50 Greatest Super Villains In Comic Book History

47. Mr. Mxyzptlk

(Write-up by Nick Tylwalk, Bam Smack Pow Editor)

Talk about a tough villain to sum up in just a few hundred words. Most of Superman’s enemies want to kill him, take over his world or do something equally terrible. Most of the time, Mr. Mxyzptlk just wants to have some fun, and the best way for an imp from the fifth dimension to do that is to find the perfect straight man. Unfortunately for the Man of Steel, it turned out to be him.

That’s better than the alternative, because this prankster’s powerful magic can be all kinds of trouble if it falls into the wrong hands. We learned that during the Emperor Joker event, because when the Joker got the power to remake all of reality according to his own twisted whims … well, the results weren’t pretty.

Joker was able to seize that power by tricking Mr. Mxyzptlk, something that has happened to him regularly over the years. Adults of a certain age will no doubt remember him from the Super Friends, which seemed to settle the debate over how to pronounce that over-consonanted name. Yes, I just made up a word. It seemed appropriate given who we’re talking about here.

Whether you call him “miks-ill-plik,” “mix-yez-pittle-ick” or something else entirely, you just can’t keep a good imp down forever. There’s no real way to stop Mr. Mxyzptlk, so you’re just going to have to put up with him and do your best to fool him into saying his name backwards or just gets bored enough to leave. He’s proof that simply being a consistently good pest is enough to get you into the discussion of the greatest comic book super villains, and he’s right about one thing: Superman could stand to loosen up a bit sometimes.

Next: No. 46: The totem hunter