Who's Out There?

Beware of the man who only dreams logical dreams! That says a lot about Luthor’s personality, actually.

This legendary encounter between Mr. Mind and Luthor comes to us from “Captain Marvel Meets… Lex Luthor?!”, written by Dennis O’Neil, pencilled by Bob Oksner and inked by Tex Blaisdell.  It’s part of a 100-page issue (Shazam! no. 15, November-December 1974), which I think was my first exposure to The Big Red Cheese… and I was instantly hooked, even though I’m not generally fond of cross-overs (or, generally speaking, super-heroes). These issues may not cost 60 cents anymore, but they’re still totally worth tracking down!

Mr. Mind is usually considered to be a worm, but frankly, he looks more like a caterpillar (which is more dignified, anyway). In his quest for world dominion, he hatched many a plan to topple world order, some of which I will enumerate for readers’ enjoyment so you can admire the impressive span of Mr. Mind’s machinations:

• To crush North America beneath a giant glacier using a giant gyroscope that makes the Earth shift on its axis.
• To make Captain Marvel his mental slave using Billy Batson.
• To topple all the buildings in Captain Marvel’s home city by controlling an army of worms and termites.
• To trap the United States in eternal darkness by stopping the Earth’s rotation.
• To use the ten-mile-long gun “Great Big Bertha” to literally blow holes in America and Russia.
• To invade Scotland from an artificial floating island of ice.
• To cause a giant volcano to erupt in the middle of Britain.

So if you encounter an angry-looking (but myopic) caterpillar on your travels, please mind what you say.

~ ds