A night at the museum, decades before it was a successful movie, it was a concept that spawned two separate villains who bedeviled the World's Finest Heroes of twin earths. Each museum mastermind acquired tremendous abilities from statues capturing the essence of men's greatness.
On Earth-One, Joseph Meach was an unsuccessful stunt man whose last attempt at fame nearly cost him his life. Diving off a building into a plastic container filled with water, Meach was unaware that it began to leak, leaving only an inch of water to land in. Realizing this, Superman saved Joe, and tried to comfort the humiliated man by offering him a job at his museum.
As a maintenance custodian for the Superman Museum, Meach nursed a grudge at his savior. He was also fascinated by miniaturized statuettes on display of the Legion of Super-Heroes, a 30th century team of which a young Superman as Superboy was a member. Unbeknownst to them, the duplicator ray which created the statuettes caused each statuette to mimic the powers and skills of each Legionnaire copied.
When lighting struck the statuettes, Meach was bathed in their rays and gained vast superhuman abilities. Creating the alter ego of the green-skinned Composite Superman, Meach was intent on becoming the newest partner of World's Finest team, with the goal of humiliating Superman and Batman. In fact, Composite Superman was one of the only foes of theirs whom the heroes could not defeat, although on both occasions he faced them, his powers wore off after prolonged use. After his second appearance, Meach sacrificed his life to protect Superman, Batman and Robin from an attack by an alien named Xan, who revived Meach's abilities.
On Earth-Two, a Nazi scientist and spymaster named Zoltan founded Zoltan's Wax Museum, and used it as a front to store and transport captured intellectuals from America. This process involved encasing each man in a waxy substance which placed each person exposed to the process into suspended animation, so that when revived each scientist would retain their mental capabilities that would be exploited by the German government.
When Batman discovered this nefarious museum, he tried to bring Zoltan and his henchmen to justice, but was himself enveloped in the wax. Tracking him down, Robin sent word to Superman to assist him in helping to free Batman. Together, the trio Zoltan and freed the remaining hostages, who resumed their normal lives. However, Zoltan’s wax museum would unleash another threat years later against the World’s Finest Heroes allies in the Justice Society of America!
That threat was an unidentified museum guard at Zoltan's Wax Museum (Earth-Two's Joe Meach) who grew insane, emulating various historical figures displayed such as Attila the Hun, Captain Kidd, Cesare Borgia, Genghis Khan, Goliath and Nero. Through some unspecified means, perhaps due to Zoltan's experimental waxing process, the guard gained abilities from each of the characters while wearing their costumes. The Justice Society battled each of his personas, which six of their members succumbing to his might before Wonder Woman and Black Canary helped save their colleagues Doctor Mid-Mite, Atom, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Johnny Thunder. Together, the revitalized Justice Society finally defeat this guard, who perished in the confrontation.
Over a decade later, another museum exhibit unleashed a green-skinned threat in the form of a faux-Wotan, unleashed upon Doctor Fate and Hourman by Psycho-Pirate using the Medusa Masks. This synthetic being like Composite Superman possessed all the powers of the original he was based on, as well as abilities undoubtedly derived from other foes of Fate spawned at the same time by the Masks.
Similarly, a successor to the original Composite Superman was Xan, who exposed himself to the energies contained within the Legion statuettes, becoming the villian Amalgamax. Superman and Batman were able to defeat Xan with the assistance of Colossal Boy, Shrinking Violet, Triplicate Girl, Brainiac 5, Lightning Lad and Invisible Kid... some of the Legionnaire whom he gained powers from previously!
Both the Composite Superman and the Pseudo-Wotan were fictional constructs brought to life by the imaginations of a pair of supervillains seeking to destroy Dynamic Duos of twin Earths. As were the power-mad personas postulated by a pair of innocuous museum guards disgruntled with life.
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