Prologue
Jasper Braffert was never convinced that a strike against the mining company was a good idea, but he realized how bad an idea it was when he felt the strike-breaker’s truncheon hit his hip and heard the crunch of wood against bone. It hurt so much that he was thankful for the blow to the head that knocked him out.
As Jasper found out, disturbing the peace by forming a picket line was taken very seriously in Eastern Kentucky in the Great Depression. But at least he was young and single when he went to jail. Some of his fellow strikers left wives and children without money or jobs when they were arrested. Still and all, things didn’t look good when Jasper woke in the prison infirmary.
After months of rehab, and stuck with a permanent limp from the hip that never healed properly, Jasper vowed to put the past behind him and become a model prisoner. Soon even the guards started to appreciate Jasper’s can-do attitude, willingness to work and strong Baptist faith. Jasper was placed into a training program, and was set to become a brick mason upon his release from prison. On his last day inside, Jasper was called into the office of Mr. Kilgore, who ran the prison. Mr. Kilgore gave him a suit, a watch, a $50 bill, and the address of a construction company in Paducah, Kentucky where a job would be waiting. Happy and grateful, Jasper promised to name his first son after the man who had helped turn his life around.
Jasper arrived in Paducah to find that his job would begin immediately and he was going to be part of the war effort. The government was building a big plant in town, and he would be laying bricks for the walls. Since there were few trained masons who weren’t serving overseas, he would be in charge of his own crew. The company had also already found housing for him, so he wouldn’t have to miss any work to look for a place to live. His crew consisted of himself, two teenage boys who he used as mudders, and three women, two of which weren’t good for much of anything in Jasper’s mind. The third one, named Maggie, was a different matter. A strong, big boned woman, Maggie seemed able to do anything she put her mind to doing. Soon she was second in command in the crew, doing the work that a true apprentice would usually do, and giving orders when she saw something that needed to be done. The two boys weren’t very happy about it, but first Maggie beat some of the contrariness out of them and when Jasper found out what she had done, he beat the rest out of the two boys. He let it be known in no uncertain terms that disobeying Maggie was just the same as disobeying him.
Things were going very well, and Jasper had almost built up the courage to ask Maggie out when the accident happened. His crew and another were finishing off the facing on a building that was already in use. Some of the materials were outside and were hoisted up when needed. However, the boss had decided to use the internal freight elevator for the heavier loads, and then pass things out the windows to the scaffolding. Maggie was inside bringing up a new load in the elevator when the alarms went off. All of the construction crew had been told to leave the area as fast as possible if the alarm sounded, and Jasper was proud to see that none of his crew was panicking.
They were quickly descending the scaffolds and moving beyond what the government people called the containment fence. The only problem was he didn’t see Maggie come out of the building. Knowing he could get fired, Jasper went into the building after her. He ran through suddenly hazy hallways and got to the elevator just as she was climbing out of it. The alarm must have also stopped the elevator between floors, and she had had to push open the doors and climb out. They turned to leave just in time to see one of the men in a lab coat collapse on the floor coughing. Between them, they picked him up and carried him to the scaffold through hallways now almost completely obscured by odd colored smoke. Once outside, they climbed down with the unconscious man and as quickly as they could, carried him beyond the containment fence. Outside the fence, they were examined by some men with the clicky boxes that were never explained to the construction crews. Not knowing what the boxes did, they had no idea what it meant for the clicking to become very loud and fast when the boxes were passed over them. They told their story to a half dozen different government men, and all agreed that if they had tried to carry the uncurious man down the stairs inside the building, all three of them would have died.
That night, scared, tired, feeling sick and a little
surprised to be alive, Jasper Braffert and Maggie Goodnight did the one
thing in their lives they were truly ashamed of.
The Birth Of Mentalon
Young Warden Braffert was at his second funeral in as many weeks. First his father Jasper had died. His mother Maggie had only lasted a couple of days longer. Both of them looked like something was eating them from the inside out. Now Warden was on his own. Tomorrow night he was supposed to grab a ride with a revival preacher who was headed to Harlan, Kentucky. The preacher had it all laid out. Warden could work to pay his way and, once in Harlan, he would live with some of his father's cousins who were miners down there.
Warden had his own ideas.
That afternoon he was going to hitch hike his way north along the river until he came to Louisville and Fort Knox. There he would lie about his age and volunteer for the army. He remembered stories of his grandfather Goodnight doing the same thing when he was young, and he wanted to both prove he was a man and serve his country. He wanted no part of the mines. The state and the country had always taken good care of his family, and he was certain they would now.
After the funeral, and once again shaking hands with a bunch of adults he barely knew, Warden started for the north side of town. Counting on the government to provide for him, and not really having anything to pack anyway, he took nothing with him. Since he had never been more than a couple of miles out of Paducah and he couldn’t read the signs that said where the road went, he just picked one of the roads heading North and started walking and thumbing.
After a mile or so, a group of three scruffy looking guys in an old Nash roadster picked him up. He asked if they were going to Louisville, and they said yes they were, but with a few side trips. They asked if he liked movies, as they were going to a movie house a few towns away first. After being told that his new found friends would pay his admission, Warden admitted that he had seldom seen any movies, but he really liked the ones he had seen.
In Knoxville, Kentucky, at the new movie house, the first thing Warden noticed was the large number of men in Army uniforms at the show. He resolved to ask one of them about how to get to Fort Knox after seeing the movie. They all took seats, and the cartoon started. That was followed by a newsreel about the Justice League of America fighting crime and keeping the country safe. During the newsreel, one of his new friends, Joe, keep making comments under his breath about how “all those costumed freaks belong in a zoo, not in the movie house.”
The B Movie was called Mentalon the Misfit. The title character was able to read thoughts and move things with his mind, but his life was tragic. He was misshapen, with a large bald bulbous head and small scrawny limbs. He always looked unhappy, and no one liked him. He became a circus freak to try and hide from the world, and spent years giving shows in carnivals in a little tuxedo. He was known only as Mentalon, no one seemed to remember his real name. Because he was ugly and different, everyone thought he was evil. On one trusted him, no one loved him, and no one cared. But really, he wanted to be good to all those around him, he wanted to help people, just no one would let him. Many times during the movie, Joe leaned over and said “See kid, this is what these freaks are like. Nobody likes ‘em and they’re right not to. Freaks like that got no place with real people.”
When the B movie ended, Joe told him, “I think this is as close to Louisville as we’re gettin’ kid. Good luck to ya. We’re not planning to see the feature.” Warden wasn’t worried. He knew he could get the rest of the way to Fort Knox with one of the soldiers. He thanked Joe for the ride and the movie and sat back to enjoy his last movie as a civilian.
Part way through the feature, there were loud noises from the lobby. It sounded like a fight, and then maybe a shot. As the house lights came on, one of the ushers stumbled through the door bleeding.
It was chaos. People running around, others screaming. Everything went mad. Warden saw the bleeding usher, and wished he could do something for the man. Even if it meant being a freak like Mentalon, he wanted to help. Then he heard the oddest noise. Sort of like a boot sucking out of thick mud, but it went on for maybe ten seconds. When it ended, he saw the hole in the usher in his head. He saw the hole, the bullet, the torn flesh. Saw the bullet fall back out of the hole, and the tears close. He knew the man would be fine.
Then he saw himself. He was small and ugly, in a little tuxedo with a big bulbous head. He was Mentalon. Remembering the movie, he opened the door with his mind and flew through the opening into the ongoing fight in the lobby. Someone shot a gun at him, and the bullet fell harmlessly to the floor. He looked at the gun, and made it melt almost instantly. The gunman screamed in pain and fell to the floor. Another man, carrying a club, came at him. He grabbed the club with his mind and hit the man behind the knees. A sickening crunch told everyone the knees were broken even before the thug fell to the floor in shock.
Finally, the box office door flew open. There was a man with a bag, holding a gun to the head of another usher. His mask shifted, and Warden saw it was Joe. He pulled the mask the rest of the way down, and shouted; “Get away from here, freak, or I’ll plug this guy! Fly your ugly face right out of here, and if I see you again I’ll kill him. You’ve got three seconds, freak.”
Warden didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t let the usher die, but he couldn’t let Joe get away.
“Two. Don’t make me kill him!” Suddenly Warden saw the light bulb behind Joe. More than that, he saw the power in the lines and knew he could draw it out of the socket and into the room.
“One!” And Joe pulled back the hammer on the gun. At the same time, Warden pulled the electricity out of the wires. The light bulb behind Joe exploded as the power passed through it. A spark as big as lightning jumped from the socket to Joe’s left shoulder. His body spasmed and threw itself into the wall. The gun went off harmlessly into the air. The usher passed out from a combination of fear and a slight brush with the shock that downed Joe. A fuse blew, and lights for the whole lobby went out. Warden threw the front doors off their hinges and flew out into the night.
In an alley, Warden changed back into himself. Already knowing he couldn’t do it, he tried to fly, to pick something up with his mind, to see through a door. It didn’t work. He was just Warden Braffert; Mentalon was something else. Still this meant that Warden was a freak, not a part of the rest of the country. He couldn’t live like other people. He didn’t want to live like Mentalon. He wanted to actually help people, help his country, make the world a better place. He fell asleep in the alley wondering what to do.
That night, he had a dream. He dreamt of all the heroes from the newsreels. Amazing Ghost Fighter™, Zero Man, Blue Beetle and the rest. But along with them all, fighting for a better America and a better world he saw Mentalon. When he woke, he knew what he had to do. He had to get to New York and join the JLA. Hitchhiking out of town again, he knew he had found his future. It was time for him to take his place among the men and women who fought for the country and the world every day. Now, if only he knew where New York was.
In Louisville, Mentalon stopped another crime. Then in Lexington, Covington, Dayton and Wilmington. Each time, the papers were filled with stories of the character who stepped off the screen in a movie in Knoxville and was now roaming the countryside fighting crime. Eventually, he encountered Titan near the beginning of the Legion Crisis. He was brought into the fold of the JLA and taken under the wing of Archie Goodwin who hoped that the powerful young psi might be able to help his one true love, Annette Rosenberg, also known as Psilence.
Living at Winchester Mansion in L.A., Mentalon and Archie became quite attached to one another even as the rest of the world began to fall further into the madness of Legion. Soon it became clear that Mentalon was a incredible threat to Legion, especially if he could somehow heal Psilence. Mentalon was indeed eventually able to reach her damaged psyche and bring her out of her catatonia, but the joy of this success was short lived as Archie Goodwin was killed in an epic battle defending both Annette and Warden from the forces of Legion very shortly thereafter. Unified by their grief, Annette and Warden bonded deeply, and later fought side-by-side to expel Legion from the President. During the battle, Warden witnessed firsthand Annette's death and her rebirth as Phoenix.
After the Legion Crisis, Annette officially become Warden's foster mother and the two lived a happy, if sometimes bittersweet, life in the Winchester Mansion, their memories and psionic abilities sometimes making Archie's presence feel unbearably keen. Warden sometimes talks about these difficult feelings with his friend Dr. Foster Forrest.
During this time, Annette also taught Warden a lot about himself, his powers, and the responsibilities they entail. Needless to say, with Phoenix and Mentalon defending it, Los Angeles had one of the lowest crime rates on the planet. Mentalon deeply loves and respects Annette as a friend, mentor and maternal figure.
This stability, however, has recently been upended by The First Patchwork Man War, during which Annette was able to counteract a nuclear explosion that would have destroyed Los Angeles, but in doing so, was apparently transformed by the experience. Indeed, much of the galaxy heard her shriek of rage, pain and insurmountable frustration in the face of The Patchwork Man's nuclear assault, but Mentalon heard it must keenly and was the only one who could understand the anguish behind it.
Having narrowly averted falling into an abyss of her own darker impulses through the wisdom of the Justice League and the compassion of Warden, Phoenix has left the Earth to clear her mind and think long and hard about what she is becoming. When she will return is unknown.
Warden is on his own again, and now is exploring
the possibility of returning to school.