Mandragora-257
Mandragora-257 was a body-hopping, villainous alchemist with multiversal capabilities.
Description
Physical appearance
In his original Clockwork Cherub body, Mandragora was a Mark III. He had long, light a short, pointed beard of a darker colour. He wore a Renaissance cap and a burgundy-coloured, baggy coat in whose pockets he kept a variety of alchemical reagents. His most striking feature was the strange, golden glow of his eyes, (PROSE: The Resurrection of the Wellsians) which persisted across his later bodies. Beyond this shared trait, he also seemed to retain his penchant for overwhelmingly purplish-to-burgundy colours in his clothing. One of his human forms had an unhealthy, sickly-skin tone and a frozen, disconcerting, toothy grin. His hair was a pale blonde, with a straggly beard of the same colour, and he also wore a turban upon his head. (COMIC: Jenny Everywhere Meets The Crew Of The Copper-Colored Cupids)
Personality
Mandragora-257 was fiercely independent, refusing to genuinely pay allegiance to anyone, though he was well able to feign obeisance, and flatter his master's ego, in pursuit of his goals. These included greater power, but also the advancement of his craft; he was genuinely interested in alchemy and the occult as more than a means to an end, and had respect for other practitioners of such arts, whereas he seemed to hold “scientists” in little regard. Somewhat officious, he wanted to be addressed with decorum and respect by his underlings, preferring titles like “Master” to “boss”. (PROSE: The Resurrection of the Wellsians)
Powers & abilities
Mandragora was a skilled alchemist and occultist. (PROSE: The Resurrection of the Wellsians) He had some means of immortality, having “got[ten] killed, (…) and then reembodied himself several times over”. (PROSE: The Grand Multiverse Hotel)
Biography
Early life
#257 was originally the Prefect of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids' Department of Chemistry. He was disgraced after losing the Creator's original formula for the Cupid Love Potion, leading to his transfer to the Department of Alchemy. (PROSE: The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids)
There, he disgraced himself again when a reckless experiment under his control caused an explosion which not only blew up a warehouse, but also killed several Cupid workers under his personal responsibility. This event was documented in Incident Report #B045, and resulted in his banishment from the Cupid Homeworld to the remote Morningstar 1 base, located on the 97th Cosmos's inhospitable version of the planet Venus. (PROSE: The Resurrection of the Wellsians)
At Morningstar 1
At Morningstar, he did his best to ingratiate himself with Governor-105. He soon completed the alchemical “great work”, creating the Pure Elixir which could allow him to turn any metal into gold. However, as a Governor-105 soon pointed out, this was of limited use to a Clockwork Cherub, particularly one stationed on a barren planet. A very dismayed Mandragora found the wherewithal to suggest that they use the “unlimited gold” as building material for some new walls. (COMIC: All That Sparkles Is Not Concrete)
When a mundane digging operation in the lower levels of the base uncovered a Wellsian Tripod with multiple dormant, but living Wellsians inside, he quickly realised their potential as weapons, especially as the aliens would know how to repair and operate the Heat Ray weapons also scattered in the ruined ship. Mandragora told Governor about his discovery and got the Governor to authorise the “Great Experiment” to bring the Wellsians back to life. However, Digger-291, whom he had taken as an apprentice, was secretly part of a covert rebellion formed by the Morningstar Cupids who were tired of the Governor's tyranny. Digger, who feigned stupidity when in Mandragora's presence, spirited one Wellsian away to carry out his own version of the ritual based on observation of Mandragora's progress.
The Wellsians themselves couldn't wait to break free of the Cupids' hold; even before they were physically resurrected, their telepathic minds were active, scheming their escape. Having realised that the Fog Ships were locked and the Governor would never let the Wellsians use them unsupervised, they sent a psychic distress signal to the Cupid Homeworld, leading the Department of Problem-Solving to come to Morningstar in their Department Fog Ship, which they parked a little ways outside the base and left unlocked. When Pythagoras-858, Juliet-178, Carter-1277 and Edwin-750 were taken to Governor's throne room by the Deputy Governor, he feigned to be even more foppish and careless than he really was, and vaguely told them to go talk to Mandragora. Mandragora was interested to meet Pythagoras, having heard of how the other Cupid had recently “bound a demon”: Lord Thymon. Pythe turned this to his advantage, distracting Mandragora with a conversation while Carter went down unnoticed into the excavation site, finding the dormant Wellsians surrounded by candle pentagrams. Mandragora admitted that he had tried to conceal them, but claimed that his interest in them was purely as an experimental subject.
Not realising that Governor was in on the plan, the Problem-Solvers returned to the throne room to find Governor in the midst of having yet another portrait of himself painted by Paintbrush-122. Dismissing the artist, Governor casually revealed to them that Mandragora was acting on his authority and shooed them out of the throne room, having told them that the Experiment was too far in for them to do anything about it now. Indeed, a short while later, Mandragora successfully resurrected the six Wellsians under his care, sprinkling them with a a special powder made of metals of symbolic significance.
Taking one Wellsian, armed with a Heat Ray, with him, Mandragora joined the Governor, and the three confronted the Problem-Solvers in the communications room, which they had finally realised was empty. As Mandragora and Governor launched into shared gloating about their world-conquering plans, they were beset by Dactylopius, flanked by the rebellion's own Wellsian. A standoff ensued, broken when Mandragora ordered his Wellsian to shoot the Governor instead of Dactylopius or his Wellsian. Gleefully obeying, since this fit in with the Wellsians' plans as much as Mandragora's, the Wellsian used its Heat Ray to shoot a hole clean through Governor-105, disintegrating his Gemstone Heart and thus killing him instantly. Mandragora then demanded that his Wellsian kill Dactylopius's Wellsian. However, this forced the laughing Wellsians to reveal that they had no true loyalty to anyone. Despite Mandragora's pleas, they trained all of their Heat Rays on him and shot him.
Because Mandragora had various explosive substances in his pockets, this caused a huge conflagration which knocked down the walls of Morningstar 1 and killed the two Wellsians, although the Cupids around Mandragora were unharmed and the five other resurrected Wellsians had already made their way out of the base to steal the Problem-Solvers' Fog Ship. As the dust cleared, however, Pythagoras became increasingly certain that he had “not seen the last” of Mandragora; Pythe was not even sure that the blast had been enough to even destroy Mandragora's Clockwork Cherub frame, but was, at any rate, convinced that Mandragora must have had some supernatural contingency plan in place in case he died. (PROSE: The Resurrection of the Wellsians)
Nevertheless, his death was reported by the Department of Obituaries, and the entry that was written for him in the Book of Evil marked him as deceased, though it recorded Pythe's objections. (PROSE: The Book of Evil)
On the run
Indeed, having cheated death, Mandragora went on the run hopping from one body to another, as he was chased through the Multiverse by Pythagoras-858. (COMIC: Jenny Everywhere Meets The Crew Of The Copper-Colored Cupids) According to Pythagoras, he “got killed, (…) and then reembodied himself several times over, (…) although never properly.” (PROSE: The Grand Multiverse Hotel)
When Pythagoras met Jenny Everywhere, he briefly wondered if she might be a new incarnation of Mandragora, but relented when she showed him that her eyes did not have the characteristic golden glow shared by all of Mandragora's bodies. (COMIC: Jenny Everywhere Meets The Crew Of The Copper-Colored Cupids) One of the not-quite-human visitors to the Interdimensional Hotel whom Wendy Severn noticed as she got out of the shuttle which had taken her to Hilbert's did, on the other hand, have “eerie, glowing yellow eyes”, although she did not pay him any mind at the time. (PROSE: The Grand Multiverse Hotel)
Advisor of the Consistency Imperium
It was ultimately discovered that Mandragora, in a new body, had been acting as the advisor of the Consistency Imperium, deceiving them to get them to unwittingly accelerate the spread of the Rifts threatening the fabric of reality, being central to the Rifts Crisis. He had built a "Machine" meant to spark the ultimate detonation of all realities, in some insane effort to ascend to godhood. However, his plan was uncovered in the nick of time, and the backfiring of his scheme was believed to have brought about his final death. (PROSE: Rifts Crisis Officially Over!) Shortly before this, Sebastian Steer, an unrelated Dark Lord, had attempted and failed to highjack Mandragora's scheme for his own ends. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)
