“I don’t know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public; they forget that invisibility is a superpower.”
— The anonymous street artist Banksy
Hypnotic invisibility, anyone?
In 1951, the Shadow was still using the power to cloud men’s minds he’d learned in the East to fight crime on the radio.
Meanwhile, on daily newspaper comics pages, Mandrake demonstrated the same trick as one of his super-hypnotic abilities.
In the 63rd Mandrake daily story, The Face Mystery, the crime-fighting magician learns that 10 stores hundreds of miles apart have been robbed virtually simultaneously by the same man, Punch, who was, in fact, in prison at the time.
Mandrake poses as a prisoner so he can use hypnosis to question Punchy, who turns out to know nothing about the robberies. Meanwhile, another set of robberies has been committed, seemingly by a man in the next cell, Horseface Harry.
Mandrake arranges to escape with Horseface, then becomes invisible in hopes that Horseface will lead him to his gang. Mandrake seemingly parts company with the escaped criminal, but actually turns invisible to tag along with him.
It turns out that the crime wave has been caused by a mastermind named Vic, who’s perfected his own form of “invisibility” — identical lifelike masks and fingerprint gloves that he provides to his gang. After Mandrake accidentally falls into Vic’s hands, the schemer turns his gang into Mandrake duplicates.
In a tense showdown, Mandrake manages to phone the police, and then seemingly causes the telephone receiver to trade places with a gun in Vic’s hand. Mandrake cheerfully walks through a wall as the police close in.
Comics historian Steve Smith notes that Mandrake’s creator, Lee Falk, “…energized his strips with zany, imaginative, improbable scenarios even as the art and characterization remain one-dimensional. After all, Mandrake prances in public – always – in full tails and cape, while his muscle, Lothar, tags along barefoot, in short shorts and slung leopard skin.”
“The most interesting aspect of Mandrake is the magic itself. The conceit started as a genuine magical power, but settled into some quasi-mind control motif.”
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