Mortilus

This article is about the Cybertronian deity. For the Nebulan sometimes known as "Mortilus Zarak", see Zarak (G1).

Mortilus is a Transformer from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

"You... rang?"

One of the Guiding Hand, Mortilus was one of the first five Transformers born on Cybertron, representing death in later mythologized accounts of the Guiding Hand. When Adaptus rebelled against his brothers, he unleashed his memory-erasing weapon on the others, erasing their memories of themselves. As a result, Mortilus adopted the new persona of Censere and dedicated himself to the recording of every Cybertronian death.

"Censere" himself would be mythologized as a mute Neutral known as the Necrobot, who travels the battlefields of the Great War, administering posthumous rites to fallen Cybertronians. They say that he can determine the cause of death just by letting his shadow fall on the corpse and that he has devoted his life to recording the fate of every last Transformer. Whether there is any truth to these stories is unknown to most, but they persist.

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 continuity

First appearance: The Transformers vol. 1 #23 (invoked); More than Meets the Eye #8

Born at some point after Primus, Mortilus joined him, Epistemus, Solomus, and Adaptus to form the Guiding Hand, the first five Cybertronians. When Adaptus sought to draw Cybertron into war with neighboring planets to push their race's evolution, the other four disagreed and the God War began. Adaptus escaped on Luna 1, firing his electromagnetic weapon on Cybertron to erase their memories before disappearing into space. Without knowledge of his true self or origins, Mortilus became The Unremembering the unassuming Censere of the High-Ceilinged Manifold, a census office worker. At Close of Day

When Censere left the census office to retrain as a forensic pathologist, he drifted apart from a friend and co-worker named Tusk; when Tusk died, it went unreported, and Censere did not find out about it until years later. His friend's death moved Censere to begin a lifelong mission: chronicling the deaths of every Cybertronian. With the destruction of his hometown in the First Cybertronian Civil War, Censere relocated to a "scorched and forgotten" planet that Tusk had told him about, where he set up a base of operations filled with complex machinery that allowed him to keep track of spark signatures, and quantum technology that let him teleport all around the universe to record every fatality. He transformed the blasted world on which he dwelled into a beautiful garden, filled with holographic statues of every living Cybertronian, which he would switch off when the Cybertronian died. Around the bases of the statues, he planted flowers crafted from the residual spark energy of whoever the statue's real-life counterpart was responsible for killing. The Not Knowing He also kept a dedicated journal filled with all manner of things, including the original, unedited version of the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy. At Close of Day

Swearing an oath of non-interference, Censere eventually became a figure of myth and legend among Cybertronians, glimpsed on battlefields across the cosmos silently recording deaths. Dubbed the "Necrobot" by the religious and/or superstitious, he was also known as the "Gatekeeper", or the "Mute Neutral", and was believed to be an envoy of Primus, charged with ferrying departed sparks into the afterlife. The Not Knowing Conversely, skeptics like Ratchet dismissed his existence as a fairytale, attributing supposed sightings of him and his "portable apothecary" to visual glitches caused by freshly-constructed Cybertronians' senses "trying to run before [they] can walk", like the Shimmer or seeing Primus's face in a mushroom cloud. Twenty Plus One Trailbreaker shared his lack of belief, comparing stories of the Necrobot to Sparkeaters and the Seething Moon. The Chaos of Warm Things

"Arthur Dent? Arthur Philip Dent? You're a jerk, a complete arsehole."

While on the planet Clemency, itself littered with the bodies of dead (and occasionally not-so-dead) Transformers, Misfire would periodically catch sight of what he believed was the Necrobot. He would then "chase it" for a few seconds before "losing sight of it" again, as observed by Krok who was not himself a believer. Rules of Disengagement One and a half years later, however, the Necrobot did indeed arrive on Clemency to add Flywheels to his list of dead Cybertronians, which also included several members of the Lost Light crew. Who's Afraid of the DJD?

A selection of the crew of the Lost Light visited his planet of operations, the location of which was revealed by an info bullet from Agent 113. Alarmed to see that multiple Transformers whose deaths he knew he had unambiguously recorded were alive and walking around in his garden, the Necrobot slammed the door to his complex shut, but when one such 'bot, Nightbeat, stood outside the door and refused to leave, Censere gave in to his curiosity and invited Nightbeat inside so he could explain his and the others' continued living (Nightbeat, he soon learned, had been revived by the properties of the Dead Universe, while the others had never died - the deaths he had recorded were those of their quantum duplicates, created through a quantum generator accident). Censere went on to explain his true nature and how he carried out his work; though Nightbeat was dismayed by this revelation, having wanted to believe that the Necrobot was a mystic figure and proof that higher powers existed in the universe, Censere reminded him that his not being 'magic' did not mean the Afterspark did not exist. The Not Knowing

Thank you for your cooperation. Good night.

He would take Nightbeat's words to heart when he found one of Brainstorm's time cases buried by Megatron. By linking it up to his teleport chamber, he was able to go back in time, recovering the Transformers on his list of the disappeared. The time traveling took its toll on the passengers though, so he put them in comas and disguised them as organics to keep them safe from other Cybertronians. Occasionally, he would be glimpsed in these endeavors by others, spawning the legends of his portable apothecary. Do Not Go Gentle

Among those he rescued were 'bots like Roller, Wavelength, Syphon, Do Not Go Gentle Anode, Fangry, and Rapidfire. Some Other Cybertron He was halfway down the list when the Decepticon Justice Division showed up, and he guessed that several of the 'bots he rescued were on their own list. Do Not Go Gentle

The DJD somehow learned of the Lost Light's previous visit to Necroworld and decided to use a fabricated distress signal to lure the group back in order to maroon them, Tarn reasoning the Necrobot was the perfect bait. The Sun in Flight However, Censere altered the signal minutes after it was sent, turning it into a psychic bombardment of the intended recipients' worst fears in an attempt to warn them off. The DJD then butchered Censere and left his body with flowers stuffed in exit wounds for the Autobots to find. How Bright Their Frail Deeds While the Autobots were distracted with the ongoing siege, Censere, due to his great age, dissolved into sentio metallico.

Left behind was the key to his stasis pod room. After the Autobots discovered it, they were unable to use Censere's teleport chamber to escape for fear of leaving the "organics" to die. The Sun in Flight

Several hours later, Rewind, having read through Censere's journal, discovered what he'd done with Brainstorm's time machine. Do Not Go Gentle

When Team Rodimus finally confronted the Grand Architect, they discovered he was Adaptus and that the Lost Light crew had managed to locate all five members of the Guiding Hand, explaining that Censere was an alias adopted by Mortilus. The Return of the King

I was Megatron before Mega was even a prefix!

In the wake of Adaptus's attack, Cybertronians would mythologize Mortilus and the Guiding Hand. In one account, his origins were tied to Primus, the First Light. When Cybertron was initially formed, the Light God split his essence into five avatars of his being: Mortilus, Solomus, Epistemus, Adaptus, and Primus himself, forming a pantheon of deities called the Guiding Hand. Mortilus became the Death-bringer, who represented the necessary corollary to life.

The texts of the religious sect known as the Clavis Aurea stated that Mortilus sought to turn Cybertron's power outward, and wage war against the rest of the universe; his dissension led to a cataclysmic battle that led to Cyertron's first moon being ripped from its orbit. You, Me, and Other Revelations According to further legend, Mortilus's rebellion spawned monsters to lay waste to Cybertron, birthing beasts such as the monstrous Trypticon, The Illusion of Control which Mortilus raised and commanded using his Void Scepter. Salvation His dissension saw Solomus entrapped in a crystal container, Epistemus as a brain module, Adaptus as a transformation cog, and mortally wounded Primus himself. Mortilus's rebellion caused Cybertron to shudder and ripped asunder its first moon. Ultimately, he was destroyed and his death allowed Cybertronian sparks to burn for eternity as immortals. You, Me, and Other Revelations

A different interpretation put forth in the Keening Texts instead held that Mortilus sought to bring his "gift" to the cosmos, and used Luna 1 as a staging ground to attack Cybertron, creating a thousand horrors with which to attack the Cybertronian race. Mortilus battled his brethren, laying clever traps and tricking the other members of the Guiding Hand to give up their physical forms. Mortilus was defeated by Primus himself, who summoned a bolt of primal lightning that blasted Mortilus and his moon away from Cybertron. Mortilus survived his destruction as an abstract idea. Rejoining the Guiding Hand, the redeemed Mortilus joined the group in creating the Afterspark, where Cybertronians could live forever. The God War

While explaining to Springarm that he was skeptical of religion, Orion Pax listed Primus, Mortilus, and Adaptus as examples of gods he didn't believe in. Chaos Theory Part 2

In modern times, Mortilus worshippers still existed, such as the NAILs who sold the Lost Light to Drift. Twenty Plus One For a time, Roadbuster thought Mortilus spoke to him, telling him to murder his cadets and sacrifice their remains to a pit for the Death-bringer to consume. This whole affair was in fact part of a larger web of deceit. Sins of the Wreckers #4 Mortilus's name was also used in derogatory figures of speech. After becoming co-captain of the Lost Light, Megatron's door was frequently vandalized with graffiti, such as "spawn of Mortilus". Towards Peace

The Functionist Universe

After the Functionist Council worked out that Rung was designed to produce photonic crystals, An Expert's Guide they first thought him the spawn of Mortilus sent to frustrate Primus's will before they decided realized that Rung was proof of Primus endorsing cold construction. Modes of Production

Ask Vector Prime

Vector Prime speculated that the Dark Spark could have been a fragment of Mortilus, among other explanations. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/05/18 He also noted that Mortilus Zarak sharing a name with a member of the Guiding Hand could be simple coincidence, or something far more sinister. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/08/04

Following the splintering of the Thirteen original Transformers into infinite alternate selves across the multiverse, Mortilus was known to be a member of the group in some universal streams. During the group's time in ancient Greece, the holomatter avatar he employed inspired the myth of Hades, uncle of Hermes. He stayed in the Thirteen's ship parked underneath Earth's surface with his vassal, a three-headed dog named Bruticus. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/08/08

Beast Wars: Uprising

Mortilus was a deity in Transformer religion, notable for his spiked carapace. His name was frequently used as a curse word. Derailment

Notes

• In the individual-issue printing of "Who's Afraid of the DJD?", Misfire stated that "[Flywheels'] ludicrous search for the Necrobot ends unfulfilled", yet in the previous issue, it was Misfire who was looking for the Necrobot. James Roberts admitted that he'd confused the two Scavengers; in the trade, Misfire's "ludicrous search" line was cut out.
• "Censere" is a Latin word meaning "to assess" that is the root of the English word "census".

References

	Guiding Hand
Primus Solomus Epistemus Mortilus Adaptus