Music Meister: Who Is He in the DC Universe?
Just who is the Music Meister in the DC universe? As fans of Supergirl and The Flash probably know, the two episodes coming up this week will feature a musical crossover in which Kara and Barry will have to deal with the criminal activities and antics of the aforementioned Music Meister, but even they might be wondering just who this is.He’s not exactly a usual suspect from the standard rogues gallery.
The Birth of the Music Meister
Unlike many of the super villains we see on Supergirl or The Flash, the character of the Music Meister didn’t actually have his origin in DC Comics. Instead, he was created for the Batman: Brave and the Bold animated television series. This character made his first – and only – appearance on the show in the 2009 episode entitled “Mayhem of the Music Meister.”
The Music Meister is a much less serious super villain than, say, the Joker or Bane, but this is hardly surprising given that this particular animated series was aimed more for a younger audience than most other DC fare. Whether he will be made more sinister or more powerful for the two-part crossover coming up this week is unknown, but it seems unlikely. It’s hard to see how a character with music-based powers like the Music Meister could be anything but comic relief on Supergirl or The Flash.
The powers the Music Meister had in the animated series – which were essentially the ability to have people break into song and dance numbers at the drop of a hat – are apparently being modified somewhat for the Supergirl and Flash crossover event, with him instead placing his victims in a kind of coma/matrix in which they have to live out a dream world musical scenario before they can escape back to the real world.
Interestingly, this character has actually made his way into the DC comic books themselves since his appearance in the animated series mentioned above. This isn’t entirely unprecedented, since the character of Harley Quinn first appeared in Batman: The Animated Series long before she turned up in the comic books or in the movie Suicide Squad. Now as reported by Forbes, she’s even getting her own big-screen, live-action movie with Gotham City Sirens.
New stills from the Supergirl/Flash musical crossover https://t.co/pMo0TvISsX #MusicMeister pic.twitter.com/SPAr1qzFQU
— Darren Criss Army (@DarrenArmy) March 15, 2017
Another interesting and ironic fact about the appearance of the Music Meister in this week’s big DC television universe crossover is that the actor playing him – Darren Criss – has already appeared before in musical numbers with Supergirl‘s Melissa Benoist and The Flash‘s Grant Gustin. As noted by TV Line, all three sang and danced their way through episodes of Glee.
One thing that is unclear about the upcoming crossover event is whether the character of the Music Meister will appear on both shows. Since the crossover will begin at the end of the Supergirl episode, with Kara being placed in her musical coma by Music Meister, he is apparently a native to Earth 2.
But the problem with this scenario is that – according to the synopsis for the crossover – Kara will be brought across to Earth 1 by Martian Manhunter to see if team Flash can do anything to help her. It’s only once she’s there that Barry will be affected by Music Meister as well.
This would seem to imply that the Music Meister – like Cisco/Vibe on The Flash – has the ability to jump from one alternate Earth to the other whenever he likes. On the other hand, it could be that team Flash connects Barry’s mind to Kara’s in order to free her, and that’s how he becomes trapped as well.
But given that in the trailers we’ve seen so far for the crossover, it looks like the character of the Music Meister is actively interacting with both Kara and Barry in the mindscape, it seems like he would have to be present in both worlds.
[Featured Image by The CW]
