Mozenrath

Mozenrath is the main antagonist in the Disney 1994-96 animated television series Aladdin in the saga, voiced by both the late Jonathan Brandis and Jeff Bennett.

Background
Mozenrath is a powerful and malevolent young sorcerer, not much older than Aladdin himself, who rules over the Land of the Black Sand: a desolated and hostile land, solely populated by his army of undead Mamluks. Little is known about Mozenrath's past. Judging by his own words, he seems to have been the apprentice and probably the adopted son of the dreaded sorcerer Destane, the former king of the Black Sand whom even Jafar feared. At some point, likely when he felt that Destane had nothing left to teach him, he killed him and turned him into one of his undead Mamluks, before taking over his throne.

He is always accompanied by his familiar Xerxes, a flying, talking eel, fully devoted to him, who serves as his spy, his assistant, and sometimes his punching ball, when the sorcerer is angry.

Personality
Mozenrath is cruel, ruthless, selfish, overly proud, scornful, greedy and ambitious to a much larger scale than most of the villains of the show. His malevolence and lust for power are often compared to Jafar's, prompting Iago to nickname him "Jafar Jr." shortly after meeting him. He doesn't care the slightest about those whom he might harm during his experiences, to the point of showing disbelief when Aladdin chose helping people over personal benefit. He wants to gain enough power to take over the magical realms of the Seven Deserts (and possibly the entire world). Since the first time when Aladdin thwarted his schemes, he swore to destroy Aladdin, his friends and everything he holds dear.

Like many other powerful villains, Mozenrath is calm, collected, aristocratic and refined. He enjoys dominating the situation and taunting his enemies with dark humor and false courtesy. Yet, he is also shown being stubborn, not very patient and a little capricious. When people refuse to work for him he coerces them to do what he wants, and he tries to gain something from every situation. He also gets angry at the mere idea of Aladdin being murdered by someone else. He even displays jealousy towards Aladdin, "who got the magic of a Genie on a silver platter," while he had to make harsh sacrifices to reach his situation. In most cases, albeit only when it serves his interests, he proves to be a man of honor, who fulfills his part of a bargain and rewards generously those whom he hired. All this prompts him to firmly protect what he believes to be rightfully his, and to protest whenever he himself gets betrayed.

Mozenrath is also remarkably intelligent, cunning, and scheming. He can devise very clever traps and complicated schemes, and he can guess right things from very few facts. But even if he is absolutely not above it, he prefers direct confrontation over manipulation.

Powers and Abilities
Unsurprisingly, Mozenrath is an immensely powerful sorcerer. His power matches Jafar's own sorcerer's power, Mirage's, and Genie's. Genie often defeats Mozenrath with ease, but on more than one occasion, he defeated Genie with the same ease, meaning that they are on an equal footing.

He claims to be "the most powerful sorcerer of [his] time" and this is obviously no bragging, given all the feats of magic he can perform. Namely: being able to fly; to teleport himself and other things or people; to open gates between two places and even between two dimensions; to make an image of himself appear where he isn't physically present; to shape-shift himself and others; to create, animate or bewitch things; to generate tangible illusions (like a woman holding a baby or a dragon) ; to infuse anything with his magic in order to control it; to compel creatures and people alike; to perform telekinesis; to increase his own strength; to fire energy blasts or dark bolts, whose size depends of the amount of power he uses; and to create a dark, sticky matter which he uses to capture people and can compress to the size of a marble; and so on and so forth.

The main source of his power resides in the magical gauntlet he wears on his right hand. Taking away his gauntlet renders him powerless. Using the gauntlet comes with a heavy price however, as it rots away his flesh, reducing his right forearm to mere bones. The gauntlet also drains his life force and condemns him to a premature demise; despite his physical weakness, Mozenrath has proven to be athletic enough to engage Aladdin in hand-to-hand combat on a few occasions.

Mozenrath is also very skilled in "traditional" sorcery, like potions, rituals, necromancy and even alchemy. He created several monsters (a winged humanoid and a huge carnivorous plant) and crafted magical devices (a collar to control monsters and magic-detecting crystals). He also knows many legends, especially about famous mighty sorcerers who lived centuries ago, and he owns various powerful magical artifacts which he probably inherited from Destane.

Physical Appearance
Mozenrath is tall and slender, unlike the bony Jafar. Rumor has it that the writers were planning on revealing that he and Aladdin were brothers in the third movie before the focus was shifted to Aladdin's father. Unlike Aladdin, Mozenrath is very pale, which is probably because he spends most of the time in the Land of the Black Sand, which doesn't get much sun. In the episode "The Secret of Dagger Rock", his skin gradually gets darker and more normal looking from being out in the sun all day.

Appearances
Mozenrath is the second most recurring villain in the show after Abis Mal. He appears in nine episodes.

The Citadel
The episode in which Mozenrath is first introduced.

The sorcerer visits Agrabah, looking for someone worthy enough for a dangerous task that he cannot accomplish himself. He unleashes a winged, dinosaur-like monster on the city, planning to recruit the one able to defeat it. Unsurprisingly, Aladdin does the job and Mozenrath approaches him, offering him a huge reward if he accepts his offer. But Aladdin refuses, disgusted by the way he "tests" people leaving Mozenrath brooding at how Aladdin would go out of his way to save people for no gain. He then concludes that getting Aladdin to do the task would be harder than he anticipated, but would also be "fun" just the same.

The morning after, Mozenrath finds Aladdin's hovel, sneaks in and steals the Genie's lamp, (with the Genie sleeping inside) which he teleports to his palace in the Land of the Black Sand. He then wakes Aladdin, Abu, Iago and the Magic Carpet up and teleports with them near his palace.

Mozenrath brought a Thirdac into his palace: a monster from another dimension who feeds on magic and magical beings. Mozenrath crafted a collar to control the beast, but given his own magic powers, it would be too dangerous for him to get too close to it. So he gives the collar to Aladdin and instructs him to put it on the Thirdac before it finds and devours Carpet and Genie. Aladdin ultimately succeeds and Mozenrath immediately takes the creature with him.

Mozenrath plans to use the Thirdac to destroy the magical defenses of the kingdoms of the Seven Deserts in order to invade them, but Aladdin sneaks into his fortress and manages to set the Thirdac free. Attacked by the beast, the sorcerer's only option is to send it back to its own dimension, ruining his plans of conquest. By doing this, Aladdin made himself a new archenemy.

The Secret of Dagger Rock
Mozenrath captures Aladdin in a magical trap and demands Jasmine to bring him the Genie by sunset to Dagger Rock: a gloomy, rocky place near the border between the Agrabanian desert and the Land of the Black Sand, otherwise he will execute Aladdin.

The Sultan sends Razoul and the royal guards to rescue the hero, but Jasmine and Genie infiltrate the patrol, disguised as guards. During the journey, Xerxes spots the guards and warns Mozenrath that the guards are coming without the Genie or the lamp. Mozenrath then sends his Mamluks but Genie and Jasmine make short work of them. Mozenrath then dispatches the guards by creating two huge hands of stone, but Jasmine, Genie and Carpet manage to reach Dagger Rock and a battle ensues.

Mozenrath shows them a Crystal of Ix, a magical crystal which captures magical beings, and reveals that Dagger Rock is in fact a monumental Crystal of Ix. He plans to trap the Genie inside the Dagger Rock crystal and absorb all his semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic power, in order to become all-powerful. He nearly captures the Genie, but Jasmine ends up trapping him and Xerxes inside the crystal instead.

The Wind Jackals of Mozenrath
Aladdin, Jasmine and Abu are infiltrating the Land of the Black Sand. They learned from the Sultan's spies that Mozenrath found a magical weapon, powerful enough to destroy the Seven Deserts one by one, and they plan to steal and to destroy this weapon before it's brought to Mozenrath's palace. They manage to steal the carriage which transports the weapon and to deceive Mozenrath himself, and rush back to Agrabah.

Back in Agrabah, Iago discovers where they went. Convinced that they went on a treasure hunt without him, he goes to the Land of the Black Sand with Genie and Carpet, who got detected by the magic-detecting crystals dispersed all over the land. Mozenrath swiftly captures them and deduces from their words that Aladdin is already here. He then understands who the carriage driver really was and sets up an ambush. The whole gang is captured and ends up chained in a room inside Mozenrath's palace, restrained by anti-magic chains which prevents even Genie from escaping. A huge diamond in the ceiling will absorb and amplify the light and heat by sunrise, burning them all to a crisp. Before leaving, Mozenrath shows them his weapon: Sirocco, a very powerful, one-of-a-kind, wind jackal, able to turn into a highly destructive tornado. With this beast in his army, Mozenrath would easily take over the Seven Deserts.

Mozenrath leaves them to die and goes to destroy Agrabah as a revenge. However he did not know about Abu's talents for thievery. The monkey always has a needle with him and using it with his tail, he manages to free Genie, who destroys the diamond and frees the others. They rush to Agrabah and battle Mozenrath, but even Genie is no match for Sirocco. Ultimately, Iago imitates Mozenrath's voice and orders Sirocco to go to the farthest corner of the earth and never come back, defeating the sorcerer once more.

Black Sand
One night in Agrabah, Mozenrath captures the royal guards and traps them in a shifting sand-like pool of black sand. The following morning, the guards are seen alive and well, yet acting strangely, as if they were robots. They gather hundreds of barrels full of black sand in the courtyard, and manage to trap Jasmine in it. This doesn't go unnoticed, as Iago and Abu later see Jasmine holding a barrel, and not answering to them. Later, Genie is swallowed by the black sand as well and re-emerges from it, now robot-like just like the others.

Aladdin, Iago, Abu and Carpet soon discover that Mozenrath replaced everyone in the palace by his undead Mamluks, shape-shifted to resemble the ones they are impersonating. They fail to save the Sultan and Aladdin himself is soon cast into the black sand by Mozenrath. Iago then tries to distract Mozenrath while Abu keeps Xerxes at bay and Carpet dives into the black sand and reaches the dimensional void where everyone is trapped, with a rope attached at the other side, helping everyone to escape. In the ensuing battle, Mozenrath casts a very powerful magical blast, which Genie sends back, throwing the sorcerer into his own black sand, despite Xerxes' efforts to save him.

Vocal Hero
The clumsy thief, and recurring comedic villain, Amin Damoola infiltrates the palace, wearing winged sandals that enable him to fly. He then uses a magic powder that turns the Sultan into a small golden statue, which he takes with him before departing. Aladdin and Carpet chase him and manage to get the Sultan statue back, but Amin uses a bewitched monkey paw to steal the statue again and defeats Aladdin with a magical cotton swab that conjures clouds of cotton, enveloping the heroes.

Iago and Carpet later manage to retrieve the statue and to capture Amin Damoola. Later, the Genie (who has been away until now) states that a Griffin's claw is necessary to lift the spell on the Sultan. Unfortunately the one who hired Amin took away every Griffin in the Seven Deserts. Amin is thrown to jail and chained over a pit full of crocodiles by Razoul. Then, a magical gate opens revealing Mozenrath, the one for whom he works and from whom he got all these relics. The sorcerer plans to hold the Sultan hostage and claim a ransom, but he chose the wrong thief. He scolds his incompetent henchman and reminds him that 1) he still has two relics left, 2) if he succeeds he will become the most respected thief ever, 3) if he fails, his punishment will be dreadful. Amin uses the Belt of Invisibility to escape his cell, trapping Aladdin and Jasmine in it, and to steal the Sultan statue for the third time. Meanwhile, Mozenrath appears to taunt his foes and edict his conditions.

Iago manages to steal the magic belt, forcing Amin to use the last relic: the Stone of Transformation which he uses to become a huge and powerful Griffin, whose eyes shoots energy beams, before engaging a fight against Aladdin. (He has already forgotten about the Griffin's claw needed to end the spell, much to Mozenrath's dismay.) Amin soon takes down both Genie and Aladdin, and it's Iago, using the Belt of Invisibility who takes back both the Sultan and the claw needed. Genie then uses a magic mirror to send back Amin's eye-beams, which zaps him and returns him to his human form. Shortly after, an angry Mozenrath appears to take him to a dire future of servitude.

The Lost City of the Sun
Mozenrath enslaved a whole tribe of Sprites and he is forcing them to dig the whole desert around the lost City of the Sun, hoping to find the mythical Sun of Shamash: an extremely potent magical artifact which generates fire and heat like a real sun. Knowing that the entire Sprite tribe is too much to handle, even for him, he locked the majority away and only has a dozen Sprites to do the work. One of the Sprites manages to flee and rushes to Aladdin for help. (Aladdin got acquainted with the Sprite tribe in a previous episode.)

The Sprite leads Aladdin and his crew to the City of the Sun, where they spy on Mozenrath. The sorcerer tells the Sprites that the "hand in the sand" leads to the Sun of Shamash, and the Sprites just uncovered a statue buried in the sand, pointing in a direction. So he makes them dig in this direction. Hearing this, Aladdin resolves to find the Sun and use it to defeat Mozenrath. While he and carpet investigate the ruins, Genie, Abu and Iago sneak into the temple where the Sprite tribe is held captive, in order to free them. At this moment, Xerxes enters the temple to fetch more Sprites to work. The three, transformed into Sprites to avoid being spotted, follow them. They soon discover that the statue led to another statue, which leads to another, which leads to another, and so on and so forth, irking Mozenrath greatly. Meanwhile, Aladdin and Carpet find the real "hand in the sand," a huge geoglyph pointing towards a point in the ruins where the Sun is buried.

Iago convinces the Sprites to stop working and to start a strike, prompting Xerxes to warn Mozenrath. The sorcerer recognizes the three odd-looking Sprites and reverts them back to their normal form. Genie then engages a fight but Mozenrath effortlessly sends him flying far away, right on the Sun of Shamash. The sorcerer follows him and activates the Sun. He then takes control of it and prepares to destroy Aladdin. However, Carpet, Iago and Abu managed to free the Sprite tribe, and they use the statues to shield Aladdin from the Sun's deadly fire blasts. The Sprites ultimately steal Mozenrath's gauntlet and bury it somewhere in the desert, before casting the Sun of Shamash into space.

The Hunted
One night in Agrabah, Aladdin, Jasmine and their friends are chased by a mysterious creature, who makes them disappear one by one until only Genie remains. The creature now reveals itself to be the Mukthar: the sole survivor of an ancient species of genie-hunters, who now works for hire, and whom Aladdin and his gang - once again - met in a previous episode. The Mukthar has been tracked down by Mozenrath's undead Mamluks for months and he needs Genie's help to defeat the sorcerer. (Mozenrath wants to use the Mukthar's abilities to sense and to capture magic all for himself.) The Mukthar imprisoned everyone inside a magical locket and uses them as hostages, given that Genie would very unlikely help his old enemy without coercion.

The two go to the Land of the Black Sand and infiltrate Mozenrath's palace. There, they accidentally enter the greenhouse, where a gigantic carnivorous plant captures the Mukthar whom it nearly eats, before Genie saves him. Now the Mukthar owes his enemy a debt of honor. They next reach a large room where a huge Crystal of Ix has been placed. Genie is immediately sucked inside and Mozenrath appears with a satisfied look. This entire situation was nothing but a clever scheme devised by the sorcerer to get the Genie where he wanted him. The Mukthar tells Mozenrath that he had to kill the others, who were too dangerous. This news infuriates the sorcerer, who wanted to kill Aladdin himself. In the end, Mozenrath handsomely rewards the Mukthar, who takes his leave under Genie's insults. Then, Mozenrath begins to absorb Genie's power to increase his own.

In the desert of the Land of the Black Sand, the Mukthar releases Genie's friends, (who weren't actually dead) and tells them that he is paying his debt by taking them out of harm. As the Mukthar departs, Aladdin resolves to rescue his friend, and the gang sneaks into the palace to battle Mozenrath. Unfortunately for them, the sorcerer is now way over his, already immense, usual level of power. (And he still has lots of power to absorb.) Mozenrath effortlessly defeats them all, by conjuring chains and sentient, winged, snakes of energy, before turning Jasmine into stone. In the end, the Mukthar returns, destroys the Crystal of Ix and ensnares Mozenrath with his magic-trapping bolas, knocking him out and repaying his debt of honor for real. Genie gets back his powers and he and the Mukthar start a friendly truce.

The Book of Khartoum
Mozenrath has found the legendary book of Khartoum, after seven years of research. The spirit of the evil sorcerer Khartoum, sealed inside his own book, is awoken by Mozenrath's magic and Mozenrath demands to know all of his secrets. Khartoum tells Mozenrath how to create a Philosopher's Stone: an incredibly powerful artifact that contains all the magic of the universe. The first ingredients are very easy for Mozenrath to gather, but when Khartoum tells him that he needs a source of cosmic powers, he thinks of Genie, whom he plans to capture again.

Meanwhile in Agrabah, Genie prepares to go on a date with his girlfriend, the female genie Eden. He waits for her on a beach, where a hooded figure conducting a carriage suddenly appears. Genie gets in the carriage, stating that a walk along the beach at night would be very romantic, but he just fell in a ( rather obvious) trap and the carriage is transformed to an anti-magic cage, while the hooded figure reveals himself to be Mozenrath. However, Abu and Iago saw everything and report it to Eden, who came to the palace with her master: a young orphan girl named Dhandi. Furious, Eden goes to the Land of the Black Sand to get her boyfriend back, followed by Aladdin, Abu, Iago and Carpet.

Mozenrath places Genie in a huge, glass bottle, linked to the magic kettle where he is making the Philosopher's Stone, and starts to absorb all his power into the furnace. But even the Genie's whole magic isn't enough. Then, Eden storms into the castle demanding Genie, but she cannot free him. Eden ultimately offers Mozenrath to take her instead, and the sorcerer feigns to accept, but she ends up trapped as well. (At least she got re-united with Genie.) Aladdin arrives and tries to stop his enemy, but Mozenrath sends the whole group flying through the window, to the desert.

With both Genie's and Eden's power, the Philosopher Stone is completed at last, but Khartoum takes it for himself and uses it to escape the book in which he has been trapped for so many centuries. Mozenrath protests and attacks the double-crosser, but Khartoum now wields incredible powers granted by the Philosopher's Stone, and neither he, nor Aladdin who has come back are a match for him. Khartoum grows in size to gigantic proportions and unleashes countless bolts of lightning, destroying the palace and the kettle, which frees the two powerless genies. Genie and Eden then perform a ritual that gives them back their power, before engaging a fight against Khartoum. They manage to steal his Philosopher's Stone, which was filled with too much cosmic power and is about to explode. The stone's destruction makes Khartoum, whose life was somehow linked to it, disappear forever and imprison him back inside his book again.

Two to Tangle
Because of his gauntlet that drains his life force, Mozenrath has little time left to live. Like many other villains in this situation, he decides to transfer his soul into a young and strong body.

Later in Agrabah, Aladdin, Jasmine and Genie are playing polo, riding winged dragons. Jasmine and Genie go away chasing the ball and leaving Aladdin alone; but Jasmine soon reappears with her dragon and the polo ball, and offers Aladdin a walk in the garden. A little bit puzzled by the quickness with which she caught the ball, Aladdin accepts. Then Genie and another Jasmine arrives, much to Aladdin's astonishment. The first Jasmine is then revealed to be a shape-shifted Mozenrath. (In a very detailed disguise.) The sorcerer teleports back to his palace, taking Aladdin with him. He plans to exchange bodies with his enemy, taking Aladdin's strong body and leaving Aladdin condemned to die soon inside his own.

Aladdin's friends storm into the palace and interrupt the exchange, which turns Mozenrath into a small stone statue, and frees Aladdin. Back in Agrabah, Aladdin puts Mozenrath's statue and gauntlet in a chest, which he places in a cell, protected by an alarm system set by Genie. Yet, Aladdin feels tired and experiences strange mood swings. The following night, the gang discovers that Aladdin snuck into the cell to take Mozenrath's gauntlet. When Aladdin looks at his reflection in a shield, it suddenly turns into Mozenrath. It appears that, because of the failed exchange, Mozenrath's soul is now trapped inside Aladdin's body and that the two alternatively switch control of it. The only thing that could help them is the legendary Elixir of Life.

The gang, followed by Xerxes, is forced to let Mozenrath guide them to a temple in the desert, where the Elixir of Life is kept. Aladdin-Mozenrath quickly blasts away the huge sand worms who guard the elixir with his bolts of dark fire. Aladdin-Mozenrath then drinks the elixir, but Mozenrath has changed his mind and he attempts to destroy Aladdin's mind from the inside. Even now that the elixir has res,tored his lifespan, the sorcerer wants Aladdin's body for himself -- likely because of Aladdin's better physical condition. Mozenrath's and Aladdin's souls do battle inside Aladdin's body but Aladdin proves able to use his willpower like a weapon and outmatches Mozenrath, who is sent back to his restored body.

Aladdin takes Mozenrath's gauntlet away and Genie locks the sorcerer and Xerxes in an anti-magic cage attached to a hot air balloon; which he sends flying far, far away, defeating Mozenrath for the last time.

When Chaos Comes Calling
Mozenrath made a brief cameo appearance along with Abis Mal and Mechanicles on Genie's T.V. screen.

Trivia

 * Disney studied Jonathan Brandis' appearance and movements, and incorporated them into Mozenrath's character.
 * Mozenrath was also voiced by Jeff Bennett in the episode "Black Sand".
 * Mozenrath's name comes from the writers Bill Motz and Bob Roth. They also wrote the first Mozenrath episode, "The Citadel".
 * Mozenrath is the second most recurring villain (next to Abis Mal) in the Aladdin TV Series, appearing in nine episodes.
 * Mozenrath's Mamluks are named for the slave soldiers who served the Muslim rulers during the Middle Ages.
 * Mozenrath was designed by Paul Felix, art director at Disney features.
 * Despite popular belief Mozenrath is not Jafar's son. In the episode Black Sand,Iago tries to distract Mozenrath bringing up Jafar asking Mozenrath if ever heard of him to which the young sorcerer doesn't even react. Iago has often called Mozenrath "Jafar, Jr." because of the sorcerers' similarities.
 * The Aladdin staff first planned to make Mozenrath appear in the third movie as the primary antagonist. However, they later decided to distance themselves from the television series, because they couldn't get in touch with Jonathan Brandis among other reasons. This started a rumor, according to which Mozenrath would have been revealed to be Aladdin's long lost older brother. The idea was recycled into Cassim, Aladdin's father and leader of the Forty Thieves.