Impossible Man
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The Impossible Man is a fictional character, a mischievous alien appearing in the Marvel Comics universe who is, on his rare appearances, usually an antagonist of the Fantastic Four. He first appeared in Fantastic Four #11 (Feb, 1963), and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He is described as a Poppupian, an alien race with a name analogous to popping up.
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[edit] Character biography
The Impossible Man belongs to the alien race of Poppupians, all of whom shared a collective consciousness and the ability to shapeshift, assuming some of the useful attributes of the new form when they do ('The People of Poppup have no names. We Know who we are!'). The Impossible Man has green skin, an elongated egg-shaped head, and wears a strange purple outfit. He is a highly mischievous and meddlesome character with staggering powers.
The Impossible Man wandered away from his society's collective consciousness, eventually making his way to Earth by transforming into a space ship. There he amused himself by causing trouble among the normal humans with his ability to transform. The Fantastic Four eventually used the tactic of ignoring him and getting others to do the same, which convinced him that Earth was boring and caused him to return to his home planet.
When the world-eating Galactus threatened to consume other worlds, the Poppupians had the Impossible Man lead Galactus to their own world and devour it, in an effort to relieve them of their boredom. The Impossible Man himself survived, and the Poppupians' collective consciousness lived on through him. After his own world was destroyed, he returned to Earth, where loneliness due to a lack of his own kind impelled him to reproduce, a process done asexually by splitting in two. The result was the Impossible Woman, and later, in an attempt to recreate the Poppupian race, their cloned impossible kids.
The Impossible Man eventually returned to earth alone to cause trouble again. He said that he had left his family behind because they had developed minds unlike his own, and to determine leadership a scavenger hunt had been devised which involved taking many powerful artifacts from earth's heroes. Foiled by the X-Men and other heroes, he left earth having failed the test. He returned several times over the years, encountering the Fantastic Four, Spider-Woman, the New Mutants, the Silver Surfer, and even Stan Lee. He appeared during the Cross-Time Caper which featured the dimensionally lost Excalibur. There he confronted Galactus, who wished to consume a silly version of the Marvel Universe. He even harassed Rick Jones at his bachelor party with the men of the Avengers (in The Incredible Hulk #417-418). He was also responsible for sending fake wedding invites to so many entities Rick Jones knew, most of who he did not actually want at his wedding. He appeared in the Cable X-Force one shot special in order to garner the team's help in turning his children from idiot slackers to responsible entities.
He is also known to have killed The Thing's Aunt Petunia in Marvel's own parody of 'Identity Crisis', which appeared in Wha... Huh?, a humorous series which is not in Marvel continuity.
[edit] A Mxy-Up Between Universes?
In many aspects, the Impossible Man seems to have been modelled after the DC comics character Mr. Mxyzptlk. This has been implied by DC comics themselves; for instance, in Superman Vol. 2 #50, Mxyzptlk mentions that he's been "having fun with my new fantastic friends" and later "back to my four new friends", referring to the Fantastic Four; he uses the expression "it's blubbering time" (a play on the Thing's standard battle-cry "it's clobbering time"), and says that he's been having "a backlog of mayhem in another dimension", probably referring to the Marvel universe. Mxyzptlk keeps altering his form constantly in this issue, and also changes into a form very similar to that of Impossible Man and says "Sometimes it's just impossible to remember what I look like from world to world"; as with the other keywords, "fantastic' and "four", the word "impossible" appeared in the comic in italic type. Later on, in 1996, the Impossible Man and Mxyzptlk teamed up in the DC/Marvel crossover story Silver Surfer vs. Superman, in which the two imps, having met in a small dimension that each entered during teleports, combined their powers to swap universes for the Silver Surfer and Superman. Here, the power of the Impossible Man was more like Mxyzptlk's own reality warping powers rather than just shapeshifting. In this comic, Mxyzptlk and the Impossible Man have a fight where they keep changing into various characters from their respective universe, for instance the Hulk and Doomsday. The differences were profoundly displayed between the two characters - chiefly, in that Impossible Man's motive is pure fun and abhorred true violence, while Mxyzptlk was darker and more interested in destructive chaos, and to Impossible Man's astonishment and anger, is prone to lying. Eventually, the Impossible Man proved to be more intelligent and won, with the help of Superman and the Silver Surfer. After returning the two to their respective Universes, he gave Mxy a respectful handshake...only to reveal an electric buzzer underneath, proving that he was smarter. The two immediately 'Popped' away, hurling mutual insults.
[edit] Powers and abilities
The Impossible Man's power typically presents itself as the ability to shapeshift (giving a "pop" sound while doing so), and in so doing he can actually assume some of the useful attributes of the new form when he does this. He can even shapeshift into mechanical and electronic devices with moving internal parts. This allows him to assume a form with superhuman strength, or other forms, such as space ships, to travel through space at faster than light speed. The Impossible Man is potentially very powerful, as implied in the aforementioned intercompany crossover, but his benevolent (though mischievous) personality precludes deliberate violence on his part, although he seems to keep forgetting that other non-Poppupian beings can be harmed by things like physical impact or fire. He can also withstand the vacuum of space innately.
An interesting point on his strength is that in an issue of Generation X, Strong Guy is bragging about his powers, claiming the Juggernaut and Exodus to be lightweights, but admitting that he would need help against 'that green alien pesty guy' the Impossible Man.
The powers of his alien race are defined as "instant evolution," being able to adapt to whatever suits their needs for a particular situation. This bears remarkable similarity to the Haggunenons, a species created by Douglas Adams for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio series, who were a race that continually evolve for every situation ever, having 'impatient chromsomes'; they may at one point be an armchair, the next be a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast, at another a talking shoebox filled with size-9 chucker boots.
Much like DC's Plastic Man, his only limitation is that his keeps his original green and purple color motif at all times. That weakness played a role in resolving a childish rivalry with the shapeshifting being Warlock when the New Mutants suggested that their companion simply demonstrate he could change his colors. Having been shown up, the Impossible Man was reduced to tears and irritated the team for the rest of the day.
[edit] Other Media
Impossible Man appeared in the 1994 Fantastic Four cartoon series voiced by Jess Harnell. In his appearance, he approached Human Torch and Lockjaw when the Super-Skrull was pursuing him. He helped to defeat Super-Skrull by shapeshifting into Galactus.
Impossible Man is scheduled to appear in the 2006 Fantastic Four cartoon series.
