Simon Bretnor (Earth-616)

The man who would become Mordillo was an agent of the British intelligence organization MI6, serving alongside Clive Reston and Leiko Wu, among others. At the time, he was the lover of Leiko Wu, after she left Reston for him. At some point, his sanity began to slip away from him, and he developed the identity of the assassin Mordillo. Mordillo established an island base, and performed all of his transactions from that remote location, so that no one ever saw his face. None knew that Bretnor was Mordillo.

Mordillo was hired to assassinate Carlton Velcro, but before he could do so, Velcro apparently died in a conflict against Shang-Chi and several agents of MI-6.^[1][2] Furious that he had lost the million dollars that that assassination would have gotten him, Mordillo decided to take revenge against Chi. In addition, he succeeded in stealing the Solar Chute from MI-6's Project: Ultra-Violet. He needed certain information hidden within the mind of Leiko by MI-6 in order to finely focus and control the Chute.

Mordillo sent 3 robot assassins after Clive Reston, who alongside Shang-Chi and Black Jack Tarr, succeeded in defeating them. Tarr and Reston recognized them as Mordillo's handywork, and the bullets, each of which had "My Fair Lady" carved on them, identified him definitively. Sir Denis Smith revealed that Bretnor was missing following an exchange on the Tower Bridge that left another agent, Norris Putnam, dead. Mordillo sent Leiko a letter signed by Bretnor, claiming to fear for his life at the hands of Mordillo, and asking her to meet him in private. Meanwhile, he sent his agents to destroy Tower Bridge, where Putnam had left a clue to Mordillo's identity. Shang-Chi and the agents of MI-6 saved the bridge and defeated Mordillo's agents, and then successfully found the clue which revealed Bretnor to be Mordillo. However, this information was too late to save Leiko, who had been captured by Mordillo and brought to his Island.^[3]

Mordillo sought to force Leiko to reveal her knowledge of the Solar Chute, but she couldn't even if she wanted to because it was implanted via post-hypnotic suggestion, and she had no conscious knowledge of it. Putnam's clue also disclosed the location of Mordillo Island, and Shang-Chi and Reston flew out to rescue Leiko and stop Mordillo. He was ready for them and attacked them with various robots. When they reached him, he had placed Leiko in a deathtrap and attacked them with his Death-Hand.^[4]

Tarr joined Shang-Chi and Reston and fought off Mordillo, who fled and took off in the Solar Chute. Even without the focusing information, the Chute was still a deadly device, acting more like a shotgun, than a laser. Shang-Chi managed to grab hold of the Chute as it took off, and grappled with Mordillo aboard it. As the Chute indiscriminately incinerated the surface of Mordillo Island, Reston and Tarr took Leiko below the surface for safety. Shang-Chi overpowered Mordillo, who then leapt off the Chute, directly into the path of its rays, and was burnt to death, leaving only bleached bones. Mordillo's robot servant, Brynocki, vowed to continue to serve him.^[5]

Brynocki carried his master's skeleton around as he continued to implement evil schemes and even pretended that he was taking orders from it.^[6][7][8] Brynocki and Mordillo's skeleton were eventually destroyed.^[9]

Return[]

Years later Mordillo returned to life through unknown means.^[10] Now a cyborg with the Death-Hand integrated into his body,^[11] and using the weapon's name as his new alias, he was hired alongside a host of other criminals to capture Domino who was training in Hong Kong with Shang-Chi. Death-Hand and the group ended up defeated by Domino and Shang-Chi.^[12]

A genius inventor, Mordillo created all sorts of robot assassins and death traps.

Death-Hand