Sandbox / Superman – Mister Mxyzptlk

Superman Main Character Index
Title Character
Clark Kent/Kal/El/Superman
Supporting Cast
Lois Lane | Jimmy Olsen | Ambush Bug | Steel
Villains
Central Rogues Gallery (Alexander "Lex" Luthor, Bizarro, Vril Dox/Brainiac, Cyborg-Superman, Darkseid, Doomsday, Lobo, Mongul, Mister Mxyzptlk, Phantom Zone Criminals [General Zod]) | A-L | M-Z (Superboy-Prime)
Spin-Offs
Supergirl (Kara Zor-El/Linda Danvers/Supergirl, Supporting Cast, Rogues Gallery) | Power Girl | Superboy (Conner Kent/Kon-El, Jonathan "Jon" Samuel Kent, Supporting Cast, Rogues Gallery) | Legion Of Superheroes (The Founders, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Five Years Later, Postboot, Threeboot, Retroboot, Rebirth, Other Heroes, The Fatal Five, The Legion of Supervillains, Other Villains, Supporting Cast)

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Mister Mxyzptlk

Species: Fifth-Dimenstional Imp (Zrfffian)

First Appearance: Superman #30 (September/October 1944)

" ...is yours truly, Mxyztplk the Magnificent, with an exclusive look at how I made a sap out of Superman—as usual!"

A magical imp from the land of Zrfff in the 5th Dimension. Mxyzptlk often gets bored in his home dimension and comes to our universe looking for excitement, usually fixating on Superman. With his powers, he could easily defeat Superman in any number of novel and imaginative ways, but that would be too easy. So he sets rules for their encounters that he rigidly adheres to, the most well-known being that if Superman can get him to say, spell, write, or otherwise communicate his own name backward, he leaves and can't return for 90 days. Also has the ability to break the 4th wall (and the 5th).

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A-E

• '80s Hair: In his first Post-crisis appearance, he disguises himself as an otherwise handsome man with a curly mullet.
• Abhorrent Admirer: He was this to Supergirl in Action Comics #291. Kara makes clear she cannot stand a stupid, reality-warping, imp-looking prankster who thinks he is funny. Mxy's reaction was popping the question◊. He also plays this role in Supergirl.
• Above Good and Evil: Somewhere between this and Blue-and-Orange Morality in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? where he knows what acts are good and evil but doesn't care about what that means. He does things because he's bored and freely switches between them as it suits him.
• Actually Pretty Funny: It's pretty common that once Mxy has been beaten and sent home, everybody will breathe a sigh of relief and have an honest laugh at what they've just been through.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Mxy in Supergirl is, well, a hot guy played by Peter Gadiot.
• Adaptational Species Change: Is a human in Smallville.
• Adaptational Villainy: Mr. Mxyzptlk has seen his occasions of being more villified depending on different adaptations and storylines, given that he tends to be more of an Anti-Villain and/or an Friendly Enemy to Superman and Supergirl (though it's one-sided on the latter's part as described in Abhorrent Admirer).
  • Mxy in Supergirl is far more dangerous than most Mxy incarnations, with his tricks being more dangerous and harmful, though given Supergirl's relationship with Mxy, this is to be expected.
  • The same goes for his Lois & Clark incarnation, who nearly started World War III (and apparently vaporized a guy at the beginning of the episode. It's unclear if that was fixed when he was sent back home...)
  • His incarnation in Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade is arguably Mxy at his worst, as not only is he more directly antagonistic, but is actually malicious and possesses none of the redeeming qualities Mxy tends to show in either his main source material or in other adaptations.
• Alien Geometries: His ludicrous powers are based on the fact that he comes from the fifth dimension. His true appearance, as seen in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, is also mentioned by Lois as having "height, length, breadth, and a couple of other things," reflecting the long-established fact that Mxyzptlk is from the fifth dimension.
• Alliance with an Abomination: Though an extradimensional entity, he'll sometimes work with Superman if there's a problem even he can't deal with alone like the time the Joker stole most of his powers.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: He actually gets into a contest with Impossible Man in a Superman/Silver Surfer crossover, 1) destroying the Fanon that they were actually the same character, and 2) Mxy is a whole lot more callous and darker, and can lie — the last point is a Berserk Button for Impy.invoked
• Always a Bigger Fish: He's certainly no more powerful than other natives of his realm (like Bat-Mite), who can potentially call him out on his shenanigans; and his power is dwarfed by even higher dimensional beings. As to what other, unrelated DC heavy hitters may be legitimately more powerful, it's a major case of Depending on the Writer, Strong as They Need to Be, and Rule of Funny.
  • In terms of physical power, Mxy is this to Superman. He's one villain who Superman knows he can't beat with force and always has to outwit.
• Anti-Villain: At his best, Mxy can turn out to be this. While he's an annoyance to Superman, Supergirl, and their friends, he's not really being malicious, for the most part, and sometimes he's even helped the former out on some occasions, proving himself to be surprisingly honorable at times. There's also the fact that Mxy likes to play the role of Stealth Mentor towards Superman as a way to make the Man of Steel not too stressed about his job as a superhero.
• Apocalypse How: In Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, he intends to become the most powerful being in all of Creation. His plan involves breaking down several whole dimensional planes and turning them into fuel to empower himself.
  Mr. Mxyzptlk: You and your twin primed the machine, but this little baby still needs a lot of fuel. So it's breaking down your dimension. Soon, your reality will collapse into a one-dimensional point in time and space.
• Arc Welding: In Superman: Reborn, it turns out that Mxy, regardless of what continuity is being addressed, either Silver Age, Post-Crisis, The DCAU, The Bizarro Universe, or even Franchise/LEGO, is always the same individual, even when everyone else is a different version of each other, regardless of similarities. Then again, Mxy has always been aware of his nature as a fictional character
• Attention Whore: His gripe with Superman as of Rebirth is the fact that Superman didn't go to rescue him when he was captured by Mr. Oz and spent more time with his wife and son than with him.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
  • Very much a case of Depending on the Writer, but he's often portrayed as not just tormenting Superman purely for his own amusement. Several stories will have him trying to use his powers to help Supes unwind, learn a lesson, or take himself a little less seriously, almost like a court jester.
  • On Superman's side, he shows his All-Loving Hero status even applies to Mxy. Mxy is touched to discover that Superman's son Jon knows who he is because Clark would tell him about their adventures together as bedtime stories. Turns out that Clark did on some level learn to appreciate all the absurdity and silliness Mxy brought into his life.
• Becoming the Mask: At one point, Mxy decided to impersonate Clark Kent. He takes to take it a step further by choosing to knowingly erase his own memories so that he could really emulate Clark in ways Mxy wouldn't have done so due to conflicting personality thoughts. As a result, Mxy adapts well in becoming a journalist and sharing a romantic affection with Lois Lane, just like Clark would.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • 99% of the time, Mr. Mxyzptlk just wants to use his awesome Reality Warper powers to play harmless practical jokes and be a funny pest. As for that 1% of the time, be afraid.
  • Another storyline has him and Bat-Mite having a petty squabble which ends up destroying the entire multiverse with seemingly little effort on both of their parts. He even gets hit by Darkseid's Omega Effect with absolutely no impact besides the beam lighting his cigar. He then destroys Apokolips with a gesture in the next panel.
• Big Bad:
  • Of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, being the one behind all the mysterious and sudden attacks by other superheroes and Superman's identity being revealed. Though Superman and his friends (as well as the audience) are led to believe Brainiac is the main villain before Mxy finally shows up.
  • He's also this in Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade being the one behind everything wrong in the storyline as well as him playing the biggest part in making Kara's life hell.
• Break the Haughty: When The Joker screwed him over and when Superboy-Prime caught him and beat him up.
• Brought Down to Normal:
  • His reality-warping powers allow him to strip away others' powers whenever he feels like it. In The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot, he takes away Superman's powers on several occasions simply for the lulz.
  • On the other hand, he loses his powers when The Magic Goes Away during Day of Vengeance. He seems to die while taking a kryptonite spear to the chest intended for Superman but can be heard whispering "Kltpzyxm" before he vanishes.
  • He was tricked in Emperor Joker into giving The Joker 99% of his power.
• The Bus Came Back: He disappeared from Countdown to Final Crisis after being hounded by Superboy-Prime for messing with him, which causes Mxy to isolate himself in the 5th Dimension due to his newfound fear of the corrupted Kal-El. He personally doesn't show up until Superman: Reborn. This makes sense as Mr. Mxyzptlk is actually the same character, regardless of medium or continuity, as he always was due to his nature of being aware of the fourth wall.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: Post-Crisis Lex Luthor had to teach him how to lie.
• Canon Immigrant: First appeared in the Superman newspaper comic strip, but he proved to be popular and memorable enough to be turned into one of Superman's most memorable enemies.
• Catchphrase: "Aw nuts!" in various continuities whenever he realizes he said his name backwards.
• Cigar Chomper: For a while after his Post-Crisis debut.
• Clarke's Third Law: His magic is sometimes handwaved as advanced science.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: Doesn't last long after he reveals his true form in Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?.
• Composite Character: DC Rebirth said that every version of Mxy (including other media) is the same one travelling to different universes.
• Continuity Snarl: Played for Laughs. Mxy is fully aware of every other version of himself in all other continuities, and is implied to be the same person across all canons. Including the "Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow" version where he's portrayed as the ultimate villain who dies at the end of the tale. Doesn't seem to have any hard feelings.
• Court Jester: Was a court jester in his home dimension.
• Court Mage: The New 52 version was this to a 5th-dimensional king and made a major enemy out of the previous mage he replaced.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Getting pulled apart by two teleporting forces working against each other and feeling your atoms and physical presence getting ripped apart by such surely isn't a nice way to go out on. Not to mention Mxy is screaming in horrible agony over it.
• Darker and Edgier: Silver Age Superman stories, while not without their own dark and serious stories, were usually light-hearted, adventurous, and optimistic, and even Mxy himself tended to be a jokey villain. Then came Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and when Mxy decided to play serious for once, it justified the uncharacteristically grim tone of the story's final act. Even Lois lampshades the predicament when Mxy shows up...
  Lois Lane: He didn't look funny anymore.
• Dastardly Dapper Derby: His signature clothing style always consists of him wearing a derby hat, which emphasizes his strange background and motivations to prank others at the expense of others, solely to amuse himself.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Died once and was almost instantly brought back to life by God.
• Desperate Plea for Home: After being Brought Down to Normal and left unable to return to his home dimension in Day of Vengeance, as he lies dying, he thinks: "I'm scared... I just want to go home... I want... to go..."
• Decomposite Character;
  • To explain why his name was originally spelled differently, they said that Mxyztplk was an alternate version from Earth-Two.
  • They used to hint that he was also Impossible Man from the Fantastic Four comics but a crossover between Superman and The Silver Surfer had them both meeting each other.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He's been on the receiving end of the trope a few times where even his incredibly awesome powers aren't enough to save him from getting beaten.
  • In Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, Superman, with the aid of Lois Lane, manages to catch Mxy using the Phantom Zone Projector. However, Mxy makes the mistake of having to say his name backward to get back to his own dimension bust before he is hit by the projector. As a result, the conflicting force of two teleportations happening at the same place rips Mxy apart, killing him horribly.
  • In Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Superboy-Prime gets annoyed and frustrated by his trickster antics and decides to repay by viciously beating Mxy into becoming terrified of him. As a result, the fifth-dimensional imp- becomes so afraid that he isolates himself into his own dimension, never to come out until around a decade later.
  • Prior to Superman: Reborn, Mr. Oz trapped him in a special dimension that nullifies his powers. However, it crosses over into scamming territory as Mr. Oz admitted he had to get Mxy into a Power Nullifier area where his abilities were dampened.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: He's on the receiving end of this trope, courtesy of The Joker in the Emperor Joker storyline where The Joker scams Mxy into giving him 99% of his power by tricking Mxy into saying his true name and what ends up happening is disastrous, to say the least.
• Deus ex Machina: Once appeared out of nowhere to save Superboy from the Kryptonite Kid, so he would be able to harass Superman for years to come.
• Dimensional Traveler: One of the many inhabitants of the 5th Dimension.
• Emotion Eater: He invents an emotion-collecting machine that is disguised as a communicator that Supergirl uses throughout Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade which, unknown to Kara, absorbs emotions and feelings that are transferred to Mxy to grant him more power.
  Mr. Mxyzptlk: A little piece of home to pour your heart out to. Days and weeks and months of raw pre-teen emotions churning and bubbling their way into my precious emotion-collecting machine.
• "End of the World" Special: After the events of Emperor Joker, Mxy decides to look after rebuilding the DC Universe to make up for the fact that The Joker almost destroyed it via stealing Mxy's powers and using it for his own destructive and sadistic fantasies.
• Engineered Heroics: In The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot, Mxy impersonates Supergirl so that he could perform heroics under their guise and take the credit. This is also one of the reasons why he takes away Clark's powers as it just adds more into the fun of it.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Word of God says that similar DC characters like Qwsp, Bat-Mite and Johnny Thunder's genie, Thunderbolt also come from the same dimension as Mxy.
• Evil Gloating: The one time he really did get serious about being a threat, Mxy decides to boast about killing Superman and chasing after him and Lois, when instead he's more than capable of actually ending him right them and there with his absurdly powerful reality-warping abilities.
  Mr. Mxyzptlk: Now, two thousand years later, I'm bored again. I need a change. Starting with your death, I shall spend the next two millennia being evil! After that, who knows? Perhaps I'll try being guilty for a while. Did you honestly believe a fifth-dimensional sorcerer would resemble a funny little man in a derby hat? Would you like to see how I really look?"
• Evil Plan: His one plan at the end end of the Silver Age is to basically manipulate all of Superman's then active rogues gallery into grouping together and attacking the Man of Steel and his friends whilst he controlled the situation in the shadows until he was literally the only villain left to guess. His reason for doing that was because he got bored of playing as a harmless prankster and decided to be evil for once.
• Eviler than Thou: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? reveals that the schemes of such heavy-hitting Superman foes like Lex Luthor and Brainiac throughout the comic were orchestrated by him. In the end, he reveals that if he wasn't so goofy, he would actually be the most dangerous menace to the Man of Steel, no exceptions.

F-N

• Final Boss: In the famous Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? story, where he was the one who orchestrated the many villainous effects that would force Superman into one final battle. He only unveils himself after Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and the rest of Superman's rogues are taken down and he makes it certain about how he can be Superman's greatest enemy if he tried.
• Foil: To Bat-Mite, an actively friendly member of Mxy's race who none the less ends up causing nothing but problems for his favorite three-dimensional being. He and Mxy squabble constantly whenever they meet up.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Yeah, the imp? That is not what he looks like.◊
  Mr. Mxyzptlk: Did you honestly believe a fifth-dimensional sorcerer would resemble a funny little man in a derby hat?
• Fourth-Wall Observer: He even secretly mocks the other characters for not realizing that they are fictional.
• Friendly Enemy: As much as he aggravates Superman, and as frustrated as he may get at Superman for outwitting him, it's nearly always clear that he regards the whole thing as a game and doesn't bear Superman any real malice. Post-Crisis, he even occasionally serves as a Trickster Mentor to him. All of which is a good thing; you don't want him seriously angry at you.
• Friendly Rival: Bat-Mite, a fellow Fifth Dimensioner who is generally more benevolent but has less common sense.
• Fun Personified: In stark comparison to the rest of Superman's rogues gallery, Mr. Mxyzptlk is more content to mess around and play pranks with Clark instead of just fighting him, resulting in their squabbles being more humorous in tone. This is even discussed by Mxy himself during Superman: Reborn where the reason why he was not around for the events of the New 52 was because of his trickster, jokey nature.
• God in Human Form: He has done this on a few occasions, though his reasons depend.
  • In The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot, he takes the form of Supergirl so that he could play hero and fool around her and her cousin whilst competing against Batmite against who could do better in messing around.
  • In Superman Reborn, he takes on the guise of Clark Kent and even goes as far as to erase his own memories so that he could fully immerse himself into the role. He does this so that Superman's identity could be cleared and he could resume a normal personal life later on, though Mxy doesn't give up on his silly antics either way.
• Godhood Seeker: His ultimate goal in Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade is to sap away the emotions and feelings of anybody across the multiverse as much as possible, even if it results in the collapse of several universes, all in an attempt for Mxy to attain unchecked power for himself.
• Great Gazoo: He's an imp from the fifth dimension and possesses an absurd variety of abilities and near-omnipotent power to boot.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He became convinced that Superman would come and save him the moment he realized that he was MIA and became worried and upset when he didn't. When he found Clark with his son, he became convinced that he forgot him in favor of Jon.
• Hidden Depths: While he is immature and annoying towards most people he comes across, Mxy does have a sense of respect and honor and is capable of admitting fault in case something goes horribly wrong to the point where he would try to owe up for it. After all, his pranks are meant to be harmless.
• Hidden Villain: Despite being the main antagonist of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, Mxy never actually makes an appearance throughout most of the story, with Superman and his allies guessing the main threat is Brainiac. It's only after every active member of Superman's rogues gallery is defeated that Superman guesses that Mxy is behind everything, guessing that he is the only Silver Age villain to have not turned up after that point.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • This is how he is killed in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow. When he realizes that Superman has the Phantom Zone Projector to seal him away, Mxy tries to escape by saying his name backward. Unfortunately, he does this just before Superman activates the projector. The incredible pressure and power coming from two teleportations working against each other at a focal point with Mxy as the center causes him great pain and agony and rips his atoms and existence apart, ensuring that he doesn't come back after being killed.
  • In Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, Mxy manipulates events to bring Kara to Earth, collects her emotions during a year, and builds a machine based on Kara's Kryptonian biology to process them and make him all-powerful. However, because his machine is based on Kara's biology and powered by her emotions, she can go after him and claim the power he wanted to seize.
    Supergirl: Your machine utilized and magnified my emotions... my energies... it never occurred to you that I could follow you? That I could claim this power?
• Humanoid Abomination: His impish appearance is just a disguise and his real form is completely different. See A Form You Are Comfortable With for more details.
• Idiot Ball: In Emperor Joker, he decides to give the Joker, a known psychotic maniac, reality warping powers, simply because he is bored. Mxyzptlk eventually acknowledges his catastrophic stupidity. In his defense, he only intended to give him 1% and Joker tricked him into giving him the other 99% instead.
• In Name Only: His Smallville counterpart is a European teenager who uses mind control abilities to fix football games.
• Insane Troll Logic: He holds a grudge against Superman for not rescuing him despite the fact that Supes had no way of knowing he was actually missing than simply poofing off to do something else as he always did, was preoccupied with caring for his wife and son in an entirely new universe, and was stuck with the responsibilities of becoming Superman once more in the much more cynical and problem-plagued world that came with the New 52.
  • Though this can be attributed to the slight Sanity Slippage he suffered while held captive.
• It Amused Me: This is the main motivation of Mr. Mxyzptlk's actions most of the time. pranking and making fun of others is his favorite hobby so why not throw it at anybody that catches his interest, especially Superman, and see the fun in trying to mess around with one of the most powerful beings in the universe? That said, he doesn't like getting tricked himself, as The Joker demonstrates.
• Jerkass: Especially when compared to The Impossible Man during the Superman/Silver Surfer crossover. Impy is outraged that not only did Mxy not care about innocent lives being endangered, but he lied to him.
• Julius Beethoven da Vinci: Told Superboy-Prime that over the centuries, humans have known him as Loki, Coyote and Anansi.
• Killed Off for Real: Overlaps with Family-Unfriendly Death; the way he's killed off in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, via getting torn in-between dimensions via the Phantom Zone Projector to ensure that he can never come back in any shape or form due to the sheer level of treat he poses. Though it had to be done, Superman was greatly ashamed to have had to kill someone.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: It's rare that he well and truly gets into trouble, but when it happens, it's good to have a word that can send you into another dimension that said trouble can't reach. However, by the time he feels the need to do that, things have gotten to the point that it's not gonna be that easy...
• Large Ham: He likes to make a big show out of himself and his pranks, which is one of the many reasons Superman and Supergirl, but especially the latter, find it incredibly annoying to deal with him.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: When he decided to impersonate Clark Kent, going as far as to even erase his own memories so that he could better immerse himself into the role, he deliberately brainwashed himself to protect Superman's secret identity. After he gets his memories back, he erases Lois' memories of Jon as revenge for Supes forgetting him. Lana seems to be suffering from the same thing, too.
• Laughably Evil, He's not exactly evil so much as he's more amoral, but a lot of Mxy's pranks and tricks toward others tend to be quite humorous, funny, and entertaining in nature.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: For a while, it was strongly implied that he would visit the Marvel Universe and become Impossible Man but a crossover between Superman and the Silver Surfer showed them as two separate characters.
• Legacy Character: In Superman Reborn, Mxy revealed that all incarnations of him in any medium were the same person.
• Leprechaun: In Lois & Clark and Superman: The Animated Series he says that the leprechauns of legend were based on him.
• Loophole Abuse: In the Silver Age, it was established that if anyone said their name backwards in Mxy's immediate presence, they would be instantly teleported to whatever place they considered home. This could be useful if you were stranded someplace you didn't want to be, and Mxy happened to show up to make a pest of himself.
• Manchild: He's several millennia old, and has a lot of understanding (and personal experience) of the universe based on his age... and his main hobby is basically just messing around, playing pranks and tricks on anybody he has an interest on, very much like what a mischievous child would do. Mxy takes pride out of this, even admitting that he's a child at heart.
• Medium Awareness: In Rebirth, he reveals that he is conscious of all his incarnations, and is aware that they are books/tv shows/animated series, etc. Part of his motivation in his comeback storyline is literally that he feels he doesn't get enough respect for being a core Superman character.
• Memory Gambit: In order to make his impersonation as Clark Kent all the more effective, Mxy decides to wash away his memories so that his personal thoughts and tics don't interfere with Clark's personality and affiliations with his friends and close ones.
• More than Three Dimensions: Presumably has five as he comes from the 5th Dimension, but it only really shows when he reveals his true form in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?.
• Mr. Imagination: It comes with the territory of being a master Reality Warper. Anything Mxy wants to create with his powers, he will do so with all sorts of crazy and abstract designs and alterations to physics. It's clear from there that Mxy is quite imaginative in how to use his powers.
• The Needless: Spent his first 2,000 years without moving or breathing.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In Superman: Reborn, his actions only succeed in the creation of the complete versions of Superman and Lois, accommodating their corrected histories into the new DC Universe. Considering he leaves without causing further trouble when this happens, it's implied this is what he wanted all along.
• Noble Demon: While usually a bombastic, silly trickster, Mxy does have a sense of honor and respect that he can occasionally display in spite of his reputation as among the most powerful of Superman's rogues gallery. For one, he did save Supes's life at some points, admits that he messed up on giving The Joker his own powers and seeks to look after the universe being rebuilt as penance, congratulated Jon Kent for beating him at one point, and even tries to be a mentor to Superman in his own weird way so that he doesn't have to burden himself too much as a hero.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? shows that he could be the most dangerous threat to Superman of all time if he was truly malicious.

O-W

• Omnicidal Maniac: His end goal in Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade is to break down several whole dimensions and reality planes in order to power himself up. This is one of the reasons why this incarnation of Mxy is far worse than the others as the sheer malice in his goals is a stark contrast to the mostly harmless and prankster-style nature of other versions of Mxy.
• The Omnipotent: At his strongest, he's capable of crumpling up the fabric of the multiverse like paper.
• One-Winged Angel: He assumes his true form at the climax of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and because of his five-dimensional physiology, he can not be fully comprehended by human thought. As Lois states about his appearance, "I can't describe what Mxyzptlk then became. He had height, width, depth, and a couple of other things, too."
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Normally, Mr. Mxyzptlk tends to be comical, childish, and mischievous whenever he decides to put up with the Superman Family That said, there were a few occasions where he decided to take a situation seriously for different reasons.
  • In Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, Mxy decides to stop being a tertiary adversary for once and become a truly horrifying and dangerous foe for Superman, claiming that he decided to go this direction because he was bored and he wanted to prove that he would be Superman's greatest enemy if he wanted to.
  • In Emperor Joker, he's positively aghast when he discovers that The Joker had conned him into giving the Clown Prince of Crime 99% of Mxy's powers and The Joker immediately uses his newfound powers to distort and ruin the universe however way he likes it. At the story's conclusion, he decides, with utmost sincerity, to supervise seeing the DC Universe get back into shape as a way to make up for his mistake.
• Our Genies Are Different: In Lois & Clark and Superman: The Animated Series, he says that he inspired the legends about genies and imps.
• Parental Incest: His wife turned out to be his daughter thanks to a Stable Time Loop.
• Pet the Dog: In one pre-Crisis story, he briefly pauses in his latest mischief-making to return a blind man's cane to him. The man was Superman in disguise, but Mxyzptlk didn't know that before he stepped in to help.
• Physical God: 5th Dimensional imps are more-or-less gods in comparison to everyone else and Mxy is no exception, no thanks to his wide array and ridiculous strength of his powers as well as being aware of damn near everything about the DC Universe due to his knack of breaking the fourth wall.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: He's a 5th-Dimensional Imp and he has extreme reality-warping powers. He tends to be one of the most powerful beings in any verse he stumbles across.
• Portal Cut: In Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, he tries to escape back to the Fifth Dimension while Superman was sending him to the Phantom Zone and half of him went to each dimension.
• Purple Is Powerful: He's often wearing shades of purple in his clothing, and in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, he is purple. He has devastating reality-warping powers and is easily one of Superman's most powerful adversaries. If he wanted to, he can potentially be Superman's greatest enemy.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He's this on his worst days, particularly in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade. While still immature and verbally boisterous in those stories, Mxy taking the role of full villainy makes him quite unhinged and more than ready to cause untold destruction.
• Reality Warper: Mister Mxyzptlk possesses an unlimited ability to warp reality within the third dimension in any way he can imagine. His powers have been described alternatively as the product of fifth-dimensional magic or advanced technology from the fifth dimension that appears to be magical to third-dimensional beings. Attendant with his abilities is the fact that Mxyzptlk himself is not limited by physical laws: he needs no sustenance such as air or water, can exist in any environment (whether the bottom of the sea or in outer space), and is not vulnerable to any kind of real physical harm.
• Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: While he is absurdly powerful, Mxy mainly uses his ability to troll and mess around with others, namely Superman, and makes it clear that he views the occasion as a game. Then come Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow when Mxy actually uses his powers offensively and directly antagonizes Superman where it becomes clear how much of a threat Mxy can be if he wants to be a villain. He also comes to believe in this trope when he is scammed by The Joker into giving him 99% of his own powers and seeing the carnage and chaos he caused to the point where he decides to look after the DC Universe rebuilding itself after The Joker is dealt with.
• Schmuck Bait: During his scuffle against Batmite whilst messing around on Supergirl and Batgirl, Mxy declares he has won their bet and demands the prize money, Batmite writes a check and hands it over to Mxy, saying he has signed it with his real name. Puzzled, Mxyzptlk reads "Klt Pzy Xm"...and he realizes he has been tricked into saying his name backward right before being forcefully and automatically returned to his own dimension.
  Mr. Mxyzptlk: "You owe me a dimensional check for 100 magic units! Your hero and his partner lost!"
  Batmite: "Oh, all right! Here...I signed it with my real name...the one I use in my own dimensional world!"
  Mr. Mxyzptlk: "Hmm...Your name is... Klt Pzy Xm? Yaaa! It's my name...in reverse! Whenever I say it backward, I'm automatically returned to my own world! You tricked me!"
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Wears purple and sometimes orange.
• Shapeshifting Trickster: He's a 5th-dimensional imp whose main hobby is pulling pranks and tricks by using a wide range of powers. Of course, one of those powers includes the ability to shapeshift into anybody Mxy wants to be, solely for the sake of having a good laugh and playing around with others, even if they express annoyance out of it.
• Stable Time Loop: Two of them:
  • Superboy once met Mxy time traveling from the past. He was a scientist back then and Superboy had to teach him about humor by showing him The Three Stooges movies in order to save the world.
  • After New 52, Mxyzptlk got a job as a Court Mage for an old king and married his daughter. He eventually grew up to be the king and gave his past self the job which is apparently normal in the 5th Dimension.
• Stealth Mentor: Depending on the Writer, he's simply trying to teach Superman to lighten up and not take things so seriously.
• Story-Breaker Power: Easily the most powerful member of Superman's Rogue's Gallery, and the only reason he doesn't defeat Superman instantly is because he willingly restrains himself.
• Strong as They Need to Be: While all versions of Mxy are absurdly powerful, just how absurdly powerful can vary. The above-mentioned instance when he and Bat-Mite destroyed the multiverse and then recreated it on a lark is certainly his high point. That time that the magic going away rendered him mortal and he seemingly died on panel is probably his low point (he got better).
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: This is how his abilities were described in his original Golden Age appearance.
• Swap Teleportation: Once banished Superman and Captain Marvel to an alternate universe but had to swap them for two natives. Luckily one of those natives was Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Gsptlsnz isn't huge, but is an amazon compared to him.
• Too Powerful to Live: As demonstrated in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, Mr. Mxyzptlk would probably be too powerful and unstoppable for Superman to fight on a constant basis due to how much power he has and how dangerous he could be if he became a full-blown villain, hence Superman and Lois decided that he would have to be killed off.
• The Trickster: His main hobby is pulling mischievous pranks and trolling others for his own amusement, with Superman and his closest family and friends being his preferred target. The fact that he's this is indicative of how he's one of Supes's more affable and easygoing villains, at least not when he decides to suddenly become a villain for once.
• Trickster Mentor: Usually. Anytime he toys around with Superman, Mxy makes sure that things don't get too malicious and even tries to help the Man of Steel out in his own weird way.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: His wife, Gsptlsnz, looks like a friggin' supermodel, while he is a short and ugly imp.
• The Unpronounceable: Oh, that array of consonants makes discussion\spelling hard. It usually goes from "Mix-pih-tulk" to "Mix-yez-pitl-ick". Backwards, it's easier to say ("Kel-tip-zex-im."). On Super Friends (and in a passing reference in Miracle Monday, which was published around that time) it was pronounced more like "Mix-el-plik" and "Klip-til-skim," respectively.
• Villainous Rescue: He's actually saved Superman multiple times, refusing to let anybody else get the satisfaction of beating him. And the one time he took over his civilian identity, he did it to protect it after it was compromised in Superman: Truth.
• We Named the Monkey "Jack": He has a goldfish called Superman, likening the fact that for all the trouble that he causes him, Mxy does have a soft spot for the Man of Steel, even if this doesn't tend to be shown for the most part.
• Weaksauce Weakness: His only apparent vulnerability is that whenever he speaks his name backward, he is shunted back to the fifth dimension, and all effects of his "magic" vanish, making everything as it was before he appeared. This is a temporary deterrent: after ninety days, he can again visit the third dimension at will.
  • In Post-Crisis continuity, Mxy made up himself this weakness because a game has to have rules; pre-Crisis, it was a naturally ingrained weakness.
  • Rebirth also shows that despite his own spitefulness, he has a special weakness for games. So even though he was on track to take his revenge on Superman easily by making him forget his son, when Supes challenges him to a game, he's too enthralled to not play, even offering an all-or-nothing deal to the winner.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: In Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, he says that he spent the first 2,000 years of his existence doing nothing, the next 2,000 years being a benevolent being, and then the last 2,000 years being a prankster. He's decided that now he would just be plain evil. After that? He muses he'd probably spend the 2,000 years after his evil run being remorseful. All attributed to the fact that he has to find something to do being immortal.
• Willfully Weak: This is one of the reasons why he doesn't use his powers to the fullest. Aside from holding back to give his opponents a chance so the games would be more interesting, Mxy is in effect The Omnipotent while within the third dimension. He even lampshades this during the Emperor Joker story arc when the Joker steals his powers and is strong enough to alter the entire universe and affect beings like The Spectre who is also a Reality Warper. When Superman asks how the Joker could be all-powerful when Mxy isn't, Mxy corrects him by stating that "I actually grasp the concept that if you wreck reality, there's nothing left to play with". Meaning that Mxy IS in fact powerful enough to alter reality to the point where his actions become literally impossible and the universe can't take the strain of being twisted in ways that shouldn't be possible, he's just not crazy or homicidal enough to do that - unlike the guy who was now wielding that power.

• World-Healing Wave: All his damage is undone after he gets sent back to the 5th Dimension.
• Worthy Opponent: He comes to see Jon Kent as this after the latter defeats the former in Superman Reborn and Mxy expresses respect over the matter. That said, he is quite salty over the fact that Superman "cheated".

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