Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lambin. This is the Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: focusing in no mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
Speaker 2: We just came off a five part series on various
Speaker 2: monsters and mutants from the world of Marvel Comics, so
Speaker 2: now we're going to dive into the world of d
Speaker 2: C comics with another five selections to discuss. Most of
Speaker 2: the ones I'd picked out for this runner fairly well known,
Speaker 2: but I thought i'd start with a more obscure pick.
Speaker 2: My thanks to former Stuff to Blow Your Mind co
Speaker 2: host Christian Seger for bringing this one to my attention.
Speaker 2: Meet mister Mind, a tiny Venusian worm or caterpillar to
Speaker 2: be clear. He has legs with enormous power at its disposal.
Speaker 2: Created in DC comics in the early nineteen forties by
Speaker 2: Auto Bender and C. C. Beck, Mister Mind stands as
Speaker 2: one of the primary supervillains of Captain Marvel. Not the
Speaker 2: Marvel Captain Marvel, but the DC Captain Marvel. Minds you.
Speaker 2: This is the one that moviegoers may know best as Shazam.
Speaker 2: Mister Mind also makes a couple of cameo appearances in
Speaker 2: those films. Now, mister Mind boats incredible psychic powers and
Speaker 2: a genius level intellect to back those powers up, so
Speaker 2: he's gotten into all sorts of mischief over the years,
Speaker 2: including founding the Monster Society of Evil. He also employs
Speaker 2: at least two key bits of technology, special classes and
Speaker 2: an audio amplifier to interact with the larger world, because again,
Speaker 2: despite his powers, he is a tiny worm or caterpillar.
Speaker 2: But what I want to focus on is his old
Speaker 2: and frankly odd origin story from the Silver Age of comics,
Speaker 2: in which he makes the interplanetary void from Venus to
Speaker 2: Earth in order to meet ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy.
Speaker 2: This was Slash is a real ventriloquist dummy. Mister Mind,
Speaker 2: you see, had heard Charlie McCarthy on Earth's radio program
Speaker 2: Transmissions and apparently mistook fiction for reality. He was, of
Speaker 2: course disappointed upon learning the truth. It's a common sci
Speaker 2: fi trope explored on Futurama and elsewhere. Extraterrestrials pick up
Speaker 2: on transmissions from Earth and either misunderstand the difference between
Speaker 2: fiction and reality, or simply lack the ability to tell
Speaker 2: the difference. There are even more sci fi works that
Speaker 2: explore the larger idea of intercepted Earth transmissions, most notably
Speaker 2: Carl Sagan's nineteen eighty five novel Contact the Si. In
Speaker 2: the sci fi here is, of course that for more
Speaker 2: than one hundred years we've been busting out commercial radio
Speaker 2: transmissions here on Earth. However, is Robert Matthews points out
Speaker 2: in a BBC Science Focus article. Most of these signals
Speaker 2: were absorbed by the atmosphere or drowned out by solar
Speaker 2: radio transmissions, so our radio leakage as a planet was
Speaker 2: perhaps minimal. However, Matthews stresses that Cold War military radar
Speaker 2: transmissions are strong enough to have already broadcast our presence
Speaker 2: out to anyone listening within sixty light years. There have
Speaker 2: also been deliberate radio transmissions aimed at communicating our existence,
Speaker 2: such as the nineteen seventy four Arecibo message sent to
Speaker 2: Messia thirteen, or at least in the spirit of such communication,
Speaker 2: but the basic idea of such transmissions either emanating from
Speaker 2: US or potentially picked up from an extraterrestrial source, has
Speaker 2: garnered much discussion and debate over the decades, how likely
Speaker 2: is alien reception or our reception of an alien transmission
Speaker 2: based on the vast distances involved in limits of possible
Speaker 2: travel speeds as we know them, How should we approach
Speaker 2: such long term concerns, and just how careful should we
Speaker 2: be when it comes to such radio transmissions or even
Speaker 2: our radio leakage. Because while our most optimistic views of
Speaker 2: extraterrestrial contact are rosy, indeed some of the more pessimistic models,
Speaker 2: based in large part on Earth's own history of outside contact,
Speaker 2: situations in which one culture encounters a technologically superior one
Speaker 2: are perhaps best avoided. And then there's the mister Mind model,
Speaker 2: in which we manage to attract a caterpillar supervillain to
Speaker 2: our planet with our tantalizing nineteen forties radio comedy shows.
Speaker 2: Thank goodness, we have so many Captain Marvels to deal
Speaker 2: with that sort of thing. Tune in for additional episodes
Speaker 2: of The Monster Fact each week, and if you want
Speaker 2: to check in on the work of Christian Sager, visit
Speaker 2: Christiansager dot org. That's hr S t I A n
Speaker 2: SA ger dot org. As always, you can email me
Speaker 2: at contact at stuffd blow your mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.