Mist Master

They are handy characters, useful in many campaigns. They’re deadly psychotic henchmen, comfortable working for a master villain but with an agenda of their own. They’ve got a handy array of abilities which allow them a lot of tactical choices. They excel at surprise attacks, but are less impressive when it comes to endurance.

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Background

Powers and Abilities

Mist Master can transform his body into a gaseous form of tremendous volume. This cloud can obscure vision or poison those within the cloud, causing unconsciousness or death (in DC Heroes RPG terms that’s Self-Linked Fog, Poison Touch).

His gaseous form does not have to be poisonous. But when he does transform into a poison gas, the entire gas cloud is poisonous. Thus he usually doesn’t become as large a gas cloud as he could.

In his gaseous form he is immune to most attacks as they simply pass through him (Fluid Form). In gaseous form he can fly through the air at about 60 mph.

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He’s quite willing to kill, and striking from ambush he can be extremely dangerous. In fact, his teammates at one time considered him likely to be the most powerful of them all. While I’d tend to give that honor to Lazon, there’s no doubt his ability to attack while avoiding injury himself makes him very dangerous.

He’s beaten Colossal Boy on one occasion, and Queen Projectra and Karate Kid on another. In both cases his victims were beaten quickly and had no chance to retaliate.

Mist Master has no real skills, apart from enough familiarity with space travel to operate freely in EVA  (Vehicles/Space). He has access to LSV equipment which allows him to fly, breathe, and communicate in space, though he typically relies on his own powers.

History

Mist Master was once a normal boy from the planet Korlon. That was the name given the planet by the 30^th century human colonists ; the native silicon beings called their planet Dryad. He was one of five human children who were rescued from their dying planet by the telepathic vampire known as the Dark Man.

These five children, along with one of the native silicon creatures, were convinced by the Dark Man that the Legion of Super-Heroes was responsible for the destruction of their home planet.

He instilled in them a pathological hatred of the six Legion members present during the planet’s final days. In reality, Phantom Girl, Ultra Boy, Colossal Boy, Timber Wolf, Light Lass, and Superboy were on Dryad assisting with the evacuation of the colonists.

Nevertheless, Ye and his fellows, all young and frightened, were vulnerable to the Dark Man’s telepathic conditioning. In fact, the process which seems to have permanently warped their minds to some extent.

Brainwashed

The Dark Man granted the humans superpowers and convinced them and the silicon creature, Blok, that they were all family. He then forged them into a league of super-powered assassins and sent them to Earth to attack the Legionnaires.

Ye Sti-Tuan became Mist Master, able to transform into a gaseous form to poison and suffocate his foes. The other human members of the League were Lazon, Neutrax, the Silver Slasher, and Titania.

In early 2983 A.D. the Super-Assassins attacked the Legionnaires from ambush, nearly killing them all. Mist Master attacked Colossal Boy alone and defeated him. However, Superboy tricked Sti-Tuan into thinking Colossal Boy was dead by putting the Legionnaire into suspended animation, thereby stopping his bodily processes.

Alerted to the plot, Brainiac 5 and the Legion of Substitute Heroes turned the tables and ambushed the assassins, defeating them soundly.

Hardened criminals

The Super-Assassins were originally imprisoned on Earth. Later that year the Legion contacted them seeking help in defeating their former master, the Dark Man. Only Blok cooperated; the other five remained in prison.

In 2985 they were teleported away by Zymyr of the Legion of Super-Villains to join that group. The League of Super-Assassins never again acted as its own independent group.

After the defeat of the LSV, Mist Master was imprisoned on Takron-Galtos. He was there only a short time before that planet had to be evacuated during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, in 2986. During the evacuation he participated in a mass escape attempt of a prison shuttle, but the Legion of Super-Heroes thwarted them.

Mist Master and the others were all safely incarcerated on the new United Planets prison-world of Labyrinth, where he presumably remains.

Description

A man of short-to-average height, with green eyes. He also has green-tinted brown hair worn down to his shoulders, like Doc Samson. His villain costume is all in shades of green, but his lower arms and his face are bare.

When he transforms into gaseous form, his mists are green as well. He’s basically a formless cloud in this state. But as his cloud billows outward he sometimes manifests the leading edge as looking vaguely like hands. He’ll also sometimes manifest his face or even a floating, disembodied head.

Personality

Mist Master talks tough at first. He’s been half-convinced by his teammates of just how formidable his powers are, but only half-convinced. He’s not very brave and is easily overawed and panicked by powerful heroes or by unexpected occurrences.

Mist Master is not very bright. Furthermore, he does not seem quite as loyal to the Super-Assassins as the other group members are. He can be induced to flee and leave the others behind if he’s sufficiently intimidated.

When not frightened he’s overconfident and rather giddy, especially when using his powers.

Quotes

“Grow, fool ! Grow as tall as you want ! But you’ll never escape me ! Who ever escaped – a cloud ?”

“Lazon was right, as he always is – I am the most powerful of us all – and yes, the largest was the first to fall !”

“To think that less than a year ago, we were six normal beings, no more powerful than any other members of the human race. But the Dark Man changed that even as he changed us. He gave us our powers – but our hatred was all our own !”

“Hmmm – it is Projectra and Karate Kid – at last ! And my power has made them helpless !”

DC Universe History

Mist Master and the other members of the League of Super-Assassins were based in the pre-Zero Hour 30^th century of the DCU, but they could easily fit anywhere. Just pick a criminal mastermind from your campaign who could empower them and make them believe that your PCs are responsible for some tragedy that befell them, and set them loose.

Mist Master himself may have a connection of some kind to the Golden Age  Mist or his daughter Nash – perhaps the Dark Man came across notes on the process which gave these two their powers.

By Chris Cottingham and Andrew Lee.

Helper(s): John Colagioia, Jay Myers, Mayfair’s LSH v.1 Sourcebook for the 1^st ed. writeup v1.0, Who’s Who in the Legion #3. First illustration detoured at rapsheet.co.uk .

Source of Character: DCU (Pre-Crisis and Preboot Legion of Super-Heroes).