Noel Bartley Vautrain

Noel Bartley Vautrain was a former Confederate Army colonel and a powerful esper with mental powers capable of altering time and space itself. Because of his abilities, he could potentially rewrite history and temporarily remove anything he desired from existence, making him one of James West and Artemus Gordon's most dangerous enemies. He was also the uncle of Amanda Vautrain.

History
Vautrain was born to the wealthy Vautrain family in the South and became the head of his family's estate. When the Civil War began, he served as a Confederate colonel. During the final days of the war, Vautrain's legs were badly wounded and was on Death's doorstep. Luckily, he survived after a merciful James West of the Union Army saved his life all those years ago by applying first aid, but unfortunately the damage to his legs was so severe that they were amputated, resulting in him being forever bound to a wheelchair, an existence he would grow to despise tremendously as the years passed as he was completely confined to his own manor with no freedom to go anywhere, living his life in a decaying prison which made him long for death, and which resulted in him despising his savior, James West, seeing him as the one who doomed him to a life of personal imprisonment. His only company being his niece Amanda, who sadly became the victim of her uncle's anger and resentment.

As the years passed, Vautrain had little to do with his confined existence, except practice magic trick and read books on all manner of subjects, from mystical phenomenon to metaphysical theory. It was during these years that through his hatred, he discovered a mysterious ability he had never known before, seemingly being able to make things disappear if he concentrated his mind and emotions on them. This fascinated him and resulted him in researching more about this mysterious phenomenon, realizing that he was actually accessing the 4th Dimension, a realm beyond time and space where he could not only send things away to a different place in space but even move objects through time. It was then that he theorized that through his new ascended state that he could potentially alter the past as well and thus save his legs.

It was then that he orchestrated a plot to kidnap James West by whisking him away during a planned magic act where he would fling him into the 4th Dimension and transport him to his mansion. However, Vautrain's niece became enamored with West and could bring herself to trick him, so instead she lured Jim's best friend Artemus Gordon onto the stage where he was instead whisked away in Jim's place. Once West had come in search of Gordon, West was reunited with Vautrain who used Gordon's status as a hostage to keep West in line and explain to him his motivations. Vautrain then revealed that he planned to use West and Gordon as guinea pigs for his abilities by sending them through time. He then sent both back to the day they first met, and even had it so events played out differently only to quickly undo the changes in the timeline before bringing them back to the present. With this in mind, Vautrain now knew that it was safe for a human to travel back in time and change the past or leave it as is if he wanted to. Vautrain then sent himself, West and Gordon back to the last days of the Civil War, where Vautrain had his youth and legs restored. However he was not satisfied with simply having his life back. Now he wished to change the course of the Civil War and assassinate President Grant when he was still an officer in the army. He then order his troops to take down West and Gordon while he prepared to kill Grant with storage room full of explosives once he arrived at the manor. However, the unexpected occurred and a rogue canon ball hit the mansion, setting off the explosives and causing much of the house to burn up and one of the support beams to fall right over Vautrain's legs, crushing them once more, showing that the past could not be altered. Vautrain then realized that his goals and dreams of conquest were a lost cause as he looked upon his ruined legs. Gordon and West then tried helping Vautrain despite his actions, however Vautrain ordered them to leave him to the fate he doomed himself to and told them how to return back to the present. Once they returned, a chain reaction occurred which caused the manor in the present to be set on fire and crumble away. However West, Gordon and Amanda remained unchanged, with Amanda even trying to go back to save her uncle, but was stopped by West. The manor then completely burned away, leaving nothing behind, not even Vautrain.