| “ | You cannot look upon my true form and live! While you are hopelessly mortal, I am a god! | „ |
| ~ Mallus |
My quest to finish remaking PE proposals continues, being a huge superhero fan I saw that one of the proposals was for a villain from season three of DC's Legends of Tomorrow. I hadn't really gotten into the Arrowverse before so this gave me a pretty good reason to start, and I quite enjoyed it despite how absurd it often can be. Mallus in particular is one of the darkest villains in the show due to his lack of hammy or over the top evil moments, and I definitely agree that he has a good shot at qualifying as PE.
What's the Work?
DC's Legends of Tomorrow is a series in the Arrowverse, it follows a group of different people from across time aboard a time traveling ship known as the Waverider, with the goal of saving the world and preventing the timeline from collapsing.
Who is Mallus? What's He Done?
Mallus is an ancient primordial time demon with a desire to destroy the current timestream. The tribe of Zambesi had six powerful totems with different elemental abilities, one of them being known as the Death Totem, the user of which ended up forming an alliance with Mallus. This allowed him to communicate to the user, but the other five users of the Totems of Zambesi used their powers against him. They were unable to kill him, but did banish him into a cage of time where many other demons resided, in a place described as being beyond the astral plane, a separation between Mallus' prison and the physical world. After this, Mallus became known as myth, but those who believed in his existence and sought to free him would form a cult known as Order of the Shrouded Compass. The only way for the time cage to be opened is for the fabric of time to be damaged massively, creating a rift for Mallus and the other demons to escape from. A group known as the Time Masters dedicated themselves to keeping time in place, operating in a place outside of time known as the Vanishing Point, while using a device called the Oculus to control time. Therefore, the time cage remained undisturbed. However, due to one Time Master named Rip Hunter wanting to save his family from being killed in the far future by a dictator named Vandal Savage, he decided to form a group of time travelers known as the Legends of Tomorrow into order to stop Savage. However, they learned in the process that the Time Masters had been manipulating events to help Savage, leading to the Legends destroying the Oculus and the Time Master's organization.
The Time Master's absence led to the Legends deciding to fix disruptions in the timestream themselves, and find themselves in conflict with a time traveling criminal, which they find out is Eobard Thawne. While they are successful in stopping Thawne, it requires them to interact with their past selves. This large of a group interacting with themselves leads to time being effectively broken. This massive damage to the timestream damaged the time cage and allowed Mallus to begin communicating with his followers in the physical world. Rip Hunter went on to create the Time Bureau, an organization similar to the Time Masters but without the massive corruption. With this, he officially retires to the Legends and tells them they don't need to continue traveling the universe. They decide to continue anyways, at which point the Legends become comprised of Sara Lance, Ray Palmer, Jefferson Jackson, Martin Stein, Amaya Jiwe, Nate Heywood, and Mick Rory. Being a member of the tribe of Zambesi from 1942, Amaya already had one of the six totems, the Spirit Totem. Nora Darhk, a member of the cult, began working to resurrect powerful individuals in order to have them act as followers to Mallus, and traveled through time using objects known as time stones to accomplish this. First, she resurrects Kuasa, the wielder of the Water Totem of Zambesi, allowing her to transform into water at will and making her an operative of the cult.
The Legends discover Kuasa having time traveled to Seattle in 2042, where she is trying to capture Zari Tomaz, the wielder of the Air Totem of Zamesi. The Legends manage to save Zari from Kuasa, and find that there is a connection between her and Amaya's Totems. After this, Mallus sends Nora back to 1895 to resurrect her future father, Damien Darhk. Due to having pursued Mallus for years, Rip Hunter travels to 1895 independent of his own organization, where he runs into the Legends, who incidentally also traveled there to investigate a detected anomaly in the timeline. Together they confront Nora, where Rip demands to speak with Mallus. Nora agrees to this and Mallus takes temporarily control of her, and while Rip demands for him to show his true form, Mallus taunts Rip that he will never live to see it. Mallus then ceases the possession as Damien is resurrected from the dead, at which point him and Nora depart through time. Nora and Damien begin disrupting time in large ways in order to damage the time cage, deciding to travel to 1000 A.D. and influence a group of Vikings to remain in North America and conquer it rather than leave as they do in the normal flow of history, but they are thwarted by the Legends in battle. Nora is injured during this battle, prompting Damien to teleport them away using his time stone. Sara grabs on to Damien to try and go with them, but ends up in the void where Mallus is imprisoned. Mallus then calls out to her, telling Sara that he would soon be free so he could subject the world to unendurable pain. Mallus then seems to reach out to her before Time Bureau Agent Ava Sharpe opens a portal and brings Sara back to the physical world.
Nora Darhk was originally from the 2010s, being a child in the year 2017. Warlock and demon hunter John Constantine begins tracking Nora as a child after finding she is possessed by Mallus, and finds that she has been placed in a mental facility, at which point he breaks in and attempts to perform an exorcism on her. Constantine's traditional methods fail and Mallus takes control of Nora, mocking Constantine for his failures, including the efforts he took to save the soul of Sara Lance. Constantine flees from the hospital and meets with Sara to get her aid in helping Nora. Constantine, Sara, and Legend's ally Leo Snart go to the hospital to help Nora, but Mallus takes control once again. Despite this version of Nora being younger than the one they fought previously, Mallus transcends time and recalls his previous interaction with Sara, telling her that soon she would see her true form. Constantine attempts another more powerful exorcism, but once again it fails and Mallus throws the group back in time to the 1960s. By this point Mallus has developed a desire to possess Sara, speaking in her mind and haunting her with her worst memories so her will breaks down and she will become open to possession. Legend's Zari and Ray find Nora in 2017 and try to help her find a normal life, but Mallus takes control and attempts to kill them, however, getting into contact with Zari causes Nora's body to burn, realizing that she has one of the six totems. Before Mallus can kill them both, Sara uses her newfound psychic connection to Mallus to speak with Nora and helps her reassert control over herself and banish Mallus. While Nora seems free, her father Damien appears from the past and takes her away, thus creating the future version of Nora that the Legends faced previously. The Legends use the Waverider to pick up Sara, Constantine, and Snart from the 1960s, at which point they begin discussing how to stop Mallus. Based on his reaction to Zari, they determine they need the six Totems of Zambesi.
The Legends begin searching for the totems, managing to obtain the Death Totem from 1954, the Earth Totem in 1717, and stealing the Fire Totem from Damien Darhk, although they lose the Spirit Totem to Kuasa. Wanting to make Sara one of his vessels, Mallus speaks through the Death Totem and draws her to put it on, allowing him to control her by trapping her mind in the void. Now possessed, Sara rampages through the Waverider and nearly kills her crew, and in her mind the adult version of Nora uses their psychic connection to speak to her, offering her power as Mallus' vessel. The possessed Sara is once again confronted by Constantine, at which point Mallus mimicks the voice of Astra, a young girl he accidentally snet to Hell during a botched exorcism, offering to save Astra from Hell if Constantine helps him obtain Sara's soul, a deal Constantine refuses. Prior to this Mick Rory had begun wielding the Fire Totem and uses it against the now possessed Sara before Mallus can kill them, giving Sara time to refer Nora's offer and remove the Death Totem. Kuasa eventually begins to doubt the fact that she is working with the Dharks due to Amaya still being her family, and decides to give the Legends back the Spirit Totem. Mallus learns of this betrayal and kills Kuasa by removing the Water Totem from her body, which kills her in the process due to her being bonded with its powers. Mallus continues increasing his control over Nora, something that begins troubling Damien as while he originally believed in the two of them becoming God's through Mallus' return, he begins to realize that Nora is being lost to Mallus' control. While the Legends have all but one of the Totems, Mallus finds that there are enough achronisms in time for him to be free of his cage after just one more major change to the timeline. He orders Damien to send Gorilla Grodd to kill Barrack Obama before he became President. The Legends manage to stop Grodd, at which point Damien confronts them and explains that rather than help Grodd succeed, Damien wants to help them stop Mallus in order to save Nora, even giving over the Water Totem to prove he is on their side.
While Grodd was stopped, Amaya had recently decided to travel to 1992 Zambesi and prevent it from being destroyed, a fact she learned due to time travel, but not only would this change the timeline, her elderly self is still alive in 1992, and this anachronism in time is enough to break open the time cage. Damien helps the Legends trap Nora, at which point they are forced to choose between stopping Amaya from causing such a large anachronism or letting the village be destroyed. Unable to bring themselves to stop Amaya from helping her people, the Legends decide to use all six Totems together to kill Mallus once he is free. Damien realizes that Mallus being freed will kill Nora, and sabotages the plan by freeing Grodd on the village so it is still destroyed like it was meant to, meaning the timeline will remain stable. The Legends had chosen to release Mallus in the village due to that being where the Totems are strongest, but Grodd's attack scatters them. Nate uses the Earth Stone in order to defeat Grodd anyways, at which point the anachronism in time is cemented and the village isn't destroyed, thus releasing Mallus. The Legends try to stop Mallus, but due to Damien's betrayal they are no longer coordinated and are unable to harm him. Rip removes the Waverider's timedrive and confronts Mallus with it, allowing it to blow up and injure Mallus while killing himself. This buys enough time for the Legends to escape using the jump ship's extra timedrive and escaping from 1992. Ray and Damien realize there may be a way to save Nora, and travel to 1992 a few moments before Mallus broke free, shooting her with an anti-magic gun that Ray had developed and temporarily allowing her to regain control of her mind. While this seems to be causing harm to Mallus, he proceeds to exit Nora's body and possess Damien instead, and although this is what Damien wanted so he could save his daughter, it means that Mallus still exists, just in a different vessel.
Amaya uses a special root from the Zambesi Village that allows her to go on a vision quest to learn more about the totems, while the initial information about the Totems she already knew, she learns the reason the original Totem users could only trap Mallus was because they didn't have the user of the Death Totem working with them. The Legends then use the six Totems together, with Sara wielding the Death Totem successfully due to breaking away from Mallus control previously, and are able to combine themselves into a powerful avatar to face Mallus, in their case a giant stuffed toy Beebo doll. While the avatar may look ridiculous, it has the power to kill Mallus, allowing them to body slam the demon in a giant burst of energy that kills him for good. Mallus' death is celebrates, but the Legends learn soon after from Constantine that tons of magical beings, from demons to dragons, were also imprisoned and escaped when Mallus was freed, thus setting up the events of the next season.
Following the multiversal reset during the Crisis on Infinite Earths Crossover Event, there is no indication that the events concerning Mallus were changed or didn't still happen to the Legends as it was contained to the timeline of Earth-1.
Mitigating Factors
The first question would be whether or not he is considered a Generic Doomsday Villain, and while I'll admit he isn't a super fleshed out character, there is personality to Mallus in the way he enjoys mentally breaking his victims as seen during his attempted possession of Sara. There's also him taunting Constantine over his failures, and him taking over Nora's mind, only to immediately abandon her to take Damien as a host after being shot with the antimagic gun. So that proves that only does he have a personality in his sadism, but also has basically zero attachment to his hosts. While he has a particular interest in tempting Sara, Mallus basically gives up on it after his initial attempt to make her kill all of her crew fails.
The other question would be his defeat at the hands of a giant toy Beebo doll, which is obviously played for laughs, at least initially. However, there's two reasons why this isn't really a comedic defeat that would detract from Mallus being PE. First off, while the fact the Legends transformed into a Beebo is played for laughs initially, once the battle actually begins the scene becomes triumphant rather than just being a joke. Secondly, the joke is how ridiculous the Beebo looks, it's never at the expense of Mallus. It's not really a distressing defeat, none of the characters mock Mallus or laugh at him, it's more just confusion over how absurd the Beebo is. Mallus himself has no comedic scenes, in contrast to previous villains like Vandal Savage and Eobard Thawne who all had snarky lines and quips, and even then for both of them those jokes aren't considered detracting, with all that said I don't believe this ending is enough to disqualify Mallus.
Heinous Standards
From what I understand the original proposal essentially claimed that Mallus wanted to destroy all of existence, and this is not really accurate, instead Mallus wants to destabilize the timestream, which cause mass destruction to humanity across all of time, and then rule what's left. This wouldn't be destroying existence as that would kill him as well, but it's pretty close to being as bad due to the massive death toll. Mallus performs possessions of multiple people including Nora as a child, torments people with visions of their lost loved ones and worst failures, uses Damien and Nora to create multiple anachronisms throughout time which causes chaos through the timestream, tries to possess Sara to kill her entire crew, kills Kuasa when she turns against him, and his eventual freedom from the time cage involves completely destroying Nora's mind and killing her so he can be free, not to mention releasing a ton of other monsters trapped in the cage with him. Mallus has personal villainy against the Waverider crew and Nora since Rip Hunter had to sacrifice himself to slow Mallus down and he killed Damien by using him as a vessel. Now due to the Arrowverse being filled with threats to time, the universe, etc. there is some strong competition, but Mallus has a few things that help him stand out. Also I don't really need to compare him to smaller scale recurring villains if their crimes don't reach his level, even they have personal villainy because Mallus has that as well.
- The Anti-Monitor is probably Mallus' biggest competition. As I said before, they have a similar goal that involves not necessarily destroying everything that exists, but rather causing untold damage that would constitute as omnicide so that they can rule afterwards. However, despite their goals have parallels, I actually don't think you can fully compare them on account of Anti-Monitor being a threat to the entire Multiverse, whereas Mallus only ever threatens the timestream of Earth-1, which is still bad enough to constitute being an omnicidal threat, but Anti-Monitor is credited with committing omnicide on a mass scale across a plethora of universes. So the Anti-Monitor is worse quantifiably, but it doesn't disqualify Mallus due to their being no indication his plans or the scale of his threat went beyond Earth-1.
- Hunter Zolomon is a sociopathic speedster whose last act in season two of the Flash is to power a device called the magnetar which can send shockwaves across the multiverse and destroy every universe except Earth-1 which he plans to rule. This is on the same level as Anti-Monitor and once again outclasses Mallus since the actions of Mallus are contained to his Earth-1 timeline. However, while I would argue it's debatable if Mallus is stronger than Zolomon due to how overpowered Speedsters are, once again Mallus is never shown to have the capability of threatening the multiverse in this way. Even if had access to the magnetar he couldn't power since Mallus is not a speedster.
- Eobard Thawne creates an energy wave that threated all life on Earth Prime, which was an amalgamation of all Earths that remained after the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, an act constituting as attempted omnicide of humanity. The reason Mallus would be considered worse than this is that his plan was destabilizing all of time, meaning the people wouldn't just be wiped out in the present day, but also throughout history. And while Thawne is obviously the prime example of personal villainy towards Barry, Mallus has his fare share due to his actions causing the deaths of Rip and Damien, not to mention his unique crimes of possessing people and breaking them mentally, including Nora when she was a child.
- The Negative Speed Force is a cosmic entity that has a desire to bring destruction and chaos to reality as a whole, something that is on par with the goals of Mallus, sans the desire to rule, and it could be argued that the Negative Speed Force has an end goal that would see more destruction to reality than Mallus. However, as powerful as Mallus is, he is never shown to be on the same level of power, as Mallus is able to give his minions access to supernatural strength and magic, whereas the Negative Speed Force can create speedsters who are way more powerful. And most of its actual on-screen crimes come from the fact that it was powering Thawne, and I've already explained how Mallus' crimes are mostly larger in scale.
- Queen Rhea is a highly destructive alien queen who attempts to destroy Earth and has to be stopped by Supergirl, and has a fair amount of personal villain to go with it. This is pretty bad but similar to the comparison with Thawne, Mallus' actions would kill humanity throughout all of history, which is larger in scale than someone simply trying to destroy the Earth or all humans on it at one fixed point in time.
So I think this paints a pretty good picture, Mallus' attack on all of time is bad enough to put him ahead of villains that threaten all of humanity during one time period like Thawne or Rhea, but still behind those which are threats to the multiverse like the Anti-Monitor and Hunter Zolomon, but the reason he doesn't fail the heinous standards is that Mallus is never shown to be capable of threatening more than his home universe's timeline, which is still more than enough to qualify as PE. All of this said, Mallus is perfectly capable of meeting the heinous standards and being PE.
Final Verdict
Yes, he is a sadistic and predatory demon who breaks people mentally in order to possess them and free himself so he can destabalize time and subject humanity to unendurable pain and then rule everything that is left.