MADAM MERCILESS

Real Name: Unrevealed

Class: Human technology-user

Occupation: Supervillain

Group Affiliation: None

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Mobile, Earth-12

First Appearance: Plastic Man I #4 (May-June, 1967)

Powers: Madame Merciless was a master hypnotist and drove a car with gun turrets mounted on the hood.

History: (Plastic Man I #4) - French criminal mastermind Madam Merciless approached Dr. Dome, offering to make his nemesis Plastic Man his helpless slave in exchange for two million dollars, and Dome jumped at the offer. Madam De Lute and Mike De Lute attended a masked ball thrown by The Society to Preserve Aardvarks, and Mike invited her boyfriend Plas and his pal Gordy Trueblood. Madame Merciless appeared at the party, cutting in on Mike’s dance with Plas, and Plas thought he recognized her from somewhere, so he asked her outside to talk. She used her compact mirror to hypnotize Plas, and demanded he follow her out of the ball. Merciless employed two witch doctors, who cast a spell on Plas to make him follow any orders Dome gave him. Dome wanted to see if Plas really was under his control, and booted Plas in the rear, and then made him thank Dome for it. Plas inwardly fumed, neither the hypnotism nor the voodoo spell actually worked, he was just playing along to find out what Dome was up to. Merciless gave Plas a physical exam, cooing over how impressive his body was, and Lynx was enraged, jealous that she wasn’t the one with her hands all over Plastic Man. Lynx asked Dome if she could take Plas out for a spin, and he never could say no to his daughter. Lynx brought Plas to a park, and ordered him to kiss her, convinced that one kiss would forever make him her love slave. She then had Plas steal a mink coat for her, but they were spotted by Gordy and Mike, who’d been looking all over for Plas since he left the party. Lynx pushed Mike in front of a car, and Plas was forced to break his cover to save Mike. Madam Merciless had been trailing Lynx and Plas, and shot the hero with a hypno-dark before dragging him back to Dome’s headquarters and having her witch doctors cast another spell on Plas, and she promised Dome that this time she was absolutely certain it’d worked. Dome had Plas rob museums and an armored car before commanding him to walk across telephone lines to rob the Witherspoon mansion. Merciless had shortchanged her voodoo men for their work, so they undid the spell on Plas, who instantly snapped to, but lost his balance. Lynx, shot out of a cannon, Merciless riding a motorcycle, and Mike, flying a helicopter, all tried to keep Plas from falling. They all grabbed him at the same time, and in a tug-of-war over Plas ended up stripping him to his underwear. Plas captured Dr. Dome and handed him over to Captain McSniffe, who also arrested Plas for indecent exposure.

Comments: Created by Arnold Drake & Win Mortimer.