Crisis Mordru has a special power that states:

DARK LORD: Mordru can use Barrier, Energy Explosion, Psychic Blast, Pulse Wave, Smoke Cloud, and Telekinesis. Mordru has the giant damage symbol.

Does this mean that any character adjacent to a character hit with pulse wave gets penetrating splash damage dealt to them?

Thanks in advance!

Short answer? No.

Longer answer - Pulse Wave doesn't deal penetrating damage, it ignores the powers and abilities of any character inside the area of effect. Any character inside the AoE that would be hit by splash damage from the attack has already been hit by the Pulse Wave, so they can't take splash damage. Any character outside the AoE but adjacent to the target could be hit by splash damage, but their powers and abilities are NOT being ignored. So any potential splash damage from a Pulse Wave attack with Energy Explosion would be normal damage that can be reduced/ignored.

Only by using a specific ranged combat action to use Psychic Blast would the damage dealt by Energy Explosion become penetrating damage, and that's because PB specifically changes the damage itself to penetrating damage, rather than ignoring other character's powers.

ah I see. Two separate ranged combat actions