Monday, January 03, 2011

Mysta of the Moon - Chapter 19

In Planet Comics #53 (March 1948) Mysta goes full Diana Prince in disguising herself as an older, unappealing tourist as she indulges in a holiday, leaving Bron behind in her fortress on the moon. The robot tags along though Mysta only seems to use it to play long-distance tennis. I guess Bron knows where he stands now.

Typically for Mysta trouble follows, though it seems something of a coincidence that Mysta is undercover at a resort in the same general vicinity as the lab of a scientist who is experimenting with a strange material she loaned out for study.

The material responds to thought, re-arranging its structure to the whims of the shaper. While the substance could be used to create almost anything to benefit (or even ruin) mankind petty criminals attempt to steal the material to make easily transferable gold coins. While the thieves are somewhat limited by their base desires for a quick space-dollar Mysta is not so handicapped and has the brain-power and imagination to make short work of the bad guys in her own way.

I'm cynical enough to speculate that Mysta loaning out such a dangerous material may have been in part an experiment of her own. A substance with the potential to build cities from the molecules up is too much of a boon to file away. Mysta may have been testing people in general to see what they would do when given such a gift. The professor may have failed the test right out of the gate. rather than build power-stations or food-dispensers the first practical item he created was a cloak that rendered the wearer invisible, something that would have little use outside of the spy trade. The thieves may have sealed the deal as far as Mysta was concerned by murdering the professor and setting up a counterfeit coin factory. After that adventure she certainly had no intention of making the special material available to the public no matter the good it could do if put to use in positive ways.

Planet Comics 53 - Mysta (March 1948) 00

Planet Comics 53 - Mysta (March 1948) 01

Planet Comics 53 - Mysta (March 1948) 02

Planet Comics 53 - Mysta (March 1948) 03

Planet Comics 53 - Mysta (March 1948) 04

Planet Comics 53 - Mysta (March 1948) 05

Planet Comics 53 - Mysta (March 1948) 06

Planet Comics 53 - Mysta (March 1948) 07

2 comments:

  1. I assume that was irony, when you claimed the disguised Mysta was "unappealing." Rrrow!

    I also assume that by this point, the writer(s?) had long since forgotten Bron wasn't really Bron but an impostor.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Unappealing" by comic book cliche standards, yes.

    And it is clear that the creators were not too concerned about continuity as far as Bron was concerned. The nature of the industry probably didn't allow or encourage logical progression in their stories. Even the most continual serial of Planet Comics, The Lost World, gave only the illusion of change each issue.

    The disposable nature of the entertainment and the somewhat rambling continuity is what leads to my (and others) fan-wank commentary in filling in the gaps left out by the creators.

    ReplyDelete

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