The Untold Truth Of Mister Mind

Considering that he's often called "The World's Mightest Mortal," most of Shazam's major enemies are the kind of world-shattering threats that you'd expect. There's Black Adam, who channels the same thunder and lightning superpowers that Shazam does, but on the side of evil. There's Dr. Sivana, a twisted mastermind with designs on conquering the entire world — and, for some reason, the planet Venus. There's Captain Nazi, a fascist superman who... well, that guy's deal is probably pretty obvious.

And then there's Mister Mind. For over 75 years, one of Shazam's most ruthless, sinister, and powerful enemies has been a tiny little cartoon worm who wears tiny little cartoon glasses and has to talk through a tiny little radio. But don't judge him by his adorable appearance — either on the comics page or in the credits scene following 2019's Shazam! movie, during which he reveals himself as our hero's next major threat. He's one of the greatest villains in comic book history, even if his most diabolical plot won't be reprinted any time soon. As for why that is, here's the untold truth behind Mr. Mind.

At the start of "The Monster Society of Evil," Mr. Mind only appeared as a disembodied voice crackling over a radio. The true identity of this mysterious mastermind who was uniting all of the world's greatest villains — a roster that, incidentally, included Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini along with fictional supervillains like Mr. Banjo and the crocodile men — wouldn't be revealed for five months.

First, a strangely angry-looking green worm showed up in Captain Marvel Adventures #26, dropping onto Shazam's shoulder only to be brushed off. The next issue, after Mr. Mind telepathically commanded an army of termites to topple skyscrapers (which was somehow not his weirdest plan in this story), Shazam finally discovered his true identity. With that, the evil mastermind was revealed as a worm wearing glasses who spoke through a tiny little old-timey radio speakerbox fastened around his neck.

Mr. Mind's origin was explained in pretty simple terms: he was, of course, a super-intelligent worm from another planet who came to Earth in order to conquer it, because that's what super-intelligent space worms do. Listen, if you already have people reading a comic where the villain is trying to help Hitler stop the rotation of the world so that Nazi Germany can enjoy 24 hours a day of pleasant noontime sunlight, you can skip out on a few of the details.

"The Monster Society of Evil" was a groundbreaking and innovative story, but if you haven't heard of it, there's a reason for that. It's only ever been reprinted once, in 1989, in a version that was limited to 3,000 copies and wasn't even published by DC, the company that owns the character. The reason? Well, it's the same reason that there are very few people lining up to buy copies of Birth of a Nation: despite its high points and technical achievements, it's a story that's full of racist imagery.

The idea of sending Shazam on a globetrotting adventure might sound good, but like many comics of the time, the tendency to rely on racist caricatures meant that Binder and Beck populated their version of Africa with jarringly offensive characters, and it didn't stop there. As was the case for a lot of media during World War II, including plenty of infamous Superman, Batman, and Captain America comics, Captain Marvel Adventures included Japanese characters that were grotesquely exaggerated to the point of being shown with fangs.

To make matters worse, this story came out during a mercifully short period when Shazam had an extremely regrettable sidekick named Steamboat, a minstrel show stereotype that's offensively exaggerated even by the standards of the time. Considering that Shazam has always appealed to younger readers, it makes sense that DC wouldn't be in a hurry to have that kind of story brought back with a load of fanfare, even with an acknowledgment of its problems. No matter how important "Monster Society" might be, there are plenty of other great Shazam stories they could put back into print instead.

Eventually, DC bought the Shazam characters outright, and after restructuring their universe in the '80s, they incorporated them into the DC Universe proper. That led to the 1995 launch of The Power of Shazam, which gave the Shazam family a modern update while still retaining some retro elements. Retro elements like, say, Mr. Mind's ridiculously high body count.

In this version, Mr. Mind was a suitably pulpy-sounding Venusian mind-worm. He was one of many, in fact, with the entire species existing as a hive mind. In addition to telepathically communicating with each other, the Mind Worms could crawl into a human's ear canal and use mind-control powers on their host. The specific worm that we'd come to know as Mr. Mind was actually the second Venusian mind worm to target Earth, with references to a predecessor who showed up in the '40s, battled the superheroes of that day, and was hauled back to space to stand trial by that era's Green Lantern.

His successor had a significantly greater impact. After gaining the power of his entire species when they were destroyed on Venus, he set his sights on Earth, looking for revenge. In one of the most shocking moments of violence in the entire series, he blew up Billy Batson's hometown (and everyone in it) with a nuclear explosion, and then attacked Washington, DC while wearing a humanoid carapace and projecting an illusion of a kaiju-sized mindworm. Eventually, though, he was apprehended by Shazam, and then popped like a water balloon by Sarge Steel.

Shazam himself was rebooted in 2011, and his roster of villains got a fresh new update as well. The most drastic change came for Dr. Sivana, but Mister Mind made an interesting return, too, and as weird as it might seem given how complicated the character has been in the past, the new version seems like a synthesis of the different approaches in his long, strange history.

Once again, he's back to basics as a tiny worm, and once again, he's crawling around in people's ears with designs on controlling them. This time, though, he's teamed up with the current version of Dr. Sivana, who has a glowing eye with the nebulous ability to "see magic." With the reveal that the Shazam family can access an interconnected world of seven magic realms called the Magiclands, it became clear that Mr. Mind was also back to his dimension-eating ways, too. According to Sivana's copy of The Encyclopedia of Magical Monsters — which also gives his first name as "Maxivermis" — Mr. Mind's goal is "nothing less than consuming and controlling all the power of the Magiclands." Oh, and also that he killed King Solomon. You know, from the Bible? You'd think they would've mentioned the evil talking caterpillar in there somewhere.

Considering that the 2019 Shazam movie is inspired heavily by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's Shazam reboot, it stands to reason that if Mr. Mind ever becomes a big-screen villain, that might be the approach they go with.