Mordru

Origins

Mordru debuted as a 31st century Legion character, but he was millennia old. The first look at Mordru's origins came in the post-Crisis era (1987), in the world of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld.

In a magical dimension known as Gemworld lived the human princess called Amethyst, who was appointed to be Gemworld's Lord of Order. This was one of many dimensions that were battlegrounds for the never-ending war between the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos. To oppose Amethyst, those of Chaos chose a human host with high magical potential, the boy named Wrynn.

Wrynn was a prince, the son of Lord Topaz and Lady Turquoise of Gemworld. While his twin, Donal, was a child of light, his mother worried about Wrynn's tendencies toward darkness. Wrynn appealed to dark magical forces for power. His spells summoned Flaw, an agent of Chaos, who saw the need for an agent on Gemworld to oppose Amethyst. Flaw accepted Wrynn's 'deal with the devil' and granted the prince great power. Wrynn became an agent of Chaos, Mordru the Merciless. (Amethyst vol. 3 #1, 1987)

Mordru's first encounter with Amethyst was humbling, but he rebounded and killed his twin brother, Donal. (#2–3) For his crimes, Mordru was sentenced to exile in the outer realms. But while he was imprisoned, Amethyst decided that he deserved a harsher fate. She visited him and, though Wrynn still exhibited come control over Mordru's consciousness, Amethyst showed no mercy. She entombed Mordru alive, his body incorporated into the ground of Gemworld. He would not breathe air again for a thousand years, over which time Amethyst became the very heart of Gemworld, which prosperred and became known as "the Sorceror's World." (#2–4)

Note: The Lords of Order and Chaos were first introduced as characters adjacent to Doctor Fate, in 1st Issue Special #9 (Dec. 1975) DC Special Series #10 (Feb. 1978), respectively.

This origin became complicated by later post-Crisis (and beyond) accounts, which suggested that he was much older and had other exploits in the 20th century.

30th Century: The Original Mordru

In the thirtieth century, the planet Zerox (also called "the Sorcerers' World") had become the focal point of magic in the universe. Here, the great and terrible sorceror named Mordru was imprisoned for centuries. As Zerox's magical influence began to spread, the bonds that held Mordru were loosened and he emerged. This was a new age to him and he played things cautiously, pretending to be a student of the mystic arts. While he plotted to take over Zerox, he met an equal in skill, the young girl Mysa Nal, known as the White Witch. He transformed Mysa into Xola Aq, a notorious witch, and she was banished from the Sorcerers' World, leaving Mordru free to conquer, kill and control his teachers.

By late 2969, Mordru had secured full control of Zerox and amassed a mystically-powered army. By 2973, his wars of conquest earned him a reputation as the single greatest threat to the United Planets. The Legion of Super-Heroes knew they would eventually have to stop Mordru, monitoring his army's advance. In 2976, he attacked Earth and the Legion was powerful enough to stop him; Mon-El and Star Boy managed to imprison him underground (his weakness) in a vault. He became psychologically paralyzed from the trauma of his past burial.

Mordru was freed in 2978, when the new Legionnaire Shadow Lass unwittingly tampered with his vault. This led to a chase through time in which she, Mon-El, Duo Damsel and Ultra Boy hid in the twentieth century. Mordru then attacked the Legion's headquarters and the rest of the Legion would have been killed, if not for the help of the White Witch, who had been notified of the danger by Legionnaires Dream Girl (her sister) and Princess Projectra, who had made him think he succeeded. (Adventure Comics #369–370)

Mordru then tracked down the Legionnaires in the twentieth century and subjected them to a trial by a jury of notorious criminals, including teh murderer Dorzak, the traitor Koldan, the assassin Golgro and saboteur Thrun, plus Wraithor (who was actually one of the teachers from the Sorceror's World who was being mind-controlled and subsequently killed by Mordru). As Mordru was about to kill the Legionnaires, the force of his own power caused the walls of a cave to collapse and he was buried once again. He attacked the Legionnaires subtly in 2980, by trying to place a magical double of Cosmic Boy in the Legion (Superboy #173), and another time by creating "blood crystals" to incite hate toward Mon-El. (#188)

In 2981, Mordru tried to reconquer Zerox but was rebuffed by the sorcerers and the Legion. His power waning, he retreated to Doom Crater, where he expected to find an obelisk with a magical eye on it that matched the one appearing on his hat. (Adventure Comics #323)

The Legion buried him in a vault there, but Mordru had enough foresight to create a powerful astral form and retain most of his power. After a year of searching for ways to regain his former level of power, he decided to conjure the ancient "Demons Three," Abnegazar, Rath and Ghast, with the objects that they had hidden, the Bell, Jar and Wheel. He took five Legionnaires as hostages, and commanded four others to fetch the Bell and Wheel (the Jar, which had fallen to Earth upon the destruction of the satellite headquarters of the Justice League of America, was found by the Legion and hidden a dimension that they themselves were unable to reach). When they failed to do the job, Mordru tried to pull the objects out of the past, from the Justice League's satellite, but instead fetched ten super-heroes, members of the Justice League and the visiting Justice Society of America. He had them get all three objects, and conjured the demons...but the demons refused to serve him and knocked him out, and then had the Legionnaires return his astral form to his body. (Justice League of America #147-148)

Mordru was freed later that same year by the lords of the Dark Circle, who had hoped to control him. He turned the tables on them, though, and took over the Dark Circle, commanding its generals to plan an invasion of Earth. Using the surrogate armies of the Resource Raiders and the Khunds, Mordru's Dark Circle waged the bloody Earthwar which resulted in the capture of all Legionnaires and Substitute Legionnaires except for Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Valor and Karate Kid. The four of them directly confronted Mordru (who had been observing the proceedings throughout disguised as United Planets Ambassador Relnic), and freed the rest of the Legionnaires in outer space, where Element Lad managed to turn free-floating hydrogen atoms into dirt, which the Legion then surrounded Mordru with, effectively burying him. (Superboy & the Legion #241–245)

Mordru, however, was no longer too confident in his own power, and had programmed a Dark Circle teleportation device to teleport him to a previously selected planet in the event that he was rendered unconscious. He ended up on Avalon, a planet whose level of technology was approximately the same as that of Earth in the middle ages. He took over the planet for a year calling himself "Romdur" before he was discovered in late 2983 and brought down by the Legion. (Legion vol. 2 #276) His body was drained of its magical energy by Darkseid the following year (#290-291), but in 2985, a number of his acolytes took his body and tried to magically awaken it, using the shadow powers of Shadow Lass and her cousin, Shadow Kid. (Legion vol. 2 Annual #3) They failed, and the body was brought to Zerox by the Legion, where the Teachers decided, in 2986, to strip him of his magical powers and his memories. (Legion vol. 3 #27)

Glorith Reality

In Legion of Super-Heroes, vol. 4, the villainess Glorith altered reality by taking the place of the Time Trapper. This reality was mostly the same as the "pre-Crisis" era of DC continuity, but with Superboy and Supergirl removed from Legion history.

In this timeline's 20th century, Ultra Boy deduced that the Legion's formation had been manipulated by Glorith of Baaldur specifically to slow Mordru down. She hoped that Mordru would expend his power fighting the Legion, allowing her to destroy him and conquer the universe. Ultra Boy secretly prevented the Legion from attacking Mordru, and then (in disguise) convinced Mordru that Glorith was a threat to him. Mordru attacked Glorith and the two of them battled to a draw, weakening each considerably. (Legion vol. 4 Annual #1)

In 2989, Zerox had been destroyed in the Magic Wars and the Sorcerers' World was moved to Tharn, a world of lesser magical power. When the Khunds threatened Tharn, the United Planets was powerless to help and the leading sorcerors restored Mordru's powers so he could repel the Khunds. They offered him the throne, hoping he would act beneficently. The White Witch grew fond of this new Mordru and believed she could keep him on the right path of good. She left the Legion and offered to marry him. But Mordru ruled tyrannically, forbade the use of magic by anyone else, and tortured Mysa. Legion ally Rond Vidar failed to rescue her and also became a victim of Mordru's torture. Mysa and Rond were finally rescued with shrewd diplomacy by the former Cosmic Boy, Rokk Krinn. Mordru remained in charge of Tharn and bided his time. (Legion vol. 4 #3, 6–7)

Mordru still loved Mysa, and attempted to lure her back by sending her enticing dreams of the ancient Amethyst. Mysa took the bait by interacting with his illusion of Amethyst and this made her vulnerable to Mordru's magics. He merged his body with Mysa's to create a form that was more powerful than ever. The Legion called together Mysa's friends, who channeled their love for her and disrupted his control over her being. Mordru attacked them with the reanimated dead (including dead Legionnaires) but when his power was spent, Queen Projectra and Brainiac 5 separated Mysa from Mordru. Mysa was visited by the true spirit of Amethyst, of love. Mysa stripped Mordru of his powers and his unconscious body was remanded again to the teachers of Tharn. (#43–48)

End of an Era

In early 2996, Mordru formed a pact with Glorith to stop the Time Trapper from returning to power. This plot would lead to the end of the Legion's entire timeline. (#58) Their plan commenced with the kidnapping of Rokk Krinn (Legionnaires #17) and an attack on the Legion's headquarters on Talus.

They gained access to a time beacon to summon the Infinite Man and split his power between them. Together they wove a spell to change the past so that they had ruled the universe for the last several decades, but Mysa Nal separated them with a mystical bolt. Valor (Mon-El) took out Glorith and absorbed her power and fought Mordru to a stalemate. Brainiac 5 came up with the idea of giving Mordru all of the power which was overwhelmed him. The Legion succeeded in compelling Mordru to teleport himself into the core of a planet, but by then greater forces were taking effect. The Zero Hour, caused by Parallax in the 20th century, caused the entire 30th century to be erased. (Legion vol. 4 #60, Legionnaires #18, Valor #23)

Retroboot

After the Zero Hour, the Legion's era was rebooted and a different version of Mordru fought this Legion (see below).

In 2007, the original Legion was (more-or-less) restored in the wake of Infinite Crisis, and the original Mordru appeared again.

Rebirth

Similar to the above, another Legion was introduced in DC's "Rebirth" era. This Legion faced its own distinct Mordru. Back in the 21st century, though, the