Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Hi.

My name is Maik and Im New her and Im from Poland.

Ok Intorduction is over.


What do you think obaut Mr. Mxyzptlk?
As for me his the best Superman Villant sow far.
I just love the fact theat insted faithing him Superman fave trick him in a world play.

I prefer the Byrne version where Superman had to come up with a different way of defeating the little imp each time. The say the name backward stuff got old and the cartoon version based on the pre-crisis Earth-2 Mxyzpltk is just annoying (it sounds like the guy who voiced Iago in Aladdin series is doing his voice. Am I right?)

Call me traditionalist, but I prefered the "say his name backward" schtick...

Gilbert Gottfried (the voice of Iago) was the voice of Mxy in the cartoon; I thought that version of Mxy was a riot, though. :-)

I never like Mxyzptlk! He was like the campiness that invaded my favorite TV Sci-Fi of the 60's, Lost In Space. Mxyzptlk was Superman's Doctor Smith! UGH!
 :?

Mxy is one of my favourite villains, but I prefer the post-Crisis version. "A name game" (SUPERMAN Vol. II 11) is in my Superman top ten! Now, Greg Rucka is making a great work with this character.
Even if I like the post-Crisis version, I think that sometimes writers exagerated with Mxyzptlk... After Alan Moore's "Whatever happened to the man of tomorrow?", Mxy has ever been represented as a grim and evil character... For example, during his fourth visit on earth (I don't remember the issue, but it was a chapter of the 1989 "Exile in space" saga), he fights with Team Luthor and turns them in "transformers planes" closing them in their flying armors... Breaking them a lot of bones!
Greg, instead, continues to show us an almighty character, but his stories with Mxy are very funny... This "revolution" began with the "Emperor Joker" saga, by Loeb and the rest of Superman Team. In that crossover Mxy appears with his Golden Age look (when he was Mr. Mxyztplk) and is a very funny character.

Well it depened on how he was used. He was anything but campy in the Superfriends episode "Rise and Fall of the Superfriends" where he takes on the role of a movie director putting the Superfriends in one death trap after another and saving them at the last moment to prolong his amusement. The finally gets bored and tried to have them kill each other but Superman heat vision is not effected by his 'magic' and allows him to change the script so as to trick Mxyzptlk back home. He was also definitly non campy in Superman #349 (July 1980) as was Bizarro in Superman V1 #333 (1979) where we learn that thanks to an encounter with a metor Bizarro has powers opposite to Superman (ie flame breath instead of ice breath. Microscopic vision that actually increases the size of the creatures he uses it on and so on) Sadly stories like this was few and far between with both character being more jokes than anything else. But they were glimpes into what the character could be in the hands of the right writer.

I think my favorite Superman villain was (and still is) Bizarro. I just loved the idea of Superman having a dangerous opposite number, and I do agree that the meteor-collision story did a lot to enhance the character.

In my youth, I never really appreciated Mxyzptlk. But now I realize the value of the character, and my opinion of him has changed.

Hrmmm... Powers opposite of Supermans would make Bizzaro superweak. He'd fall instead of fly. Heck! Instead of being invulnerable he'd explode on contact! I'm not sure that opposite is a good word for what his new powers are.  :wink:

Good point, Mizrael.

I remember reading that the meteor-collision only reversed some of his powers.

It is interesting that Pre Crisis Bizarro took a knock to the head for that to happen, and the much-maligned Byrne posited a psionic aspect to Kryptonian super-powers.  It's like the super-brain got scrambled in some regards so the powers got reversed.  It also jibes with Red K effects which can cause just about anything to happen to powered Kryptonians.

In Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" tale, Bizarro decides to become a better 'imperfect duplicate' by being better reversed.  Superman doesn't kill so Bizarro became a mass murderer.  Superman is alive so Bizarro killed himself with Blue K.

Yeah when you take "Imperfect" copy to the extreme of "Opposite" copy, Bizarro wouldn't last two seconds as a living being.   :wink:

But it would sure make for one funny 1 page story ;)

The only problem I had with Moore's story is it failed on so many levels if you were really into the Superman mythos. Take Bizarro World for example, Earth-1 had a JLA so the Bizarros heroes instead of being loners (the opposite of Earth) form a Bizarro JLA.  
Similary in Superman #379 (Jan 1983) Bizarro Batman comments that if there was a real crisis then he would team up with Bizarro just like Batman and  Superman do.  But by the Bizarro code this shouldn't happen because Bizarros are supposed to do the opposite of Earth people.  Also in this issue we are reminded that Bizarro Lex Luthor is a hero but the problem is he is a brilliant scientist just like his Earth counterpart when by the Bizarro code he should be an total idiot.

The Bizarro dictionary also was similarly illogical - sometimes a word would mean the opposite of its earth definition, other times it would look like a 3rd grader's guess at a definition and other times the defintion seemed to have a logic all its own.  Like Tulip would mean what you speek with (two lips) and Yesterday would mean the day after tomorrow.

Then you get to Myyzptlk himself and everything goes out the window. Prevous issues like Superman V1 #335 had firmly established Zrfff culture as going aorudn practical jokes so why this nonsense about choosing how he is behaving? More in Superman V1 #421 (Imp-TV) points out his homocidal cousin Nzykmulk is only 42 Joljos (their year) older than he is and yet is far more powerful than Mxyzptlk. But if Mxyzptlk is immortal and been good for 1000 year as a prankster for another 1000 than 42 Joljos difference not is going to matter.

Yes 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?' is a fun read but from a continuity standpoint it has major problems.