3


“Everything that happened recently matched one of that 5th Dimensional Imp’s past zany tricks. My Pa’s costume changed colors before when Mxyzptlk impersonated him because at that time the imp was color blind. Ron’s name was switched to Rona because the imp once made me think I was on a world of switched genders. He also once made everyone think they were Hypermen or Hyperwomen right down to the matching costumes. The most telling sign of all is he once created a magical construct who posed as a fictional wife of mine. He called her Larisa Lennox!” he thought.


He flew away from the city and swiftly reached a small community known as Lake City. The resort town was a popular place for vacationers and as he recalled from his own time there a few years before, it was also the setting in which Mr. Mxyzptlk the prank playing magical imp had tried to make him believe that a beautiful woman named Larissa Lennox was in fact his wife and the mother of his child! In truth, she was nothing more than a magical creation of the frustratingly madcap imp.


Hyperman spotted the suburban home with its neat flowerbed and freshly painted front porch. It looked like the perfect middle class suburban home.


Hyperman said, “Each of those magical alterations matched one of Mxyzptlk’s past tricks. They formed a message of sorts. He wanted me to know he was behind them. He used the Larissa construct again to make it all as clear as could be. None of the tricks was a new one nor were any of them even remotely funny. He usually appears to gloat over his magical mischief. This isn’t a joke. It is a cry for help!”


He entered the home to find a bizarre scene. Mr. Mxyzptlk, the orange and purple clad imp was frightened and worried and his normally laughing eyes looked relieved to see the Man of Power as he stepped into view!



“Thank Zrff!” sighed Mr. M. as the hero approached him to find he was clearly not in charge.


“What is it? You sent for me and I came!” said Hyperman.


Mr. M. pointed at a sinister woman with black hair and a weird green costume that consisted of a green cone-shaped hat and a green dress with flowing sleeves and a short hem above thigh high black boots.


“Who are you? What is this all about?” he asked.


She smiled wickedly and said, “So, even though I had incapacitated him, the little worm was able to summon help. What was it? Use of some old magic that you still had residual control over?”


“No matter! Welcome, Hyperman. I am the Enchantress! There’s more than enough death to go around!” she said with a smirk.


Mxyzptlk said, “I am sorry! I am so sorry!”


“You know that this world is not the only one I visit. I play jokes on other heroes too. Well, some of my mischief got out of hand. The Low Court summoned me to pay for my behavior!” he said.


Hyperman said, “Low Court? Don’t you mean High Court?”


The Imp said, “Well, none of us 5th Dimensional beings are that tall! My parental units Fuzastl and Tlndsa and my two wives Bgbznz and the other one whose name I forget were all summoned. You see, jokes are well…jokes but my actions were deemed socially unacceptable and the ruling was I needed an experimental therapy. They used magic to remove my anti-social and uncle social tendencies and make me a better imp! I agreed because I wanted to be a good father to little Kytszbtn my poor afflicted son!”


“You have a child?” asked Hyperman as he stealthily scanned the scene. Magic was his weakness and he would have to be careful. This

Enchantress was evil. He could almost feel palpable waves of malice radiating from the lithe female.


Mr. Myxzptlk said, “Yes, he is why I am here. You see they removed my bad urges and somehow being magical in nature they sort of coalesced here because I had been here recently. They fell into her clutches as a kind of raw magical energy source but she couldn’t do more than contain them!”


He pointed to a darkly glowing sphere that floated near the witch.


“She wanted to tap into my bad side magic and use it for truly evil purposes! I never really meant anyone any harm. She is different!”


The Enchantress said, “I come from Earth or its dimensional space and I was drawn here by the power in that sphere. If I can absorb that 5th Dimensional magic I can do anything! I was inhibited for too long by a goody good named June Moon. We split into separate beings and she went off to find true love or some such rot. I came here to become more powerful through use of the raw dark magic represented by his more malicious impulses but no non-Imp can contain such power for long. Oh, such power has been briefly used by mortals but never the purely dark kind like the cruel, petty, and jealous urges found within Mxyzptlk and drained from his body by his foolish court. I can not contain it in my shapely form but another Imp could do so and be my pawn!”


Hyperman said, “You said your son motivated your reformation but there is more to it than you’ve said.”


Mr. M nodded sadly and said, “My child was born without magic. He alone in the 5th Dimension has no power. You see, she took my boy! She wants to implant my raw dark magic in his little helpless body and make him her living power source! I came to stop her and used what power I had left after she defeated me to summon you with elements of old spells!”


Hyperman said, “I won’t let any child be hurt!”


The Enchantress gestured to a small boy of around five years old. He had black hair and dark eyes and looked confused but not frightened.


“I mean to do what the Imp father said. I mean to make his child a living host for his own darkest desires and then I will use the child as my weapon of choice!” she said.


Hyperman knew from battles with other magical beings like the Silver Banshee, Mr, Z,, Arathaza, and Skyhook that he was vulnerable and he was without his ally Mr. Mystic who routinely dealt with the supernatural but he was never a man to turn away from a threat.


He stepped forward and said, “Leave the child alone. Put your dark magic in me. I’ll allow it. Just let the child and his father go!”


Mr. Mxyzptlk said, “I know what you are thinking! Don’t do it! I needed your help. Had she taken my son to Earth, I’d have sought out Superman! If she was on Oceania, I’d have brought the other Hyperman but here, you are the greatest hero. Like the others, I know you too well. I need my son. I don’t want you to be hurt either though. I don’t know what to do. It’s not funny. It’s no joke! Nothing I’ve done has been funny if it resulted in this tragedy!”


Hyperman moved with amazing speed. He smashed through the sphere and dark magic surged through his mighty frame. His eyes gleamed with a black light and his handsome features contorted into a grimace and then as the Enchantress shrieked in shocked anger, the hero took a deep breath and smiled.


“No evil magic can change me from the man I was raised to be. My hyper body can hold this magic and I won’t let it make me evil! I’d say you lost!” he said.


The Enchantress screamed in fury. “I cannot believe you gave yourself up like that and you still resisted the darkness! What kind of being are you?”


Mr. Myxzptlk grabbed his son as the spell that held him faded as the witch lost concentration.


“Hyperman is like Superman. They are incredibly virtuous and they never lose. You see, all these years I’ve played jokes on them but deep down I was the loser. I was the one the jokes were really on because I knew and I still know Hyperman, Superman, Mighty Man, they never lose!” he said as he hugged his son closer.


Hyperman moved toward the Enchantress but she was both shaken by his purity and drawn by some inner force…some remnant of June Moon…that made her uncertain as to what she should do. It was this sense of uncertainty that had rendered her unable to fight back with all of her magical resources. Even apart from June Moon, she was still incomplete.


“I will find power. Be it on Earth or some other dimensional plane. I will become all I ever wanted to be!” she whispered as she faded from view.


Hyperman felt the absence of her malice and turned to the Imps.


“Are you two hurt?” he asked as he knelt down to face Kytszbtn.


“I’m Hyperman. Don’t be afraid. Your father is an old friend of mine!”


The child reached out to touch the hero and smiled merrily.


Mr. Mxyzptlk sighed and said, “I know how to thank you. I’m the one who should carry the bad impulses. After all, they are mine. I have more reason to resist them from now on. I want to be an Imp my son can look up to…and that’s no joke!”


Hyperman nodded as the dark magic flowed out of his body back into Mr. Mxyzptlk’s form.


“I am fine. I mean these urges were part of me to begin with like your nobility is part of you. I will control them and I will help my son!” he said.


Hyperman said, “I believe you. If you need someone to talk to, just look me up!”


Mr. Mxyzptlk snapped his fingers and Hyperman found himself back in Metropolis.


“I better hurry. I was supposed to meet Alpha Centurian, Gangbuster, the Primal Force, and Power Company, and the other heroes to discuss disaster relief after the Grayven rampage!” he said.


He smiled and waved to the cheering crowds below as he headed toward another adventure!


The End

This was great! It's always a good day when you post a story.

I like the Post-Crisis Superman character references, though I hope that doesn't mean that all of those characters can't exist on Earth-1 as well. I wrote Silver Banshee in as an Irish super-villainess in some unposted Underworld Unleashed segments to be posted sometime this year, for example. We have seen an Earth-2 Gangbuster already, also, based in Chicago. And I believe there is a story featuring one of the original Power Company characters on Earth-X.

I wonder - if Mxy has been popping up at all 3 places for years, I wonder if he ever forgets where he's at and somehow pranks one hero with a prank he's been planning for another one of them? Maybe he changes gender for all of Clark Kent's friends, but at the same time he changes them to reversed gender versions of Kirk Quentin's friends? Maybe his pranks are somehow tailored to a specific planet but the same prank works differently on one of the other planets? Also wonder if, when he says his name backward on Earth, does that affect his visits to Trombus? Does he rotate planets to visit or just pick one at random?

There was a Post Crisis story by John Byrne that indicates Mxy appeared as the Impossible Man fighting the Fantastic Four (only pictured not named). I can’t recall if anything like that has been indicated here though.