Twice-Told-Tales: Musical Menaces Meet Men-Children

Today's Twice-Told-Tale has many common elements which, while not exactly a carbon copy of the other, merits some consideration.

We had previously mentioned Earth-Two's Fiddler, who's  the counterpart is the Pied Piper, and Earth-Two's Chroma, who's the counterpart of Halo. This time we consider their brief influence on the psyche of their era's youth, in and out of costume.

After a failed campaign vs the Justice Society with his Injustice pals, the Fiddler migrates to Earth-One to plunder the crowd at a Coliseum music venue using his mind-control musicality. After a couple encounters with the Teen Titans, first dueling against the young black Titan Mal's Hornblower and then the combined team, he quickly is undone by the groovy gadgets of villainess turned heroine Joker's Daughter. Whether or not he ever met his own world's Joker, the Fiddler definitely much have felt humiliated at being taken down so quickly by a rank amateur despite his decades of experience.

While the Fiddler soon escaped and retreated back to his own universe, he would once more be pulled back to aid Darkseid's plans to move Apokolips to Earth-Two. 

When we previously considered Chroma, we learned that his race's sound and light show was used to determine a civilization's determination towards self-preservation. During is one documented encounter with Earth-Two's population, he appeared to a crowd at a televised concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum and used his own mind-controlling music to intoxicate the crowd into a state of bliss. Even the hired help, Infinity, Inc., is mesmerized by this alluring alien.

There was a fly in the ointment, however, against the darkened skinned Obsidian, whose powers insulated him from the effects of Chroma's song. Awakening the crowd including his allies, much to their chagrin, to the reality rather than this persuasive performers illusion... public outcry resulted against the teen hero. In a second encounter, the young group fended off the influence of Chroma and sent him backing for the cosmos whence he came, never to return.

Two menacing maestros manipulating men through mysterious musicality. And two teen teams triumph. That about sums it up!