Mysta Meets Super-Brain

Having one supervillain picking up the world domination gig after a previous one was ultimately defeated is a rare occurrence in comics, but this was almost unheard of in 1945 with Planet Comics Issue #36. The previous few dozen issues had the actual god of war Mars in his own segment in the comic where he would possess people and cause discord throughout the galaxy. His last scheme had nearly succeeded as he had caused all the universities on Earth to be destroyed, but the clever heroine Mysta Of The Moon was able to use her accumulated knowledge and handy robot partner to thwart Mars once and for all. In Mysta's first solo adventure we see her match wits with a totally different villain who was featured in Fiction House's other title of Rangers Comics. Super-Brain was the adversary of the Rangers Of Freedom, a special military group put together in WWII to fight this bizarre telepath who had actually set up the Axis Powers to start the whole war in the first place. Super-Brain was really an alien who was apparently offed by the Rangers but really escaped and bided his time all the way from the 1940s to Mysta's future timeline, which in the comics was a three-year gap between appearances, so it was kind an odd thing to bring back a supervillain to a totally different title after all that time. The moon maiden lands on a space terminal which she finds covered in a curious fungus that had infected people there killing them. Mysta and her robot are suddenly confronted by a horde of men all with transparent plastic skull caps to show that they are missing their brains. The mindless thugs use the fungus on Mysta's robot which corrodes it stiff and knock out our heroine. Mysta wakes up captured by Super-Brain who somehow already knew about the prior attempts by Mars to take over the galaxy which is odd because Mars was more like an evil spirit that went around taking control of host bodies, so S.B. must have had some Ghostbusting tech to keep track of the Roman deity. Since Mars' last effort had left parts of the universe a tangled mess, Super-Brain decided to finally come out of retirement and try being the new Space Hitler. Mr. Brain sends Mysta to be brainwashed, even though she manages to get loose and frees the surviving human prisoners. Mysta finds a nearby "fungus gun" which stops Super-Brain from riding away on his future scooter covering the villain in his own weapon. Super-Brain disintegrates along with his whole starship, meaning that he's totally dead, at least this time, but considering her already came back from the brink of destruction a half-dozen times, it's surprising that he didn't get another resurrection like most movie monsters. Mysta continued her cosmic crusade for another five years in the pages of Planet Comics, but after defeating two separate long-time supervillains, her further chronicles gained more attention just because she's another attractive blonde in a skimpy space outfit.

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