Mordru

Mordru
File:Mordru.jpg Mordru in Doctor Fate's garb; from JSA #45.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Adventure Comics #369 (June 1968)
Created by	Jim Shooter (writer), Curt Swan (artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Wrynn
Team affiliations	Lord of Chaos
Notable aliases	The Dark Lord, The Dark Nobleman
Abilities	Wields vast sorcerous power that nears omnipotence

Mordru (also known as Mordru the Merciless) is a fictional character, a supervillain in the DC Comics Universe.

Character Biography

Mordru's main foes are the Legion of Super-Heroes in the future world of the 30th and 31st centuries and the Justice Society of America and the Lord of Order Amethyst in the present. Mordru is the most prominent Lord of Chaos who is fated to survive even after the end of the universe, although he is usually shown as a powerful wizard.

Pre-Crisis (20th century)

In the continuity which existed prior to the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries, Mordru's first chronological battle with costumed superheroes occurred during one of the numerous meetings between Earth-One's Justice League of America and Earth-Two's Justice Society of America. At the time, the two teams helped the Legion of Super-Heroes (who hailed from Earth-One's 30th century) to defeat the wizard.

Post-Crisis (20th and 21st centuries)

After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Mordru was recast as a timeless Lord of Chaos, and became a major foe of the JSA. He made several attempts to take the power of Doctor Fate for himself, and was imprisoned in Fate's amulet for a time. When he escaped, he subdued Hector Hall, stealing Hall's collar and amulet and taking on the familiar garb of Doctor Fate.

Mordru attempted to conquer the world (with the assistance of Eclipso and Obsidian), but was defeated by Doctor Fate and the JSA. Fate imprisoned Mordru within the Rock of Eternity, where he was guarded by the wizard Shazam. However Mordru eventually managed to escape, mere moments before the Spectre (having been seduced by the Jean Loring-hosted Eclipso) arrived and murdered Shazam. Mordru's appearance in that story arc, "Princes of Darkness", is of continuity-interest because his defeat involved freeing the soul of Atlantean sorcerer Arion, who revealed that he was in fact not the grandfather of Power Girl, a foreshadowing of her back-story revisions to come in the Infinite Crisis story.

After escaping the Rock of Eternity, Mordru promptly sought revenge on Fate and the JSA. While fighting Fate, the two were thrown into different timelines, such as the Kingdom Come timeline. Fate mocked Mordru, claiming that he was a 'cosmic fluke', a cancer, and that no other versions of him existed anywhere. Mordru was then defeated by Jakeem Thunder, who placed him "somewhere where none of us will see him again."

File:NabuMordru.jpg

Mordru battles the JSA and the hostless Nabu in JSA #80. Art by Don Kramer.

Gemworld

He also played a role in the history of Gemworld, where he was known as Wrynn, and fought Amethyst, Princess of Gem World. He was trapped inside stone there for a long period of time, which lead to him developing taphephobia (the fear of being buried alive), a weakness that was often his downfall thereafter.

Pre-Zero Hour (30th Century)

The bulk of Mordru's appearances are in the 30th century, where he rises in power to being one of the most powerful figures in the universe, and indeed at sometimes arguably the most powerful. Because of various reboots to the 30th century continuity, there are varying versions of this, but there are things consistent throughout.

Appearing mysteriously on Zerox, the Sorcerer's planet, he joined their ranks and rose in power quickly until, in a coup, seized absolute power over the planet, stealing the power of the other leading sorcerers for himself. One who escaped his grasp there was an apprentice of his, Mysa Nal aka the White Witch. (She was later retconned as his daughter).

Armed with this mystical might, he embarked on a series of conquests of nearby worlds, with his magic, and built a space empire using the technological might of the worlds he conquered combined with his sorcery (for example, just before a space battle every weapon in the enemy fleets would jam). This combination proved unstoppable, and he conquered over half the galaxy in short order, establishing a tyrannical grip. In these days he also came to be called the "Dark Lord". The worlds which remained outside his grasp lived in fear. Then at some point, it seemed his power, which had scaled upwards astronomically, wavered. As Shooter put it, he no longer conquered worlds wholesale, but instead picked and chose carefully, "as if selecting baubles from a jewelers tray".

One of the key worlds outside his grasp was Earth. The Legion of Super-Heroes defended it, and when he set his sights on it, a conflict was inevitable. In a titanic struggle, the Legion defeated Mordru's space armada, but then he himself entered combat personally, appearing as a 100' giant (Mordru commonly used magic to increase his size). He defeated most of the Legion, but was sealed in an airless vault at superspeed by Superboy and Mon-El, triggering his old phobia. They sealed him in an airless vault, where he remained comatose, beneath Legion Headquarters.

Shadow Lass, exploring the headquarters, stumbled upon his vault and opened it to see what was inside. Mon-El tried to seal the vault (and in the process of warning her told the backstory related in the preceding paragraphs). But air had entered the vault, Mordru roused, and proved unstoppable. The Legion fled via a Time Bubble. This early event foreshadowed problems Mordru would have with Time and those who manipulated it. Because they didn't have time to adjust the time bubble, it went to its last setting, Smallville in Superboy's time. They figured Mordru would think to look for them there, so they hid the Time Bubble, and adopted secret identities in Smallville, assisted by Superboy as Clark Kent.

Mordru used his magic to track them down, possessing various townspeople including Lana Lang to act as his spies and agents. When she found the legion, she reported them, and he arrived. They fought again, but the Legion finally triumphed in battle. As always, the end result left him trapped, comatose, but not dead.

This established the classic Mordru story cycle. Every once in awhile, something would again free Mordru, he would begin his machinations against the Legion, with whom he became increasingly obsessed, and they would again defeat him, leaving him trapped until a writer sought to revive him again.

Earthwar

Mordru was next freed by the Dark Circle, who sought to use him as a tool in their plans to conquer the earth. He quickly gained the upper hand, and used the Circle in a lengthy plot against Earth and the Legion, this time hiding his role throughout. The Earthwar began with the Khund invading the United Planets (Federation like organization which Earth was a part), and as the Legion tried to resolve this they discovered the Khundian leader was a puppet being controlled from afar, they eventually worked their way back through the Dominators, the Dark Circle and finally, when they confronted the Circle, found Mordru running the show. In the final battle, the entire Legion (at that point numbering about 30) attacked him en masse, but he shrugged off their attacks, creating a sphere which would kill them. At the last second, Element Lad, a transmuter, started to turn the air around him into soil, thus triggering his phobia again.

Lord Romdur

After his previous appearance, he fled to a backwater planet named Avalon and took the name Romdur (an anagram of Mordru). This was a weak appearance, not noteworthy. Star Boy used his mass-inducing power to collapse his castle, trapping him again.

Great Darkness Saga

When Darkseid was reborn in the 30th century, he sought to gain power by draining the power of others. He freed Mordru and before Mordru could react, sapped his mystical energy. Mordru was left powerless.

V4 (aka "Five Years later") Legion version

In the V4 Legion, it was revealed that originally Mordru was fated to rule the universe, his rise to power was unstoppable. Seeing this timeline, Glorith, a time manipulator, changed history several times to block his rise to ultimate power. By repeatedly tweaking history she was orchestrating a battle between the Legion and Mordru in which they would be evenly matched, destroy each other, and let her pick up the pieces as the only remaining power in the universe.

Ultra Boy however figured out her plan, and turned the tables on her, visiting Mordru in disguise and provoking him into attacking Glorith before she was ready (but still more powerful than he expected). The result was a stalemate which cost both Mordru and Glorith the bulk of their power. In this retcon, this explains the sudden drop in Mordru's meteoric rise to power referenced above. He was still powerful, but had to content himself with ruling what he had conquered thus far.

This left him roughly at the point where he was pre-v4. Defeated after one of his schemes, the Sorcerers on Zerox removed his magical might and were able to "cure" his mind (details are vague, he seemed simpleminded afterwards), and he lived a happy life first on Zerox, then on Tharn after Zerox was destroyed in the Magic Wars (pretty much the entire planet relocated there). He even married his old apprentice and later enemy (and Legionnaire) Mysa Nal, the White Witch. In the economic collapse of the Galaxy which played a central role of the V4 legion, the planet Tharn was undefended and facing devastation at the hands of the Khund. As none of their other sorcerers had ever proved effective at fighting things such as starships, the Sorcerer's council decided to restore Mordru's power to him, despite knowing its corrupting influence on him. In short order he defeated the Khundish threat and set himself up as Emperor. His power was still nowhere near his glory days, though easily enough to defeat a Green Lantern, Rond Vidar who showed up on Tharn. The Legion turned up looking for him, he seemed capable of taking them all on but backed off when Cosmic Boy pointed out that he couldn't afford to take them on and the United Planets, which would happen if there was an incident. He relented, releasing them and Vidar.

Mordru eventually allied with Glorith in an attempt to further manipulate history again. These attempts weakened time and played a role in Zero Hour crossover event, which completely erased previous Legion continuity.

Post-Zero Hour (30th and 31st centuries)

In the continuity established after Zero Hour, Mordru established an empire covering a vast swathe of space (though very little of it was based in what would become United Planets space) in the 28th and 29th centuries before finally being defeated and imprisoned in an airtight vault on the asteroid Yuen by Mysa - now his daughter - after he had killed all her allies and severely aged her.

He was released by a fight between the new Legionnaires Sensor, Umbra and Magno and a "Legion of Super-Rejects" on the asteroid, and spent time retrieving his talismans, absorbing the power of some of his other descendents, and searching for the Emerald Eye of Ekron - his favourite and most powerful talisman which was possessing Shrinking Violet at the time. When he first encountered the Legion, he defeated them easily and sent them away to serve as his heralds, destroying the planet Sklar in the process as a demonstration of his power.

When he found the Eye, it resisted, until he was finally defeated by a Legion-led alliance including Mysa (who he deaged and depowered during the fight), the Workforce and the Amazers and sealed in an airtight sphere. While the Elements of Disaster threated to revive him at one point, he did not appear again.

Mordru has yet to appear in the current Legion (Waid/Kitson era), partly due to his status as a JSA villain. DC has, in recent years, tried to keep its current heroes and future heroes separate. However, with Supergirl being in the Legion, this may change and Mordru may indeed come to plague the current Legion.

Powers and abilities

Mordru's sorcerous powers are amongst the most formidable in the DC universe. He is capable of flight, control over matter at a molecular level, generation of magical energy in the form of bolts or shields and the formation of solid objects. He can magically heal fatal wounds sustained by himself or those of others. When Alan Scott slashed Mordru's abdomen open with an energy sword, the sorcerer was able to heal the injury in seconds. During his attack on the Justice Society in New York, he was able to take multiple blows from Power Girl without serious damage, and was able to withstand a joint attack by the JSA and the Freedom Fighters. He has also demonstrated superhuman strength sufficient to lift objects weighing several tons with relative ease.

Already vast on their own, Mordru's power becomes almost invincible by tapping the power of vast repositories of magical energy such as the Rock of Eternity, Fate's artifacts, the StarHeart and Arion's body.

Mordru is also apparently ageless. In JSA: Justice Be Done, the Hourman android attempted to de-age Mordru to a point where he was not as powerful, however in the process he discovered that Mordru's timeline had no beginning or end. Mordru was apparently never born, nor would ever die.

Other media

Gabriel Dell portrayed Mordru in 1979's live action miniseries Legends of the Superheroes, in which he sings an evil version of the song "That's Entertainment!".

Mordru made an appearance in Justice League Unlimited's first season episode, "The Greatest Story Never Told". He was portrayed in his Silver Age incarnation, but as the episode focused on the side adventure of fame-seeking hero Booster Gold, Mordru's backstory was not explored. However, his god-like power was noted as it took the entire Justice League to confront him with Elongated Man delivering the blow that knocked him unconscious.

Mordru makes a cameo appearance in the first season Legion of Super-Heroes episode "Childs Play" as a member of the Sorcerer's World Council. Openly disdainful of the United Planets, he supports starting an all out war with Earth because of a minor breach in etiquette.