The most persistent foe our heroes have faced off against is Dr. Mantis Morlo. In various guises, he has been experimenting on various races to augment existing powers or create new ones. At one point he was a doctor for an illegal fight ring on Rimbor, during which time, he claims, he boosted Qar Rud’s strength and fighting prowess for the Golden Wolves. When that ring was shut down by Rud’s betrayal, he escaped to Braal where he took the name App Hidd and experimented on magnoball player Temm Drekk, increasing his natural magnetic powers to make him a champion. He also managed to make it to Ghoran Prime, where he found especially fruitful subjects in the natives there, whose reseeding process allowed new breakthroughs. He supposedly was responsible for the unique abilities that Olly Andre, Vargi Pere, Tori Some, and many other young Ghorans found themselves with after reseeding.
His experiments were not always sound, however, and most of the empowered Ghorans eventually found themselves sick and their powers out of control, leading to fears of a Ghoran plague on other worlds where these Ghorans had relocated. With the help of Substitute Hero Chlorophyll Kid and Academy student Crystal Kid, these patients were stabilized. Many of the powered Ghorans formed a group, unofficially dubbed the Legion of Super Trees, with Chlorophyll Kid as its leader.
Meanwhile, Temm Drekk’s power likewise went out of control, almost leading to the destruction of Metropolis Stadium during a magnoball demonstration. Fortunately, Legionnaire Magnetic Kid and some of the Academy students were there to prevent disaster. Drekk has since disappeared, and it’s unknown whether Morlo still has his hooks in him.
Morlo returned to Ghoran Prime where he disguised himself as President Det Sillas and ran a rigged lottery program to allow those Ghorans he felt had the best genetic potential to reseed themselves within the ancient, mysterious structure called the Node. His experiments upon the reseeding Ghorans were mostly failures, resulting in a number of malformed or dead Ghorans until our heroes defeated him again. Once more, he escaped with the aid of teleporting Ghoran Tori Some.
Morlo’s other notable experiment has been creating mindless artificial life forms he has dubbed Chemoids. These hulking beings originally had the ability to counter a single power used against them. At our heroes’ goading, Morlo continued to improve their resistance, until most recently they were resistant to three powers used against them simultaneously.
At some point, Morlo found himself in the Devil’s Dozen, where Prince Evillo was funding his experiments in creating super-powered beings in the hopes of using them to create new villains. When Vandal Savage took control of the group, he redirected Morlo’s efforts to stabilizing the cloning process so that clones could last longer than 36 hours before disintegrating. He also allowed Morlo to experiment with granting powers to the clones of Kyle Ramirez since super-powered blood of his enemies better sates the immortal conqueror. Morlo was captured and returned to Earth for trial and imprisonment. Given that he has often exhibited mind-control over his patients, it’s unknown how many unwilling and unknowing slaves he might still have around the UP. No doubt his schemes will again intersect with the fortunes of our heroes.
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