Doctor Mordrid: Marvel-less Multidimensional Madness

“Dimensions to conquer. Creations to conjure. And adventures to take him beyond the beyond.” Sound familiar? As part of the Mad Monster universe, I’m willing to bet you are familiar with fantastic concepts like the ones featured in the latest collaboration between Sam Raimi and Marvel: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. (If you aren’t, you can check out Mad Monster’s review of the film here.) With genre favorite Raimi at the helm, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness joined an exclusive list of superhero franchises intertwined with elements of horror. Long before this doctor’s horror connection, however, direct-to-video pioneers Full Moon Features introduced audiences to Doctor Mordrid. Let’s take a moment to explore this fascinating origin story, and imagine what could have been…

Full Moon founder Charles Band is perhaps best known for launching a number of long running monster-filled franchises throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including Puppet Master, Subspecies, and Trancers. With hundreds of producer credits to his name, Band’s frequently eclectic (and sometimes questionable) career has also included everything from family films to erotica. To his credit, Band’s distinct style is still unmistakably unique. When asked about his creative influences, Band explained to Flickering Myth, “I had an early diet of Marvel comics, especially the pre-Marvel pre-superhero comics where it was monsters and, you know, all that Atlas stuff.” Band quite literally carried these influences with him for years to come, acquiring a large collection of comic books and posters of monster comic art.

Legend has it, Band took his love of comics one step further by successfully optioning a Doctor Strange film deal with Marvel in the 1980s. A story being “optioned” grants a filmmaker or production company the exclusive rights to develop a concept – thus effectively taking the script off the market without actually guaranteeing the production will follow through. As the story goes, in a history-changing move, Marvel’s option of Band’s story was left to expire before the official Full Moon-style Doctor Strange movie could be green-lit for production. Rather than abandoning the concept of a mystical superhero film altogether, Band set out to develop a Doctor Strange story… without Doctor Strange.

According to an essay by Thomas Sueyres published in the 2017 book It Came from the Video Aisle! Inside Charles Band’s Full Moon Entertainment Studio, the first attempt at creating a less Strange story was titled Doctor Mortalis. During this stage of development, the creative force behind many of Marvel’s notable projects, Jack Kirby, was brought in to create concept art for the film. Kirby, who had left Marvel in 1986, was also reportedly set to serve as a producer for two films with Band – Doctor Mortalis, and a film preliminarily titled Mindmaster. (That’s a story for another time.) Both of these concepts were developed under Empire Pictures, with a poster and synopsis kit to help secure potential financing and distribution deals.

This original “pitch” synopsis (by an unknown author) for Doctor Mortalis reads: “Dr. Mortalis is an all-powerful wizard, the leader of a secret sect of sorcerers known as The Dark Order. His faithful sidekick, ‘Egghead,’ is a witty half-human, half-computer genius who possesses fantastic special powers.

The source of The Dark Order’s powers are the scrolls of an ancient civilization which lived by a code of magic. These scrolls are the bible of sorcery; and they contain an awesome power of their own, investing the holder with limitless power over all sorcerers.

Dr. Mortalis’ evil counterpart is the maniacal Hazaar. In a multidimensional battle, they match their wits and their skills in a contest for supremacy in the realm of magic. The final arena for their cosmic struggle is in a small Midwestern town where they involve the local citizens in their fight. The mortals are caught up in events beyond their imagination. Creatures of all sorts overrun the town in an explosive display of visual effects. One couple, the Whitmalls, become pawns in the monumental confrontation. As the town crumbles about them in a spectacular duel of magical powers, the Whitmalls are forced to take action which will affect the future of the worlds of magic and of mortals.”

Unfortunately, both Doctor Mortalis and Mindmaster were passed over by financier and distributor Vestron Video when querying the Empire Pictures conceptual lineup. This decision could be counted as yet another major loss for Band, occurring around the same time Paramount cut ties with Full Moon citing visibly rushed production value. Amidst the shakeup, the highly anticipated two-picture collaboration between comic book legend Jack Kirby and comic book fan Charles Band was abandoned. Undeterred, Band assembled a new team to rewrite the story yet again, metaphorically beginning the next chapter in Full Moon’s superhero chronicle. With an increased budget and a focus on studio-quality production value, Puppet Master 3 scribe (and fellow comic book fan) C. Courtney Joyner stepped in to save the day.

Enter Jeffrey Combs as Doctor Anton Mordrid (Master of the Unknown), a reclusive mystic hiding in plain sight amongst the mortal civilians of a New York townhouse. Within the library-esque walls of Mordrid’s sorcery sanctum, a secret bookcase door guards a powerful amulet and cape from human interference. Mordrid was sent to Earth by a supreme being referred to as Monitor, whom Mordrid can contact by meditation within the sanctum (all in a day’s work for a spectral guardian). Equipped with numerous television screens to monitor worldwide crime, beside an elaborate wall-sized portal disguised as a map, watchful protector Mordrid appears well equipped to intervene if interdimensional invaders instigate intricate influence.

Outside of the home, Doctor Mordrid leads fascinating lectures for humans, primarily focused on linking the criminal mind to the supernatural. A sample of one such lecture explores the possibility of a multiverse – or, at least, acknowledges the influence of unknown forces upon our familiar mortal realm:

“The basis of criminology is the understanding of the mysteries of the human mind… psychological motivations, thought patterns, and so on… but what is all too often rejected completely by the so-called experts is the fact that our thoughts, our beliefs, actions, are influenced by much more than what we experience here on the mortal plane. Mysticism… the supernatural, the supernormal, have been a part of man’s experience from the beginning… and they cannot be ignored.”

One such supernatural force lands on Earth in the form of Kabal, a powerful alchemist (well known to Mordrid) who recently escaped from a magical floating prison in the vast blackness of another dimension. With the goal of ruling over Earth’s humans (driven to submission by fear of the multiverse’s mad monsters), Kabal proclaims to Doctor Mordrid, “The fabric of the third dimension will rip… the demons will be loose, and all you’ll be able to do is hear their mortal screams.” Kabal’s attempts to open a portal and break these demons free of their dimensional captivity are aided by a human henchman and a human henchwoman on Earth, including a sacrifice with gratuitous female nudity (almost certainly not present in Marvel’s original plans). Without delving into dinosaur-sized spoilers, I will add that the climactic battle at the conclusion of Doctor Mordrid’s tale seals the multidimensional madness with a David Allen- helmed practical effects showcase reminiscent of Harryhausen’s greats.

When viewing the finished product, one can still catch more than a few leftover conceptual similarities between Doctor Mordrid: Master of the Unknown and Marvel’s Doctor Strange. Rather than dismissing the film as a “ripoff,” however, one can also consider how Band, Joyner, and others lovingly (and successfully) evoked Marvel’s enjoyable storytelling style in the finished film. This includes the use of matte paintings, miniatures, and hand-drawn animation. According to the aforementioned essay by Thomas Sueyres, Joyner has even gone on to explain his interpretation and integration of the “Jack Kirby/Stan Lee formula” present in many influential comic books. According to Joyner’s research, these stories often began with a series of wild events before the hero is introduced (as in Doctor Mordrid, when Kabal wreaks havoc on humans in the film’s cold open), and often revolved around stopping a potentially universe-destroying apocalyptic event (this should sound familiar to most modern moviegoers).

It is amusing to think of how the film might have taken shape if the official Marvel option had been fulfilled beyond the stages of initial development. At one point in the finished film, a mystic symbol shared by Mordrid’s amulet and Kabal’s calling card leads to Mordrid’s arrest as a suspect in Kabal’s crimes on Earth. If these events had played out with Doctor Strange, perhaps Marvel’s own high-powered lawyer Matt Murdock (alias Daredevil) would have stepped in – much like he eventually did to exonerate Peter Parker in Marvel’s 2021 blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home. With a knack for comic book style, Band is no stranger to intellectual property crossovers, having released films like Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys utilizing multiple Full Moon “universes.”

Thanks to Sueyres’ essay, today’s readers even have access to Full Moon’s planned Doctor Mordrid sequel treatments! Had the franchise continued, the second film would have been titled Doctor Mordrid II: Crystal Hell. In the script, a lowlife criminal named Joey Lux (and his sidekick Mooch) break in to Doctor Mordrid’s residential sanctum to steal a mystic crystal artifact. Much to their surprise, Lux is sucked inside the artifact, sending Mordrid on a mad dash to rescues him from the puzzle-like realm within. In the commotion, Lux is scratched by a demon. When the ordeal is over, Mordrid wipes the criminals’ memories… but the wicked transformation has already begun. Lux is shocked to discover his arm has become a crystal talon. Utilizing his newfound demonic power, Lux seeks vengeance on every crime boss in New York who had previously mocked him. With a newly converted Mooch by his side as an ally, Doctor Mordrid suits up to take down the supernaturally infused Lux during a citywide demonic tirade.

The events of the second film in the franchise would lead directly into Doctor Mordrid III: Shadow Queen, in which Mordrid takes his battles to the fourth dimension. The latest threat is a cultist with dangerous plans to assassinate Monitor, in a dark plot to become the supreme controller of the universe(s). In another “strange” twist, Doctor Mordrid is punctured by a malevolent amulet, giving way to a sinister variant referred to as Dark Mordrid. All’s well that ends well, however, as our hero Mordrid contemplates giving up his power of immortality in order to grow old with his mortal life partner (and talented police researcher from the first film) Samantha Hunt.

Another Band collaborator, Mark Manos, was reportedly in talks to direct both sequels, which received behind-the-scenes acclaim for their high quality screenwriting. It is said that Jeffrey Combs personally called the screenwriters of Crystal Hell to compliment their work and express his enthusiasm for their forthcoming (but ultimately fruitless) collaboration. At the time of their abandonment, Crystal Hell was the more developed script of the two planned sequels, getting as far as a third draft in 1994. It is believed both films may have been abandoned as a result of budgetary and distribution limitation shockwaves from the prior Paramount and Full Moon separation.

In today’s world of multiverse movies, Doctor Mordrid: Master of the Unknown may not look like much more than an indie superhero flick with minimal staying power. But hopefully after reading this origin story, you’ll do just as Marvel encourages us to do with their hit Disney+ animated series: ask yourself, “what if?”

– AJ Danna