Mortimer Moloch
| Mortimer Moloch | |
|---|---|
| Species |
Human
|
| Gender |
Male
|
| Family |
Brother (twin): Randolph Moloch
|
| Allies | |
| Factions |
League of Super Critics (formerly)
|
| Status |
Alive
|
| Home Reality | |
Mortimer Moloch is a wanted mercenary who joined the League of Super Critics to search for Ross Mandell and his own twin brother, Randolph.
History[edit | edit source]
Mortimer's Mission[edit | edit source]
In 150,084 CMT, Mortimer's twin brother Randolph disappeared suddenly and without warning (because he had joined the Dong Squad), which led Mortimer to embark on a quest to search for his missing brother. Through "inquiries, bribes, and deposits in the right places", Mortimer discovered that Randolph had been last seen with the criminal fugitive Ross Mandell, who was wanted by Earth authorities for assault and theft against a man named Doug Walker. Mortimer took this information to assume that Randolph had been abducted by Mandell,[1] so he tracked Mandell's previous victim Walker to his home on Earth and visited him in the hope that he could provide more information about Mandell's motives and whereabouts.[2]
Arrival on Earth[edit | edit source]
Mortimer knocked on the front door of Walker's house and pushed past Linkara into the back yard, where he met Walker, Dr. Bedge, Paul Latza, and Seran Dol-Abi. Mortimer drew his sword and violently threatened to cut each of their hands off unless they revealed everything they knew about Ross Mandell at once,[2] which prompted Linkara to fire a warning shot at Mortimer's hat with his magic gun and demand that Mortimer calm down. Mortimer complied with Linkara's request and introduced himself, telling the Critics about his quest to find his brother through Ross Mandell. The presence of Seran's starfighter in the yard caused Mortimer to correctly assume that the Critics were about to depart on their own search for Ross Mandell, which he volunteered to join them on. Mortimer and the Critics proceeded to the starfighter, but the ACE drones that guarded it malfunctioned and refused to let any of them pass,[1] forcing Seran to destroy them. Mortimer collected the ACE drones' fallen weapons and handed them to Bedge and Latza as he climbed aboard the ship.[3]
Once Mortimer and the Critics had strapped themselves in, the starfighter took off on an undefined course into space.[4] Coincidentally, Toa Komerak of the Platinum Lantern Corps was patrolling Earth space when he saw the Critics' ship leave the upper atmosphere. Komerak scanned the ship's registry number and matched it against an Earth database to discover that it had not been cleared to fly in Earth space, piquing his curiosity. Komerak used his Platinum Lantern Ring to hold Seran's starfighter in place, envelop it in an airtight forcefield, and forcibly remove the cockpit window, almost exposing the passengers to the vacuum of space. Komerak ordered the passengers to surrender and be taken into custody or otherwise remain in the ship and suffocate once the air contained by the forcefield ran out.[5] While Mortimer considered how to respond, Komerak used a PDA to identify each of them and discovered that the Galactic Government had arrest warrants out for Moloch and Walker. Komerak charged them all with "aiding and abetting" and decided to take them all to an immediate trial at Supermax 282.[6]
Supermax 282[edit | edit source]
Komerak delivered Mortimer and his comrades to the space prison, where their weapons were confiscated and their clothes replaced with jumpsuits as though they were already prisoners. The Supermax 282 staff then led the Critics towards a courtroom where their case could be examined, but the staff found that the judge was "absent", so their sentencing was postponed. However, Mortimer practically sentenced them himself by giving the warden, Lemongrab, the middle finger as he walked past. This gesture infuriated Lemongrab so much that he immediately sentenced them all to a million years of imprisonment with no trial for seven years. The Critics were all escorted to prison cells; Mortimer and Seran were placed into the same cell together near the others.[7]
20 minutes later, the prisoners were freed from their cells to collect lunch in the mess hall.[8] Mortimer finished his first serving and went to collect another, but Koranis cut in front of him in the lunch queue, which enraged Mortimer and prompted him to challenge the Glatorian. This proved to be a mistake, as Koranis knocked Mortimer to the floor with a single headbutt.[9] After lunch, Mortimer returned to his cell and his cellmate, Seran, informed him that they would soon meet with another inmate named Heavy, who would conspire with them to escape.[10]
The following day, Mortimer met with the Critics, Heavy and three new allies: Spanha, JC Denton, and Agent 47, in a disused supply closet to discuss how to escape Supermax 282. Heavy then revealed his plan in detail: they would all remain in the closet until the guards were occupied with escorting the other prisoners back to their cells. Then, they would sneak into the kitchen behind the mess hall and hide in trashcans to be loaded onto a ship and removed from the prison. Mortimer and the others agreed and prepared themselves.[11]
The plan proceeded as intended until Koranis, who had also chosen that moment to escape with a similar plan, made additional noise that alerted the guards to their presence inside the kitchen. The guards burst in and all hell broke loose.[12] Mortimer tried to tap into his magical abilities to help his fellow prisoners, including Dr. Pavel (who had been behind them all along), to defeat the guards, with an unknown degree of success.[13] In the commotion, Koranis knocked over a fridge that revealed the corridor that led to the prison's hangar bay, which the prisoners began to flee into.[14] A guard punched Mortimer into the exit and he was knocked unconscious,[15] but JC picked him up and carried him into the hangar bay.[16]
The refuse collection ship that the prisoners planned to sneak onto arrived as expected,[17] so the semi-conscious Mortimer was loaded onto it and snuggled against the trashbags.[18] The Critics, JC, Spanha, and Pavel also made it to the ship, but Koranis commandeered it and flew it out into space before anyone else could climb aboard.[19] In fact, Koranis had not intended to take any other prisoners at all, so when Seran alerted him to their presence, Koranis disconnected the prisoners' container from the ship and left it to float adrift in space.[20] Fortunately, Doug was able to contact a friend, Malcolm, who travelled to their coordinates and brought them aboard his ship with a tractor beam.[21] Soon afterwards, Malcolm discovered that Bring the Pain Barry was holding 90s Kid prisoner on Kråvenhold,[22] so Mortimer awoke and declared that he would fight Barry and any other challenger that stood in the way of their collective freedom.[23] Everyone agreed that 90s Kid needed to be rescued, so Malcolm flew his ship to the source of the transmission on Kråvenhold.[24]
The Search for 90s Kid[edit | edit source]
Mortimer emerged from Malcolm's ship and expressed his disappointment that there were no obvious ruins to loot or monsters to battle on Kråvenhold, but his opinion changed when a gryphon swooped down from the sky, grabbed him by the shoulders with its talons, and carried him to the nearest town.[25] The Critics chased the gryphon into the town and found it eating a piece of orange fabric from Mortimer's prison jumpsuit on the roof of a barn, so Dr. Bedge reasoned that Mortimer was probably inside.[26] While the Critics fought Bring the Pain Barry, Mortimer appeared on the roof of the barn and tried to fight off the gryphon because it started pecking at him.[27] He eventually fell off the roof next to the Critics and took a moment to reflect on his humiliation.[28] The Critics wondered what to do next now that Barry had been defeated, so Mortimer assumed that they would head their separate ways, but restated that he would not rest until he had found his missing brother.[29] Mortimer decided to stay behind on Kråvenhold with JC while the Critics left to take 90s Kid home.[30]
