History
Eric Morden was just another underling under the orders of the Brain in the Brotherhood of Evil, essentially a grunt, tasked with working several machines; he once stole one of the Chief's lunar exploration droids, Rog. However, he, the Brain and Monsieur Mallah had a fallout of some sort, and Morden preferred to flee rather than face the wrath of the Brain. Both villains threatened to kill Morden if he returned, so he hid for years in Paraguay.
Morden was already somewhat unstable, and contacted a Nazi scientist and was exposed to a device called the White Room, which drove him irredeemably insane and converted his body into a mass of living virtuality that could drain the sanity from other humans. The experience also convinced him the universe was "a drooling idiot with no fashion sense". Calling himself the man of the twenty-first century, the first true virtual man, he rechristened himself Mister Nobody and organized the rebirth of a Brotherhood that shared his ideals. Because of this, he chose not to restart the Brotherhood of Evil and instead initiated the Brotherhood of Dada, a group of lunatics that followed Morden's ideas to change the world.
His first plan was to steal a magical painting and feed the city of Paris to it; he succeeded, and the entire city was thrown into an alternate universe. Fortunately, the Doom Patrol managed to recover and restore it.[1] However, many members of Nobody's Brotherhood chose to remain in the painting. Mister Nobody escaped, however, and enacted a second plan to change the world: he stole Albert Hoffman's Bicycle and used its psychedelic resonance to power his own presidential campaign in the United States.[2] The U.S. government, unwilling to see a madman like Nobody step up to the Presidency, sent a similarly insane agent, John Dandy to stop him.
Once gaining the support of the people, Nobody attempted to merge the reality within the Painting That Ate Paris with the real world, but was interrupted by John Dandy, who who used one of the faces floating around him to force Nobody into transforming back into Eric Morden. As a human, he became vulnerable, and Dandy skewered him with a broken piece of wood. Though he survived long enough to attempt escape into the painting, the painting was destroyed, and Morden faded to nothingness.[3]
However, he later resurfaced during in an alternate timeline during Trinity as a candidate for the Dark Arcana's Fool. This made him part of the Final Battle for the Arcana in Metropolis.
Mr. Nobody later appears under the alias of Mr. Somebody a new all white color scheme, inhabiting the body of Thayer Jost, turning the Front Men into MSE(Mr. Somebody Enterprises). Attempting to get rid of his past, Mr. Somebody kills the final member of the Brotherhood of Dada, The Toy, and embraces his new form of Dada Capitalism. Mr. Somebody sets up a trap to frame the Doom Patrol in front of various reporters while fighting the Front Men, and Thayer Jost becoming brain dead. Mr. Somebody makes one final appearance in the final issue on Oolong Island confronting Doom Patrol with MSE, but leaves after Ambush Bug informs them of Flashpoint and their cancellation, to which Mr. Somebody walks off shrugging, his final words being "Right Then, Pack it Up, We are out of here." It's revealed in the final frame however, Mr. Somebody took the comatose body of Chief.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Unique Physiology: Eric is a living shadow with a hole in the shape of a heart in his chest, where his heart should be.
Notes
- Although this character was originally introduced during DC's Earth-One era of publication, their existence following the events of the 1985–86 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths remains intact. However, some elements of the character's Pre-Crisis history may have been altered or removed for Post-Crisis New Earth continuity, and should be considered apocryphal.
Recommended Reading
Related
- 31 Appearances of Eric Morden (New Earth)
- 6 Images featuring Eric Morden (New Earth)
- 5 Quotations by or about Eric Morden (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Eric Morden (New Earth)
External Links
Footnotes
  Doom Patrol Villain(s) |