Morgarzera: Shapeshifting, His History, and the Cost of Changing Forms

Morgarzera: Shapeshifting, His History, and the Cost of Changing Forms Morgarzera is worth spending some time on because Grimm Fairy Tales #51 actually explains a limitation on his shapeshifting instead of leaving us with the assumption that he can become anything and win. We see him use different forms against Sela, and then Blake explains why the largest, most dangerous form isn't necessarily the one he can afford to keep using. Spoilers for Grimm Fairy Tales #51, “The Glass Coffin.” The issue takes place after the battle with the Dark One, when both sides are trying to deal with what happened. Sela has lost people, Erik is unresponsive, and Blake is recovering from his injuries. On the other side, Orcus is talking about rebuilding his ruined castle and reclaiming his lands. Morgarzera is unhappy because he was promised a kingdom of his own. He says he was a king on Earth and has already waited ages for what he was promised. That gives us a reason for his anger beyond a general desire to hurt somebody. He expected the Dark One's victory to give him something. With that plan disrupted, he still wants his reward. Orcus tells him there is only one throne for now and that his own kingdom will have to wait. When Gruel suggests doing something about Orcus, Morgarzera blames Sela instead. He decides she is the person who has cost him his opportunity. We learn more about his background later, after the attack. Blake says Morgarzera was the pupil of a powerful mage who was on the side of good. The mage taught him his secrets, but Morgarzera was working as a spy for the Dark One. Once he learned the wizard's power, he assassinated him. The flashback shows him stabbing his teacher. I think that history helps explain the way he operates. He has learned from someone who trusted him while remaining loyal to someone else. The power he uses against Sela comes with that betrayal behind it. This issue doesn't give us the teacher's name or a full account of Morgarzera's reign on Earth, so those parts of his past are still open within the story we're looking at. But it does establish that his magical training was deliberate and that killing his teacher was part of how he acted on that knowledge. His attack on Sela begins with a bird arriving near her. He appears in human form, confronts her, and changes into a huge green serpent. The transformation is visibly unpleasant. He even tells her it is as painful as it looks, but considers that an acceptable price for revenge. The serpent form gives him a very practical advantage in the fight. He takes up much of the space around her, breaks through masonry, and reaches her with his coils when she tries to get away. He catches her by the leg, lifts her, and wraps around her body and neck. Sela says she cannot breathe. We are shown the reason this form is dangerous through what he does with it, rather than just being told that a giant snake is powerful. Sela manages to concentrate and strike him with a blast of fire. He releases her and returns to human form, then draws a knife and tries to finish the attack. That sequence is useful because the transformation back doesn't mean he has suddenly abandoned his intention to kill her. He changes methods when the serpent attack fails. A group of wolf-like soldiers intervenes and tells him Sela is not to be harmed. He complains that they have caught him at a disadvantage, threatens to continue his revenge even if the Dark One objects, and leaves in bird form. Sela is confused by the rescue, which makes sense given that the soldiers belong to the side she has been fighting. When she describes the serpent and bird transformations to Blake, he identifies Morgarzera and explains the cost. Common creatures, such as a bird or wolf, are relatively easy for him. More powerful and magical forms drain more of his energy and life. If he pushes himself too far, Blake says, he could die. Sela connects that explanation to how worn out he was after becoming the giant snake. That is a more interesting restriction than simply saying his magic runs out eventually. He has to choose a form based on what it can accomplish and what using it will cost him. The serpent gives him enough reach and strength to overwhelm Sela for a time, but the expense leaves him vulnerable when the fight changes. The bird gives him a way out. The issue shows those choices serving different purposes. There are real animals that change dramatically during their lives, but metamorphosis works very differently from what Morgarzera is doing. Smithsonian Gardens describes a butterfly's development through egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Inside the chrysalis, larval tissues break down and adult organs develop. Even after emerging, the butterfly has to pump hemolymph into its wings and allow them to take shape and harden before it can fly. So biology really can produce a body with a very different structure and way of moving. But that process belongs to the animal's development. A butterfly doesn't choose to return to being a caterpillar because crawling would be more convenient for the next few minutes. Morgarzera is switching between radically different bodies during a confrontation and keeping enough awareness and control to use each one immediately. There would also be much more to changing a human-shaped body into a working bird than growing feathers. The skeleton, muscles, respiratory system, and way the nervous system controls movement would all have to function together. Turning into the enormous serpent raises the additional question of where the extra material comes from. The comic gives us magic as the means of transformation and a cost in energy and life, but it doesn't explain a biological process that builds those bodies. Blake's explanation is a rule for the character, not a measurement of metabolism. There is an older fairy-tale comparison I wanted to include here, too. In the Grimms' “The Thief and His Master,” a young man learns witchcraft and changes into animals. He becomes a greyhound and later a horse that his father can sell. The horse transformation has a condition: his bridle must be removed before he can change back. When the father forgets, the young man is trapped until someone takes it off. The later contest with his master involves more transformations, including birds, fish, a rooster, and a fox. In Margaret Hunt's translation, the pupil ultimately becomes the fox and kills the master in rooster form. The forms have consequences; choosing a body changes what can happen to the person using it. I'm using that as a comparison rather than claiming it is Morgarzera's confirmed origin. His story also involves a pupil who kills his teacher, but the circumstances are different. What the two stories share is an interest in the rules around transformation. For Morgarzera, the rule Blake gives us means that the most impressive creature he can become may also be the choice that gets him killed. Keeping that in mind makes the whole fight with Sela easier to follow, especially his decision to leave in a much smaller form once he loses the advantage.