Analysis - What's So Great About Mysta?

The current storyline in the Dick Tracy comic strip features Mysta Chimera (the "new" Moon Maid) in a prominent role. I'm not a fan of this character, and I genuinely don't understand why she's popular, other than the superficial reason that she's drawn sexy and she gratifies the desires of those fans of the Moon Era to see it acknowledged.

So, I posted this question to the Dick Tracy Fan Club Facebook page, also listing what I see as Mysta's character flaws. Some people responded, with Dan Forrester composing a lengthy response in defense of Mysta.

Rather than post my counter-argument in the comments section of that page, I decided to place them here. Mr. Forrester's argument is in italics.

Well, Dave, you really dumped the truck. :) Let's see, Mysta was kidnapped, had her mind destroyed and replaced with false memories, experiments were performed on her body, and she was manipulated by criminals. A character who's undergone such abuse might deserve a tiny bit of sympathy and understanding, no? That's a big reason why Diet took her under his wing, because he felt so horrible and guilty about what had happened to her. So I would start with that as an explanation for why fans like her.

Interesting. This pre-supposes that Glenna WAS kidnapped and altered against her will. We’ve not been shown any evidence of that. I consider it just as likely that Glenna volunteered for the procedure, even if Ghote and Sail (and Bribery) didn’t make clear the full extent of what the transformation would be. It was clearly established that Glenna wanted to be like Moon Maid, and I find it entirely plausible that she would have agreed to any offer to MAKE her like Moon Maid. She MIGHT not have been told that she would lose her personality and memories, but it’s equally possible that she WAS told and agreed anyway. Without knowing exactly what methods were used to change her brain, I have to assume that the process would be more successful with a willing participant (as is the case with hypnotism) than with someone who was resisting the process.

Of course, this is all speculative because we haven’t been shown/told the exact circumstances of Glenna’s transformation into Mysta. Mike Curtis either hasn’t fully decided what it is yet, or he’s being deliberately ambiguous.  

That being said, I do feel some sympathy for Mysta, in the same way that I would sympathize with someone who was suffering from severe memory loss, or had just awakened from a long coma, or was returning to society after an extended period in captivity. However, feeling sorry for a character isn’t the same as liking them.

Since she discovered what she has become, Mysta has established her own unique identity and has spent a lot of time developing a career in acting and writing. She's trying to improve herself and make her way in the world, so I can't accept the "irresponsible" charge.

Has she, though? What has she done to establish herself as a unique individual, rather than just a copy of Moon Maid? Yes, she took the acting job, but that’s because she doesn’t have any education, qualifications, or skills that could apply to other work. Furthermore, we were never shown if she was successful in that job. Did the “Mysta” movie do well? Was it warmly received by critics or audiences? Are they making a sequel?

I also haven’t seen any evidence that she’s actually trying to improve herself. She doesn’t seem to have significantly greater mastery over her super-human abilities, and she still doesn’t seem to understand how the world works. If she IS trying to improve herself, she’s making extremely slow progress, which indicates that she’s either not trying very hard or is genuinely dim-witted.

Beyond that, she hasn’t shown any other goals or ambitions. This is a fundamental flaw in Mysta as a character, since I have no clear idea what she actually WANTS. Does she want to achieve a better understanding of society and join it, or does she want to live in isolation at Diet Smith’s compound with occasional visits from Honeymoon? I get the impression that she tends towards the latter, which I don’t consider to be admirable.  

"Impulsive?" I don't know about that, either. Yes, she acted that way when she was still under Dr. Sail's malicious control, what with her vigilante work and scheming against Sparkle. But not since. Learning who she really is and working hard to establish a new identity for herself has plainly had a sobering effect on her life.

"Naive?" Perhaps a little and definitely so before she learned the truth about her identity. However, she's definitely awake now to the evil people who used her for their twisted schemes. I'd rather have Mysta be a little too trusting than bitter, angry, and vindictive, which humanly speaking she probably has a right to be.

I disagree. She’s been consistently impulsive AND naïve. Upon sensing that Honeymoon was in danger during the Fall of the Black Hearts, she commandeered a helicopter and flew to the 52 Gallery. She didn’t consider other options or how she could actually help once she arrived. That’s being impulsive.

Likewise, her decision to confront Rep. Bellowthon was impulsive AND naïve. If she had any understanding of how the world works, she would know that showing up unannounced at the office of a Congressional Representative would not help her achieve her goals, but she did it anyway, apparently without considering the consequences. Likewise, if she had stopped to think about she was doing, she would know that arriving in an outfit that amounts to a one-piece bathing suit, thigh-high boots and opera gloves is not an effective way to be taken seriously in the halls of government. But she either didn’t consider the implications of what she was doing, or genuinely didn’t understand those implications. 

So I stand by my characterization of impulsive and naïve.

"Prone to emotional outbursts?" You mean like, say, most women in the world?

Well, if that’s not the very definition of chauvinism, I don’t know what is.

 Yes, Mysta gets emotional at times. That's bad because....? Seeing her cry tells us she has real feelings, and expresses those feelings in the way most young women do. It's understandable that she has become emotional at times, given the traumatic and life-threatening experiences she has endured over the last few years. And all of that has certainly contributed to feelings of empathy for the character.

Emotional outbursts would be fine if she wasn’t being presented as one of the Heroes. B.O. Plenty is prone to crying, and it’s presented as humorous. Readers may like B.O. and think well of him (we may even recognize that he has the CAPACITY for heroism when the situation calls for it), but we’re not expected to think of him as a force to be reckoned with or as a role model to other characters in the strip.

Regarding Mysta's deeds since she discovered what the Blackhearts had done to her, I only recall two times when she "showed up at a situation." On one occasion she went to Honeymoon's house late at night because she telepathically picked up on Honeymoon's extreme distress, which her parents knew nothing about. She served a very good purpose on that occasion in the way she helped Honeymoon through the significant physical transformation she was undergoing. She didn't "accomplish nothing" in that episode. Far from it.

The only other time I remember her "showing up" was at the conclusion of the Blackhearts story last year. The reason she went to the Blackhearts HQ was because Honeymoon had telepathically signaled her that she and Annie were in mortal danger. Mysta didn't just "show up" on that occasion with no purpose to "accomplish nothing." She came to rescue her friends from physical harm. She didn't kill anyone but disabled a bunch of bad people and helped the police secure the building as it turns out. I presume this is why she wasn't accused of any wrong doing when it was all over. She started crying at the end of that story mostly because Bribery had used a weapon against her and insulted her and confused her a bit. So I think we can excuse her for that, if she can be allowed to cry?

She showed up at the Wheaten farm and accomplished nothing except drawing more villains to the scene, further complicating matters for Tracy, the police, and their allies. She did nothing to help in that situation, or during the case of Tabby Angus. 

She showed up at Rep. Bellowthon’s office and complicated matters there as well. If she hadn’t taken it upon herself to confront Rep. Bellowthon, there would one less suspect in the Representative’s death, and Tracy and Sam wouldn't have to take up their time interviewing her.

As far as the Fall of the Black Hearts is concerned, that was her most unforgivable transgression. She trespassed into the 52 Gallery, interfered with a combined FBI/MCU operation, assaulted an undercover police officer, and enabled Bribery (a wanted felon and a known murderer) to escape. Did readers actually see her doing anything useful during that adventure? Did she stop any bad guys or protect anyone from harm? She didn’t even achieve her goal of rescuing Honeymoon. Instead, Honeymoon had to protect HER.

Consider this- If Mysta HADN’T shown up at the 52 Gallery, Lee (as T-Bolt) could have delayed Bribery’s escape long enough for him to be captured. Failing that, they could have escaped together in Bribery’s helicopter, thus allowing Lee to continue monitoring and reporting on his activities. Instead, Mysta arrived and interfered, and as a result Bribery got away. She should be in Federal Prison, but she’s not because Team Tracy has decided that she’s One of the Good Guys and expects readers to think of her in the same way.

As for criticizing fans for liking her looks, you're kidding, right? Are we adults here? Would you prefer that Mysta be plain looking, wear no makeup, and dress in tent clothes? Isn't in the nature of a daily strip that we should like the way the characters look? Are we to infer from your comments that women who like to see Superman in his costume are also being "salacious?" Yes, being "cute/sexy" is one reason why I and other fans like Mysta. Why is that a problem?

It’s not a problem in and of itself. Tess and Lizz and Lee are all physically attractive female characters, but they all also have OTHER positive qualities that make them valuable additions to the strip. If the only role that Tess had ever played in the strip was to look pretty and get captured so Dick could rescue her, I would condemn that as sexist as well. 

Furthermore, there’s nothing wrong with liking eye-candy. But, if that’s the ONLY reason why a reader or audience member likes (or, indeed, is expected to like) a certain character, then that’s shallow and it should be acknowledged as such. I recall readers on Facebook and gocomics comments asking for more of Venus, despite the fact that Venus has no identifiable personality traits other than “she’s a villain”. They wanted more of her, though, because she’s a sexy dame.

For a good period of time, the most popular TV show in the world was “Baywatch”. Pamela Anderson’s character was certainly there to look good in a bathing suit and bounce around. Of course, C.J. also had the redeeming quality of being a good lifeguard, so viewers could argue that her appeal wasn’t based SOLELY on her appearance. If Mysta had other positive qualities, I’d be less condemnatory of her and her fans.

As for "nostalgia," probably the main reason the Dick Tracy strip survived through all the lean years is exactly because of nostalgia, a longing for the excellent work Gould did which by then seemed a million miles away. Now that the strip has been taken over by talented, imaginative, award-winning people, is it really surprising that so many fans are glad that a classic character like Moon Maid, now reborn, has been restored? Dick Tracy is an 85 year old comic strip. Nostalgia carried it through the dark times, and nostalgia is what carries it now. There is nothing odd or unusual about fans liking certain characters when they were young and being glad they have been restored.

Again, nostalgia is fine, but it can’t be expected to carry a strip. For all the flaws during their tenures on the strip, I can’t imagine Kilian or Locher sitting at their desks thinking “It doesn’t have to be good, the fans will like anything as long as it has Dick Tracy in it”. I’m willing to believe that they (and the current Team Tracy) are working at the best of their abilities, or at least at the best that the medium and the realities of syndicated newspaper content will allow. 

Just because Mysta reminds a reader of a previous time in the strip that the reader liked does not make Mysta a good character. She needs to be evaluated on her own merits, which (in my estimation) are few.

Granted, I don’t think highly of the Moon Era in general. It represents Gould at his most divorced from reality, and a lot of it is meandering, unfocused, and nearly unreadable. Bribery, as a villain, is not a character as much as he was a collection of affectations. Moon Maid, while potentially complex and interesting, was mostly just used as cheesecake and comic relief. The running gag of her not being able to cook, for example, was a wildly sexist and out-dated premise, even in the mid-sixties.

I’m willing to be more forgiving of Gould, though, as he was operating in a different time. The current Team Tracy should know better.

I would contrast Mysta with another amateur crime-fighter that appeared in the strip- Brighton Spotts. Brighton was occasionally helpful, but he caused as much trouble as he helped to resolve. The other characters considered him to be a nuisance at worst, well-meaning but ineffectual at best, and readers were meant to think the same way.

If Mysta was treated like Brighton (irrational, irresponsible, potentially dangerous, and in need of guidance), that would be more palatable to me. Instead, she’s praised, her transgressions are excused, and Honeymoon declares Mysta to be her hero, for no comprehensible reason.