Joyce and Walky!

Awwww, Mist reads my webcomic!

Mist may have senses far beyond our own, but it’s only our sins that he chooses to see.

I was a little nervous about putting Mist at the top of this food chain. One of the traditional rules of a crossover is a sort of balance. You don’t normally want, say, a Superman/Spider-Man crossover where Lex shows up and just completely owns Dr. Octopus in every way, because making Doc Ock (and therefore, by implication, Spider-Man) look uncool will annoy at least half your audience.

So a more traditional path here would’ve been for Mist to recognize the Cheese’s power, contact him, and come to some sort of alliance. And if they ended up fighting later, they’d just be too– ungh!– evenly matched for there to be a clear winner!

But unlike the villains mentioned above, ours weren’t static. The Cheese’s seeming omnipotence had already taken a hit in his last appearance, which would be the last time he’d have a solidly antagonistic role, so IIRC, David felt it was better for long-term developments to highlight his limitations here, especially as related to other dimensions and magic. (Cheesey could’ve at least counterattacked had Mist been in the Walkyverse.)

Mist, on the other hand, was to be Fans Book Three’s season-ending Big Bad, so it was likewise important he seemed unbeatable at this stage. Some of the details of Mist’s abilities were more inconsistent than I now would like, but his basic deal is established right here: he can take you into some version of Hell, whether you deserve to be there or not. Compared to what he’ll get up to later, though, this is version 1.0.