In every installment of “If I Pass This Way Again,” we look at comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced.

Today, we look at a bit of a twist on the topic, which is the fact that Mister Mind, when he debuted, wasn't actually a worm yet, but only because his creator had no idea WHAT he was at first!

Mister Mind, of course, is well known as the super-intelligent alien worm who has caused all sorts of problem for Captain Marvel/Shazam over the years. Here is Mister Mind from his Who's Who? entry from 1986 with an awesome drawing of the villain by Scott Shaw!...

However, that worm form didn't show up until well into the classic story, The Monster Society of Evil, by Otto Binder and C.C. Beck that began in Captain Marvel Adventures #22. No, when we first "meet" Mister Mind, he was simply a voice...

A voice that loved evil SO MUCH! He teamed up with Captain Nazi, but not because Mister Mind was a Nazi. No, he just loved evil and he figured Captain Nazi could help him do a little evil...

He later taunts Captain Marvel...

In the next issue, we learn that Mister Mind lives on a weird world out in space somewhere...

In Captain Marvel Adventures #24, Mister Mind turns to Doctor Sivana...

They are a delightful pair together...

At the end of the issue, Billy is frozen solid in a block of ice, Captain America-style!

Luckily, a bear knocks him over in the next issue...

Billy finally figures out where Mister Mind is based...

But when he gets to his base, he confuses one of Mister Mind's subjects for Mister Mind...

This goes on for a little bit ("No, that's not me, that's a robot!").

And when a worm drops on Billy Batson, he thinks nothing of it...

Howevever, at the end of the issue, Mister Mind has escaped! How did Billy miss him?

See how Billy finally met Mister Mind and learn how Binder came up with the idea of making him a worm!

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In Captain Marvel Adventures #27, Mister Mind is hiding in an apple when Captain Marvel's valet tries to eat the apple and Mister Mind has to escape! He seems like he is about to be crushed...

But, well, suffice it to say that this storyline continued for another TWENTY ISSUES, so no, he did not die there.

In the seventh issue of the ORIGINAL Alter Ego, before he was ever a famous comic book writer and editor, Roy Thomas interview Otto Binder about the topic and Binder explained what he was thinking:

in 1964's Alter Ego #7, Roy Thomas had the following fascinating piece of information from Otto Binder himself...

Mr. Mind wasn't a worm, at least not for the first half dozen chapters [Binder is off by a couple of issues, but what's a couple of issues between friends? -BC}. The CMA (Captain Marvel Adventures) brain-trust composed of Wendell Crowley as editor, Charles Clarence Beck as artist, and myself as scripter, got our heads together to figure out just WHO or WHAT Mr. Mind should be, after I invented him as a diembodied voice.

We undoubtedly went thru a hundred concepts, until somebody (and, frankly, in those skull sessions, I have no idea who first thought of any particular gimmick)..somebody said, "Why not take the most unusual thing we can think of? Not the traditional human or galactic villain, nor robot, nor this this nor that of the routine masterminds, but just the goofiest of all things---maybe a worm!"

I vaguely recall that this was enthusiastically endorsed by us with much laughter and a tongue-in-cheek attitude, we had not idea that thing would become POPULAR!!?? We truly were amazed at the electrifying response...letters pouring in...and believe me, with a readership of over one million as we had in those days, the mail can become pretty imposing. A rousing consensus simply loved Mr. Mind! Why? We never figured it out. You figure it out, you researchers today into the mysterious hypnotic power that comic characters had on readers.

Awesome stuff. Thanks to Roy and the late Otto Binder for the information! Be sure to check out the Roy Thomas Appreciation Board on Facebook!

As noted, this was a bit of a twist on the standard topic of this column, but if anyone wants to make a suggestion for the more normal topic of the column, namely an interesting plot point that was introduced and then almost instantaneously ignored, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!