in solid bedrock, like a fish through wather. This was the start of his criminal career, and the characteristic tunnels on the crime scene gave him the nickname "The Mole".

When Mandrake moved into Xanadu, he found his paintings of all the master criminals he had encountered, and made himself a rouges gallery. The painting of The Mole was given a central place in the gallery.

In his heyday, The Cobra was obsessed with getting his hands on the Crystal Cube. He had discovered that there were two Crystal Cubes, one at the College of Magic and a second one of which was in Mandrake's custody at Xanadu. A place impossible to enter. He looked through his files of Mandrake's activities over the years and came across the story of "The Mole", and got the idea that he could make "The Mole" work for him.

The Cobra devised a masterful plan to make "The Mole" escape from the escape-proof prison he was in. He managed to get a box of equipment and electronics into the cell where "The Mole" was being held. "The Mole" quickly made himself a new suit and disappeared through a tunnel straight through solid concrete and rock. Once free, the Cobra forced him to work for him along with Udd, Weasel and Krud, to get into Xanadu and steal the crystal cube that was in the Mandrake's possession.

The villains quickly made it to Xanadu, as "The Mole" tunneled through the mountain up to Xanadu and avoided all the obstacles along the way up to the mansion.

As a result of Mandrake also having several obstacles in his study chamber protecting the crystal cube, he and Lothar managed to return to Xanadu before the villains had completed the theft. Together with Hojo, they managed to thwart the robbery and apprehend the villains, with the exception of Udd who managed to escape.