TRULY GONE & FORGOTTEN : MASTER MYSTIC

Very little must be as satisfying to the hungry blood of a young comics creator than to skip all the table setting and get straight to gnawing on the roast turkey, crouched in the middle of the table like a chimp.

So, that being said, Master Mystic must have been a very satisfying morsel indeed. Debuting in the sole issue of Green Giant Comics (1940), Master Mystic appears in a pleasingly monochrome story in the middle pages. Something about the pink and red pages surrounding this tale of a great defender of humanity whose powers are simply limitless suits it, like a fever dream induced by blunt force head trauma.

"D'oh!"

Master Mystic's identity, origin, and motivation all remain unknown -- and irrelevant. All that we do know about him is the important stuff -- how, when and why he'll sock the hell out of giant world-conquering mutants, and how good he'll look doing it.

There's a field of superpowered crimefighters whose powers are so poorly defined as to make them effectively omnipotent. Master Mystic, by contrast, is specifically defined so as to be omnipotent. "By concentration," explain one panel, "He renders himself immune to the laws of nature!" Well, problem solved, that covers everything.

Among his immense abilities, Master Mystic can fly at the speed of thought, create missiles out of thin air, levitate boulders, broadcast his thoughts to the whole world and create "liquidating rays" which penetrate his foes' skulls and melt them "into nothing!" He can also take a sunrise an sprinkle it with dew.

Mr. M exercises his limitless powers on the form of Rango, the overrated animated feature starring Johnny Depp AND also an ape-like maniac scientist who harbors intense resentment of the world for repeatedly rebuffing his efforts to conquer it. His latest invention, a drug which transforms its user into a massive giant (it's whatever steroids they use in the WWE, I think), taller than skyscrapers, and which sort of resembles Homer Simpson.

Master Mystic has the bizarre body horror and occlusion of boundaries which define a Fletcher Hanks comic, although the creator of this title is unknown. It is one of the more entertaining examples of its field, the manic art brut branch of the earliest days of superheroes. There's a comic to be made out of handing this character off to a half dozen of the most experimental creators working today and seeing what they can make of it...

"There will be no sequel."