Now distrustful of his protege, the scientist plots to murder him, but Paxton escapes in the company of other experimental victims of the master mind and proceeds to Phundahl on his quest to retrieve Valla Dia's original body.

Ras's chance to turn the tables comes when the earthman John Carter, Warlord of Mars and prince of Helium, seeks his surgical aid for his wife Dejah Thoris, injured in an accident.

One hormad, Ras's pupil Pew Mogel, is later revealed in "John Carter and the Giant of Mars" (1940) to have escaped from Morbus and established a new base in the dead city of Korvas, from which he continues to plot world conquest using the scientific skills he gleaned from his mentor.

As payment he seeks professional help from psychologist Shea; since Paxton transplanted his brain from his original aged body into his present young and virile one, he has had difficulty adjusting to changed societal expectations, not to mention the youthful urges of his new form.

In turn, Ras helps Shea win a duel with an assassin by employing his superior mental powers to make the hired killer believe he is confronting six Harolds rather than one.