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miscellaneous_sectionWell, here's the AO3 link, here, or you can read it down below, too.
Introduction
Remember when I said that I would talk about Mortdred for another time in my Lexor character analysis. Yeah, that was forever ago, and I was busy with my ficlets and other WIP’s at the time. And those also took their good ol’ time. Will it be an essay about which iteration I prefer? Yes and no. What do I mean by this?
Unlike Lexor, you don’t have to drastically change Mortdred to expand upon the character, and to delve deeper into the central themes to him. It was already there in the beginning with Mortdred in both the cartoon and comics in their own ways. While with Lexor, possibilities of rounding him out is a Star/Marvel comic exclusive and nonexistent in the cartoon.
But what’s the central theme to Mortdred? Well, I’m glad you’d asked!
This essay will discuss the central theme of finding happiness and gaining approval from others, and the harm it can cause to oneself. And the most important of all, the tiresome joke of Mortdred being a spineless bootlicker is, well, tiresome. And why sometimes a writer will write them as a joke while at the same time try to develop the characters. Thus, they’ll completely miss many opportunities to explore said character in question. It’s been long overdue so let’s get right to it.
Mortdred the People-pleaser (Happiness, Worth and Value)
Well, it’s mainly Darkstorm but you get the picture. Through out both the comics and cartoon, Mortdred’s main goal is to make Darkstorm pleased and that makes Mortdred happy when he achieves that. Look, there’s nothing wrong with making people happy. It feels good doing something nice for loved ones and even strangers, but to prioritize that over your own can leave nothing but heartache at the end. And Mortdred keeps making himself miserable when he fails when Darkstorm is either ticked off, or furious with him. There are little examples sprinkled through out both mediums, but the most noticeable example being issue #2, The Balance of Power.
The Darkling Lords are discussing what their plans are for the newly acquired Skyclaw, but Darkstorm on the other hand wants to cover his bases and get information on his enemies. Reekon is more convinced that he’s acting more cowardly than Lexor, and Mortdred does not take too kindly when someone disrespects his lord. This sort of aligns with the cartoon during episode two, The Dark Hand of Treachery, where Reekon and Mortdred are scavenging through a scrapyard to find materials to make more chains and shackles. This is where they also find the Skyclaw just sitting there to rust. Reekon takes it too far with his remarks about Darkstorm, and Mortdred is ready to stab a man. The tone for both of these scenes are different especially with Reekon’s reactions.
The cartoon has it set up and brushed off in a mere few seconds, Reekon is expecting and warning Mortdred to not make a fool of himself. In which he does but he accidentally reactivates the Skyclaw in the process. Both the audience and Reekon already expected this out of Mortdred, so it’s no big deal. The comics on the other hand. When Reekon takes it too far during dinner, we and Reekon didn’t expect Mortdred to start laying the smack down on him. Reekon thought he had an idea on what Mortdred is like, much in the same way we did, but Mortdred is full of surprises in the comics. But they both serve the same purpose, Mortdred will always stick up for Darkstorm in the most foolish degree possible.
Continuing from the same issue, Cindarr butts heads with Mortdred to make him quit it until Darkstorm breaks it up. He orders Mortdred to leave for his behavior and doesn’t want to hear any of it, and Mortdred leaves with some composure left in him. This is where the advantages of comics appear: THOUGHT BUBBLES! So, Mortdred is in his room changing back into his armor as these thoughts and ideas pop into his head. He feels it isn’t right that he gets treated the worse even though he’s the most loyal knight under Darkstorm. He formulates a plan on using the Skyclaw to gather information for his lord in the hopes to demonstrate his worth to him, and hopefully that’ll make him grateful and maybe have Reekon’s head in the end. But why stop there? Why not ambush the knights when they least expect it?
Mortdred sees Leoric’s castle dead ahead and starts firing at them. The knights scramble back into their armor to see who their attacker is, and are stunned by the sight of a functioning aircraft attacking them. Arzon uses his spell of Knowledge to find any possible weaknesses that the aircraft has and discovers the undercarriage is its weak point. Feryl throws his weapon at the undercarriage of the craft and lands a direct hit, disabling it for the most part, but it starts repairing itself. They thought the worse was over once they can capture the pilot, until Darkstorm and the Darkling Lords show up to make things worse for the Spectral Knights. Darkstorm had his suspicions confirmed that Mortdred would be stupid enough to be here, but he sees that they can still salvage this mess and continues the assault.
Mortdred is back into the fray and still desiring to win Darkstorm’s gratitude, and he sees that chance when Leoric is about to jump Darkstorm. He aims the laser cannons, ready to kill Leoric on the spot, until Arzon in his eagle totem swoops in and ambushes him causing the laser to hit under Darkstorm instead. Distraught by this event, Mortdred transforms into his beetle totem to escape Arzon’s grasp to aide his master.
Cindarr orders the retreat while Reekon blames Mortdred for causing this disaster. As they ride off back to the castle, Mortdred can’t contain his feelings of being treated the worse Darkling Lord any longer, and it all comes pouring out.
“My fault? Oh yes, blame me, blame faithful Mortdred! … Naturally, this is all my fault! … Blame me, always blame me, never give me credit, not once-!”
- pg.s 23 and 24, #2 The Balance of Power
The following morning arrives and Darkstorm, now stuck in bed and patched up, gives Mortdred some credit. Because if he was working for Leoric, then he was a big help to the knights by tipping the scales to their favor now that they have the Skyclaw in their possession. Mortdred tries to explain himself, but is cut off by Darkstorm continuing in his outrage about the injuries he sustained from the botched battle. Darkstorm orders his men to throw Mortdred into the dungeon, in which he’ll decide his fate later.
Mortdred is dragged off as his words fail him. They reach the dungeons and he is tossed in like the trash they all see him as. As they leave, he is left to wallow in his self-pity and mumbles how he was only trying to help and all of this wasn’t fair.
When I had finished reading this issue, I was left shocked and I couldn’t help but to pity him. Mortdred was only trying to prove his worth to Darkstorm, he wanted to gain Darkstorm’s approval and gratitude. He just wanted to make Darkstorm happy, but Mortdred failed in his pursuit. He ended up making Darkstorm furious. So angered by his actions that he didn’t want to look at Mortdred for god knows how long.
That was an intense story for being somewhat focused on Mortdred, and I loved it! So, what does the cartoon do? Well, he’s written to be a gag and nothing else. Unless, we’re talking about episode five, and maybe seven, then there’s something there.
The Joke Can only Go so Far and Rare Nuggets of Character
From the very moment he and Darkstorm converse, Mortdred’s entire character is written to be mocked for being a sycophant. That’s it. Seriously, if the show went on any longer the joke would be as fresh as an unopened tin of two week old cookies. Mortdred might have been one of the characters to go out if the second season did get green-lit, but that’s just a hunch. And so, Mortdred can get a bit irritating at times and seems flat as well. But the thing is that there are elements in the show where he can be interesting and the humor can be purely situational like with Cravex.
The best example being episode five, Feryl Steps Out, where the gag is dropped and Mortdred starts to shine here. It looked as though Buzz Dixon put more into Mortdred for this episode. Since it was about Feryl trying to get away from the knights because he felt like a liability than actual help. And Mortdred silently revels in his rival's misery, and later in the episode is ready to cleave Feryl’s head off to please Darkstorm. Yeah, Mortdred was fun as an absolute bastard and terrifying as a foe. I say terrifying because of his eagerness of slaying Feryl.
In the final product, which you can find here, he says, “Yes, we can do away with Feryl!”
But in the full script, which you can find here on page 10, he says, “Yes, we can SLAY Feryl!”
The guy is ready to kill. Damn! But it will never, or barely to be kinder, touched upon in later episodes. Damn… Well, the situational comedy coming from Mortdred was a nice retreat from the ‘lol, he’s a sycophant!’. Whether it’s getting tangled in pulley cables or crashing the Skyclaw into Darkstorm’s bedroom, it was a breath of fresh air from the norm for a little while.
Then there’s episode seven, The Overthrow of Merklynn, and I had some trouble reading into Mortdred’s vision of his reward. His reward being he’ll have servants that are loyal to him as he is to Darkstorm, and at the end of it his feelings seemed mixed. On one hand, he’ll have people recognize him and all of his hard work, finally, getting what he wanted for so long. But on the other hand, it still leads back to Darkstorm in some form. Nothing about Mortdred and what he has done for Darkstorm, it focuses on him being a good servant and nothing else. Judging by his expression, he doesn’t know if this is what he really wanted in the first place, so he’s lost in thought on what was presented to him. Is this all he gets for being loyal to his lord? This? I would dare say this scene is the rarest moment, if not the only scene that I can remember, where Mortdred actually thought about himself and wondered if this will actually make himself happy. Something that the comics lacked due to its short run, and had it gone on a little longer we would have gotten Star/Marvel’s own scene where Mortdred has moment of introspection.
That’s what I’m here for when the cartoon has a nugget of an episode to show-off more of Mortdred’s character, but it sort of goes no where. I say this because there are snippets of change in Mortdred, but they seem one-off in nature so they’re not much to discuss about them. And that’s the main issue on why prioritizing a joke/character gag can be a determent to rounding-out characters. They can get annoying over time and come out one-dimensional. Mortdred can get like this, but as stated before, he has his moments where he outshines the bootlicking jokes. But these moments are far-and-between each other, and so they don’t make a lasting impact on the audience’s view of the character. In turn, the one-trick pony is going to be more upfront compared to a screenshot of a character defining scene, and so that sticks with the audience the most. And that is unfortunately the case.
Anyway the rest of the series plays out as usual, but I can’t stop thinking about it along with episode seven. They’re just that good. Hell! The only fix you can do is put less emphasis on the joke or get away from it entirely, and see where the absence leads you. That’s what the Star/Mavel comics did, and you get the beginnings of a tragic character who only wanted approval. I do headcanon Mortdred to be envious of Feryl and his “perfect” dynamic with Leoric. An envy so powerful he resents the young knight’s emotional fortune. Sadly, the gag is king in the show and it’s going to stay that way for a long time.
Let’s Wrap it Up
In conclusion, Mortdred in both versions have their strengths and weaknesses. Yes, I do prefer the comic interpretation of Mortdred more than the cartoon. But, he wasn’t as bad as Lexor where he reads like a completely different character, but a welcomed one at that. The comics had the beginnings of a fully fleshed out Mortdred who only wanted his worth reaffirmed and to make Darkstorm happy. That was all he desired from his lord: approval and a sense of worth. Despite all his efforts, he could never reach it and so goes through the cycle again and again in a vain quest to gain it.
The cartoon, while having the occasional nuggets of gold (being a somewhat worthy opponent, and going through situational comedy), prioritized the character gag of a sycophant than showcasing what he can do. However, the show does have a leg-up compared to the comics. The Overthrow of the Merkylnn, an episode that I bring up numerous times, does have a scene where Mortdred silently thinks if his reward is what he really desires. A moment where he does think about himself for once. Basically, when you look pass the joke and get right down to it, you will find Mortdred to be more of a tragic and intimidating antagonist than anything else.
