After thirteen pointless, meandering episodes of character-driven schlock, we can finally get to the show that everyone wanted to see in the first place... a superhero show!!! Right versus wrong, good versus evil, hero... versus villain... that's me! 
- — Mister Nobody src
Mister Nobody (real name Eric Morden) is a narcissistic, sarcastic, fourth-wall-breaking supervillain with almost unlimited power who served as the Doom Patrol's arch-nemesis while narrating their adventures to their audience.
History
Becoming Nobody
Boring old Eric Morden
In 1948, Eric Morden was a minor member of the Brotherhood of Evil who was let go after he was decided to be useless and replaced by Monsieur Mallah. This lead to his girlfriend, Millie, dumping him, sparking a newfound passion in him to try and be a better villain.[1] He contacted Brotherhood member Heinrich Von Fuchs and gave him a life-extending talisman, which was a part extracted from the ancient deity Immortus, in exchange for being transformed into a powerful being. Von Fuchs accepted, but the process was sabotaged by Niles Caulder, a British scientist seeking immortality, who broke the chamber transforming Morden and nearly killed him, taking the talisman in the process.[2][3]
Peril in puppet
Morden was still transformed into a nigh-omniscient being that in appearance was shadowy and fragmented, could manipulate reality itself, and was even aware of his status as a fictional being. Renaming himself "Mister Nobody", he vowed to get his revenge on Caulder for nearly sabotaging his chance at becoming a god, and might have even killed him. Over the next several decades, Nobody hunted and investigated Caulder, even fighting and defeating his superhero team, the Doom Patrol, traumatizing and driving them insane.[4] He discovered that Caulder started the Immortus Initiative, a series of experiments under the guises of horrible "accidents" that transformed unsuspecting normal people into traumatized freaks of nature. All of these were in a bid by Caulder to discover immortality so he could outlive his powerful daughter and protect the world from the world-ending monster she could unleash.[1][5]
Nobody then used his omniscience, traveling from place to place, time to time, narrating along the way to the audience watching Doom Patrol, introducing them to some of Caulder's victims, and explaining who they were and are now, but keeping from both the audience and the that the accidents were manufactured, waiting to force Caulder to reveal it himself when the time was ripe.[6]
Torturing the Doom Patrol
Nobody lost track of Caulder over the years, and made himself a home and base of operations in the White Space, the blank space between comic book panels. In 2019, Nobody discovered that Caulder was living with several of his victims (all unaware of his part in their "accidents") in a mansion he nicknamed "Doom Manor" in Cloverton, Ohio. These included Cliff Steele, a racecar driver turned brain in a robot body, Larry Trainor, a closeted gay test pilot irradiated by a cosmic spirit, Rita Farr, a former Hollywood actress made gelatenous and physically unstable, and Crazy Jane, a woman with sixty-four splintered personalities, each with their own unique superpower.[6]
Utilizing an albino donkey, Nobody captured Caulder and began physically torturing him while his victims scoured the Earth trying to find him. Nobody played tricks with their minds, at first threatening them to stop looking for Niles, but as he hoped, this pushed them to look harder, especially when Vic Stone, the cybernetic crimefighter known as Cyborg, joined and began acting as leader of the group, who Nobody began referring to as the "Doom Patrol". Over the course of several weeks, Nobody manipulated all of them, including Cyborg, into learning more about him, as well as themselves, to make them better as people, and draw out their search for Caulder as long as possible so his reveal to them would be even more crushing, and all together would create the most fascinating and engaging story that could be made out of it.[7]
An unlikely alliance
Nobody was forced to briefly join forces with the Doom Patrol to stop the Decreator from destroying the world by creating the Cult of the Rewritten Book, and summoning the Recreator to stop it. Immediately after, though, Nobody resumed his plot, leading the Doom Patrol to the residence of the original Doom Patrol, and seeing Mento, Celsius, and Lodestone, having all been broken and driven mad by him. Continuing his torment, Nobody manipulated a rat, Admiral Whiskers, to ruin Cliff's mind and avenge his late mother. They didn't give up, though, even infiltrating the Ant Farm when Cyborg was captured by the Bureau of Normalcy. However, when Nobody manipulated Vic into savagely beating and nearly killing his father, Vic decided to leave to repair their relationship.[8][4][9][10]
"This is the best timeline EVER!!!"
Finally, the Doom Patrol met Flex Mentallo, a powerful superhero with reality warping powers who, with the help of Danny the Street, transported them into the White Space to face down Mister Nobody, who had been waiting patiently for them. He tried to convince them to leave, and when that didn't work, he allowed them to reunite with Caulder and believe that he'd been defeated by a returning Cyborg. He then forced them into a time loop where they were all killed over and over again by a giant robot, and only Caulder could tell, having to watch them die on repeat. Finally, when Cyborg returned for real, Nobody removed the illusion, and at last forced Caulder to tell them the truth about their "accidents". Now that his victims saw Caulder for the monster he was, Nobody let them all go, feeling fulfilled in his vengeance.[1][5]
New Vengeance
A few months after finishing his revenge plot, Nobody began to feel purposeless and empty, having dedicated decades to his vengeance and having nothing to fall back on. Remembering Caulder's daughter Dorothy, however, he assembled the Brotherhood of Dangerous Animals to kill her. He bribed the last known person to have seen her, a metahuman tracker known as the Beard Hunter, to tell him where she was: Danny the Street. The Brotherhood used a mystical painting to trap Danny and found Dorothy, but she turned Nobody's teammates, Ezekiel the Cockroach and Admiral Whiskers the rat, against him, and made them enormous, forcing the Brotherhood to disband. She also stripped Nobody of all his powers save for his narration.
When the reunited Doom Patrol arrived to save Dorothy, they found Nobody nearly powerless and completely defeated, having essentially accepted the end. Rita Farr quickly convinced him, however, that he could turn the tide with his narration, which he then used to force the rescued Dorothy and every Doom Patrol member except Larry and Cliff to be eaten by Ezekiel, with the plan being for Larry to use his irradiated body to kill Admiral Whiskers and force Danny from the painting, while the rest of the Patrol, protected by the radiation-proof cockroach, would kill Ezekiel later from the inside. Since Cliff had been swallowed by Whiskers, however, Nobody desperately narrated Whiskers and Ezekiel into falling in love. The two giant animals embraced and began a passionate kiss, allowing Cliff to climb from Whiskers' mouth into Ezekiel's.
Frozen with the Beard Hunter
Just in time, Larry let loose his radiation, but Nobody had forgotten to protect himself and the Beard Hunter. The two were blasted with radiation as Danny, Ezekiel, and the Patrol were forced out of the painting while Nobody and the Beard Hunter were trapped inside, appearing frozen to the rest of the world.[5]
A few weeks later, Mister Nobody was offered a gig voicing characters on a new animated series. He accepted and bade the Beard Hunter goodbye, leaving him trapped in the painting that became lethally infested with Scants.[11]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Omnipotence
- Reality Alteration
- Chronokinesis: Mister Nobody can manipulate the flow of time on a whim. He was able to pause time for all of the Doom Patrol except for the Chief. He can even slow down parts of a single person's body and leave other parts still running normally, like when he allowed Cyborg's arm cannon to charge normally while he was frozen.[8]
- Dimensional Travel: Nobody can travel between the White Space, where he has made his home, and the Doom Patrol series' universe at will.
- Metamorphosis: He can take on the form of other humans, as well as his original human form.[7]
- Telekinesis
- Telepathy
- Teleportation
- Reality Alteration
- Omniscience
- Cosmic Awareness: Nobody is aware that he is in a television show, and uses this to his advantage on multiple occasions.[6]
Other Characteristics
Paraphernalia
Equipment
Notes
- This version of the character is exclusive to the continuity of the television series Doom Patrol and is an adaptation of Mister Nobody. The original character was created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani and first appeared in Doom Patrol #86.
- Mister Nobody was primarily portrayed by Alan Tudyk. He was also portrayed by Phil Morris in his Silas Stone disguise, Ed Asner in his hospital patient disguise, and Joivan Wade in his Cyborg disguise.
- Morden being cast in an animated TV show was a reference to Tudyk's real-life obligation to his voice work on Harley Quinn for HBO Max.[11]
- Morden being cast in an animated TV show was a reference to Tudyk's real-life obligation to his voice work on Harley Quinn for HBO Max.[11]
Related
- 11 Appearances of Eric Morden (Doom Patrol TV Series)
- 18 Images featuring Eric Morden (Doom Patrol TV Series)
- 7 Quotations by or about Eric Morden (Doom Patrol TV Series)
- Character Gallery: Eric Morden (Doom Patrol TV Series)
External Links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Doom Patrol: "Penultimate Patrol"
- ↑ Doom Patrol: "Puppet Patrol"
- ↑ Doom Patrol: "Youth Patrol"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Doom Patrol: "Doom Patrol Patrol"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Doom Patrol: "Ezekiel Patrol"
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Doom Patrol: "Pilot"
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Doom Patrol: "Donkey Patrol"
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Doom Patrol: "Paw Patrol"
- ↑ Doom Patrol: "Therapy Patrol"
- ↑ Doom Patrol: "Flex Patrol"
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Doom Patrol: "Dumb Patrol"
  Doom Patrol Villain(s) |
 Brotherhood of Evil member |