Mister Mxyzptlk is set to return for the final season of The CW’s Supergirl…or is he?
Thomas Lennon, the actor who last portrayed the character in last season’s 100th episode, posted a cryptic TikTok video you can view below. The caption reads “It’s happening. You won’t be ready. @supergirlcw.”
Thomas Lennon on Instagram: “It’s happening. You won’t be ready. @supergirlcw”
Mister Myxyzptlk – Who Is He Again?
Mxyzptlk goes all the way back to 1944 as one of Superman’s most annoying trickseter villains created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Traditionally an impish, interdimensional being with reality-bending abilities, Mxyzptlk gave the Man of Steel a Kryptonian-worthy migraine with his magical antics until he could be tricked into saying his name backwards, which would send him back to the Fifth Dimension, his place of origin.
For three months, then he’d be back to bug Clark Kent yet again.
Mister Mxyzptlk, or “Mxy” has tugged on Superman’s cape ever since, and has been adapted from the comics to both animated and live action mediums. The first voice actor to play the role was Gilbert Mack on The New Adventures of Superman alongside legendary Superman actor Bud Collyer; Mack was soon joined in this alumni by Frank Welker (Superfriends), and Gilbert Gottfried (Superman: The Animated Series). Michael J. Pollard portrayed the first live-action version on the 1990s Superboy series, followed by Howie Mandel on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Trent Ford as a metahuman version on Smallville.
Lennon is actually the second person on Supergirl to portray the character, as his original form was Peter Gadiot in the second season in an attempt to seduce and marry Kara, much to the outrage of her current beau, Mon-El. Like her cousin, Supergirl managed to trick the annoying imp into writing his name backwards, thus sending him back to the Fifth Dimension. Mxy’s current form, as Lennon, is part of his punishment by his superiors from the fifth dimension – his home – to atone for his crimes. In the fifth season episode “It’s a Super Life,” Mxy tried to make it up to Kara by showing her different realities in which she handled revealing to estranged friend Lena Luthor her identity differently as to avoid the original fallout.
For that episode’s different direction with the trickster, showrunner Robert Rover explained, “I think we wanted to, rather than have an episode where Mister Mxyzptlk is our adversary, we wanted him to come in and to be [our guide. And what’s] nice about the episode is that Mxy has his own journey in this. He is coming from a place of mea culpa and trying to do better than he did before. But also, I think he’s able to resolve things with Mon-El in this episode and learn from it himself, which is something we wanted to do. And, we get to fall in love with Mxyzptlk in a much different way than we did when he came in demanding marriage.”
Mxy may not be the only familiar face popping up this series finale, as Co-Showrunner Jessica Quelle teased, “We’re hoping that works out and we’ll have a very emotional full circle with some of our favorites.
Catch Supergirl on Tuesday nights at 9/8 Central on The CW.
Original Source: Supergirl: Thomas Lennon Teases Return as Mr. Mxyzptlk (comicbook.com)
