The 1960s were a golden age for comic books. Superheroes and supervillains with exceptional skills were presented to the world, and they engaged in mind-boggling adventures. To put it another way, making a mark in that deluge was difficult. And, despite his moniker, it was one Mr. Nobody who managed to not only make an impression on his debut but also to leave a lasting impression. He was a stalwart foe that stood in the path of the heroes and ALWAYS kept true to his character attributes, even serving as the narrator of the new ‘Doom Patrol TV show at one time.
The villains in the ‘Doom Patrold series, of which Mr. Nobody was a part, were known for their uniqueness, and Mr. Nobody, for the most part, lived up to those expectations. But, aside from the magnificence of more celebrated villains like Lex Luthor or the Joker, only a dedicated DC Comics reader would be aware of his presence, but we are about to begin on a journey that will reveal more about the dreadful monster.
NOBODY: First Introduction to The World of Crime
The tale of Mr. Nobody begins as one Mr. Eric Morden, introduced in March 1964 via the first Volume of the ‘Doom Patrol’ series, Issue 86. He is known to be very much a human being at first, who eventually became no more than an abstract entity running by the aesthetics of the ‘dadaism’ art movement from the 20th century.
Much like his co-followers, Morden had grown to accept weirdness and mostly, nonsense as a part of his personality and life at large. True to all his traits, needless to say, there are quite a few absurd moments throughout the story that will only make sense in the context of reading the comic. So, we will try not to spoil things for you here, and move on to the part where Morden started out and then, established his presence.
Eric’s debut was through a truly impressively written panel, where he was shown as someone who was an unlucky partner-in-crime on a mission to join an organization that called itself ‘The Brotherhood of Evil’, with the offer of a gift in exchange. The organization was made up of evil forces who went by the names of ‘The Brain’ and ‘Monsieur Mallah’, the former a literal living brain in a jar and the latter a highly intelligent and smart chimp.
He got himself a chance to be considered after he managed to thieve a giant robot from scientist Dr. Niles Caulder, which Morden intended to present as a gift before being inducted. This robot called ‘Rog’ was supposed to be used for experimental explorations in space, but now served the purpose of ravaging the Statue of Liberty, as was instructed to Morden by The Brotherhood, to cement his place as a member of theirs.
In what can only be called an unfortunate series of events for Morden after the very successful initial heist, he was forced to run for his life when Doom Patrol turned up on-site and defeated Rog. Not only did Morden fail at his first assignment of defeating the Doom Patrol, but he was also put under the apprehension of being a coward unworthy of joining the clan he so badly wanted to. True to the first few words we mentioned herein, Morden ‘strangely’ disappeared off the pages for the longest time.
The Doom Patrol series reintroduced Morden only in September 1989, when Issue 26 was released. The Issue begins with Sunburst – deemed Japan’s greatest superhero – trying to communicate with a woman from amongst his recent encounters. This woman had caught Sunburn’s attention when he realized she had superpowers to the extent of her enemies not being able to gauge them. Before Sunburst can achieve what he wants, villains The Fog and Sleepwalk barge in, abducting the woman and recruiting her for their own cause while easily side-lining Sunburst.
Since the lady is high-key terrified of dirt, she is eternally grateful when taken by her abductors to Mr. Nobody, who gives her a suit with special filters and a mask to go with it. In the flat located in Paris, labeled as Mr. Nobody’s home, the three new friends-slash-henchmen of Mr. Nobody sit around him, ready to listen to his side of the story. One can say that Grant Morrison beautifully molds this plotline to tell the reader about the birth of Mr. Nobody from the simple Eric Morden who wanted to be a part of ‘The Brotherhood of Evil’.
He reveals that post his unsuccessful stint at the Statue of Liberty all those years ago, he had to resort to hiding from his Bosses, Monsieur Mallah and The Brain who were quite mad at him; enough to threaten him with death if he ever showed his face to them again. As he veiled himself in the hustle and bustle of Paraguay with the help and guidance of one Dr. Bruckner, he was almost guilt-tripped – albeit his enthusiasm clouding the underlying feeling – to be subjected to certain experiments.
Dr. Bruckner explained that he would become a ‘new man’ from the results of these tests consequent of the Nazis’ eugenics agenda. However, it only ended up with Morden being helplessly wound up paralyzed from neck down in the confines of a spherical white room. Needless to say, Morden was driven insane by the end of the day, not knowing when this feeling of experiencing the near-to-nothing would end. Time had lost its concept on Morden, but at the end of three days, he suddenly spotted a dark mark in all the white surrounding him.
Bruckner placed him in a spherical white room and paralyzed him from the neck down. Then, he merely left Eric there, experiencing virtually nothing. By the end of the first day, he had become completely insane. Time lost all meaning for him, though he would later learn that he was only trapped there for three days. On the night of that third day, he noticed a spot in the whiteness. He became obsessed with it, imagining it as some massive horror that appeared as a speck because it was far away from him.
He imagined what would happen if he was spotted and approached by it, gradually growing in size. The resulting mental breakdown led the chamber to explode, and that was precisely when Eric Morden became the Mister Nobody the three listeners and hundreds of thousands of readers could see. Very appropriately perhaps, he was deemed to be ‘The Spirit of the 21st Century.
Mr. Nobody then moved on to kill everyone present there. In the aftermath of the Gene-bomb, he started recruiting new outcasts in the society who had superpowers but were rejected by the new generation. He deemed pure ‘good’ and ‘evil’ as an idea too old-fashioned for him and dismantled the whole idea he had of The Brotherhood of Evil. Eventually, he established and reigned over the ‘Brotherhood of Dada, something he deemed suited his tastes in unreasonableness more than anything else.
NOBODY: Presence in the ‘Doom Patrol TV Series’
Doom Patrol’s pilot episode starring Alan Tudyk who portrayed the famous Mr. Nobody introduced him as one Mr. Morden who was driven to the craziness by a Nazi scientist’s wild experiments. Now living as a mere shadow, Morden is depicted as no longer himself and ‘merely’ a narrator of the tales of Doom Patrol…except of course when he is wrecking chaos and being a supervillain version of a thorn in the way of the superheroes.
This version of Eric Morden was discarded as a member of Brotherhood of Evil in 1948, and substituted by Monsieur Mallah. His then-girlfriend dumped him out of shame, and that lit a fire in Morden to prove himself as a super-villain. When his attempt was foiled by a British scientist Niles Caulder who went as far as to attempt to kill him for it, Morden pledged to take his revenge.
He still was partially strong, with the prior attempt of becoming a more powerful villain having come halfway through before being encroached upon, and Morden had turned into a being who knew almost everything that there is to know. His soul seemed to have fragmented and what remained was a shadow of him, but he was still capable of altering reality by way of manipulation. The plot of the show is heavily centered around Caulder’s actions, unlike in the comics.
NOBODY: Show versus Comics
As the show opens, anyone who has read the comics would notice the stark difference in appearance. While the former shows the character as a pixelated being of sorts, made of unstable blocks stacked on top of each other, the comics are more indicative of a shadowy, lurking figure who is broken up into pieces but has eyes and gloves. The comic book does not show as many changes in the appearances of the character, as much as the show does.
The next apparent difference is clear, the level of threat that this character poses, although that can be attributed to his origins – more on that later. In the comic books, his moves are not as damaging, one might say, as the show projects him to be some massively powerful being attempting to alter the course of the Universe towards evil, something not reflective of his reality in comic panels.
Moving on to the origin story, the comics tell us a tale of Mr. Nobody as Morden wants to be one of the rotational members of The Brotherhood of Evil. The Brotherhood of the DC Universe has been supposed to be around for YEARS otherwise, emerging in the world from time to time to add the evil spice. He was inducted as a member – ousted later – but the evil genius had his part in that position. Even Dr. Bruckner, who helps transform comics’ Morden to his avatar of Mr. Nobody is completely missing from the show, as the show tries to show Mr. Nobody as an independently evil identity operating on his own. As we said earlier, scientist Niles Caulder plays a very different role herein.
NOBODY: Why is Mr. Nobody So Powerful?
The biggest revelation about the source of the powers of Mr. Nobody stems from the tale of how the Brotherhood of Dada was formed and the principles that it ran by. The utter strangeness of the universe coupled with the absurdity of its insane criminal members gave a rush and a thrill to Mr. Nobody. His process of change affected him deeply, making him capable of projecting his own insanity onto other people, affecting them in turn. He had a knack – quite unexplained – of finding objects that were lost. The kick? Lost objects belong to ‘nobody’ when lost.
His cunning intelligence and able leadership skills are not to be doubted either, of course. In addition, possessing physiology that’s jarring to see, he appears to be almost unassailable to anyone who observes him. Add to that his psychic abilities that are so strong he can enter dreams and know all that there is to know about an individual right at the first instance of meeting them. His skill of being able to have a mental hold on people, and fully controlling them is unsettling too because it is just as creepy as it sounds – the people he chooses to possess are fully aware of it and his behavior in their bodies.
Mr. Nobody has a unique physiology that is disorientating for others to observe. Due to this physiology, he appears to be invulnerable and may be immortal. He also possesses largely unexplained psychic abilities, as he has demonstrated the ability to enter dreams, as well as to locate individuals and know everything about them before or right when they meet. He is also capable of possessing people, who appear to remain fully aware of his behavior while he inhabits their bodies. He is very intelligent, and a competent leader.
The difference in the portrayal in the comics and then on the show seems similar on the outside, but their powers seem to differ in intensity. Revealing the exact extent of those powers would perhaps mean unraveling the whole TV series, something that means ‘spoilers’ and we are not the ones who would give those!
NOBODY: Closing In
In the show, having the narrator be the villain himself is quite interesting at the outset. As less-known as he may be to the infrequent comic reader, even the TV series did leave quite a lot to unpack.
One of these ‘packages’ clouding the whole storyline is that despite all the weirdness of physiology, Mr. Nobody seems to have children. If the Doom Patrol series….God forbid, goes off of the printing properties, we have a whole new generation to carry forth the legacy Mr. Nobody shall leave behind; notably, adaptable in any format. Titular superhero teams are surely not getting rid of the wall of persistence that this supervillain can be even in personal absence. Terry None – his daughter – was the creation of Gerard Way of ‘The Umbrella Academy’ fame, and it is not a surprise that she is strange, wacky, uncontrollable, and very….Mr. Nobody.
And if that was not quite sealing the deal, we have a grandchild in the picture too. Convolution being the second name of the Morden family, we have arc twists and turns concluding in one Milkman Man being the said grandchild. Very Superman-like, but picture a milk-themed one – your eyes are only widening with one eyebrow raised at that at this point perhaps.
All we can say is, SAME. And that is where we will let this rest, hoping that we know more soon.