What better way to celebrate April Fool's Day than with a retrospective about one of the wackiest characters in the Marvel Universe? This thread will try to chronicle the Impossible Man's appearances in cartoons from the 70s to today. Also check out the DC Animation Forum, if you're interested in reading retrospective about Mister Mxyzptlk (these two characters have a lot in common... Here's a link). Most images featured in this post appear courtesy of Marvel Animation Age, and I hope you all enjoy reading it!
The Impossible Man, sometimes called Impy (which is how I'll mostly address him in this thread since it's shorter), debuted in the comic book Fantastic Four #11 (from February 1963) and was created by the team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Impy is a small, green-skinned alien from the planet known as Poppup where all inhabitants posses shape-shifting abilities. He's traveled to our planet looking for some amusement, and the Fantastic Four seem to be his main targets in his various and numerous pranks. Although he is capable of doing pretty much anything he wants, he's not a full-fledged villain, but rather a fun-loving and more often than not annoying prankster.
His first animated appearance was on The New Fantastic Four animated series, from 1978. He appears in the episode cleverly titled "The Impossible Man", where his voice was provided by Frank Welker (heh, another thing Impy has in common with Mxy), who also voiced HERBIE, the small floating humanoid robot that replaced the Human Torch as the fourth member of the team on this show. As for Impy, this episode sees him arriving on Earth for a vacation. However he is soon tricked by a group of gangsters into helping them rob banks, due to his rather naive personality. The Fantastic Four intervene though they seem unable to stop the alien due to his impossible powers. The episode has some pretty silly scenes, and not just because of Impy. Towards the end, after Impy learns the truth about his pals being the bad guys all along, he is once again tricked, though this time by the heroes. Wanting to get rid of him, Sue Storm explains that Earth's atmosphere will gradually make Impy's powers disappear and to prove her point she tricks him by making him look into a couple of fun house mirrors. All in all, it's a decent enough episode I guess, but it feels kind of boring (though the same goes for pretty much the entire show).
Impy next appears in the Fantastic Four animated series from the 90s. He's featured on the show only once, in an episode from the second and improved season, titled "Hopeleslly Impossible" (1996) with his voice now performed by Jess Harnell. Sadly, this episode is the weakest in an otherwise pretty excellent season. It's basically a clip show, featuring extensive footage from previous episodes as Impy learns more about the Fantastic Four. The new footage in this story explains that Impy has arrived on our planet trying to elude the Super-Skrull, who was following him. He tries to get the Four to protect him, but the only one he finds available is Johnny Storm, who doesn't really prove that useful against the Super-Skrull. In the end Impy was apparently capable of defeating his opponent all by himself (well, after he shape-shifted into Galactus). The episode has a couple of neat scenes but as a whole, it's just boring seeing clips from some of the other episodes again just to fill up time.
In 2006, the Fantastic Four received yet another new animated series, called Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes. Impossible Man appeared on this show as well, this time voiced by Terry Klassen. He debuts in the episode simply titled "Impossible", where he follows one of Reed Richard's deep space probes back to our planet. Thanks to the probe, he has also learned our language and finds the quartet of heroes fascinating so he plans on staying with them for a long time. The heroes try to keep him occupied (and within the Baxter Building, since if he were to discover the city chaos would most likely follow), while Reed also tries to study him and learn what he's truly capable of. Impy here was pretty funny, and I'd say this is probably his best animated appearance so far. He didn't really get too annoying, and I liked the pretty creative ways he used his powers to annoy the Fantastic Four. He also tries to contact his home planet, to tell his fellow Poppupians about Earth and invite them to stay here as well. In the end Reed finds the best way to make him go away is to simply ignore him (a nice tribute to Impy's first appearance in the comics). All in all, a fun little episode and like I said one of Impy's finest moments in animation.
He returned for a couple of scenes in the episode "Contest of Champions", as part of Ronan the Accuser's team (alongside Annihilus and Super-Skrull) chosen by the Grand Master to challenge the Fantastic Four. It's another fun episode, though this time the focus isn't on Impy, but rather on Ben Grimm and his apparent rivalry with Ronan (though previous episodes made it seem Johnny Storm was Ronan's arch-enemy). There are lots of amusing moments here, for example Impy versus Ben in an eating contest, or him versus Reed in a game of charades. The best though is probably seeing Impy lose a staring contest with Ben. The episode is overall fun, the same can be said about pretty much every other episode and the show in general.
Impy was next featured on The Super Hero Squad Show, which premiered in 2009. His first appearance on the show was a brief cameo in the episode "Tremble at the Might of MODOK!", where he could be seen taking part in the Big Really Amazingly Immense Noggin Convention hosted by MODOK (other members include Egghead and Puppet Master) at the start of the episode. He doesn't have any lines or actually do anything here so there's not a lot to talk about. But later on, he did get an episode mostly focused on him, in the second season. Interestingly enough, his voice was once again provided by Jess Harnell, reprising his role from the Fantastic Four cartoon that aired 15 years earlier.
During the show's second season, the Silver Surfer turned evil and became the Dark Surfer, after being corrupted by the power of the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity Sword, replacing Thanos as the show's main villain. In the episode titled "Missing: Impossible!" (2011), Impy arrives aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier (which has been modified by Iron Man for space travel), and starts playing pranks on the other heroes, until revealing himself and telling his origin story. He claims he wishes to establish diplomatic relations between Earth and Poppup, after Ms Marvel was assigned as ambassador to his home planet (and was frequently hit with pies in her face, apparently a great honor on Poppup). While staying with the heroes Impy tries to help but makes a mess of things resulting in some pretty funny scenes. He also starts a nice friendship with the Hulk, something which will be addressed again towards the end of the episode.
It's later revealed he's there only because he has nowhere else to go, after his wife (Impossible Woman) kicked him out. Trying to make him leave, Iron Man encourages him to do something so impressive his wife will take him back, with Impy understanding the only thing he could do is take over the universe. But to do this, he needs to challenge the Dark Surfer first. The fight is pretty funny since because of their powers, the very fabric of reality is being destroyed (there's a neat scene where they end up in Asgard, continuing their battle by throwing Skrulls at each other). In the end Impy creates a black hole that traps the Surfer, but also threatens the rest of the universe as well. He saves everyone when he plugs the black hole with his butt, which apparently impresses his wife enough for the two of them to get back together. After Reed Richards invents a universe plug to stop the black hole (though the Dark Surfer manages to escape from there unbeknownst to the others), Impy and his wife are now ready to return to their home planet, and reveal that they are planning on starting a family - they're going to adopt the Hulk. The episode ends with Impy in the Superhero City Mayor's office (the mayor being none other than Stan Lee), helping him finish writing his story.
There's another fun scene I wanted to mention: while Impy was off fighting, the heroes were trying to evade the Helicarrier's defense systems which were targeting them (after Impy fixed them). HERBIE finds the way to resolve this, by changing the settings on the computer (the options available being labelled as "not evil", "kind of a jerk" and "Hollywood executive", the one which was selected during the attacks). All in all, a fun episode. It helps that the show was mainly a comedy as well so Impy's usual craziness didn't feel that out of place. While I haven't followed the show that closely, the episodes I have seen have been pretty great; a nice mix of comedy and action, and I'd say most of the comedic aspects work better here than in the current batch of Marvel toons. Overall, this was probably the most entertaining version of Impossible Man we've seen so far in animation. He might have appeared in some other episodes or at least have cameos but since I never really followed the show that closely I think I managed to track down his most notable appearance.
While Impy was never officially featured on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, there exists a "what if?" type piece of fan-art done by an artist who worked on the show as a character designer, depicting Impy as he turns four members of the Avengers into the Fantastic Four. Ant-Man and Wasp become Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman, Captain America is the Human Torch and the Hulk turns into the Thing. It's pretty amazing, and while I doubt this would have actually happened even if Impy appeared on the show it's a fun enough idea. It's also pretty clever, how the heroes chosen match their FF counterparts, with them being either the couple with some relationship problems, or the "monster" of the team. I'm kind of drawing a blank on the Cap/Torch connection though, other than the fact they were both played by the same actor in their most recent live-action movies.
The current batch of Marvel animated shows has also featured Impy, with him so far appearing in two of the three toons that can be seen inside the Marvel Universe programming block on Disney XD. The first show where he guest-starred was Avengers Assemble, a show that tries to keep as many elements from the live-action hit movie intact, while also trying to make it fit in the same continuity as Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of SMASH - there are bound to be some contradictions along the way especially since the show is "supposedly" also a sequel to the previous and in my humble opinion superior Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, despite there being five or so contradictions to it in the first two episodes. Impy appeared in the episode titled "Avengers: Impossible", which premiered in October 2013. His voice was now provided by Tom Kenny, and while he did a decent job the dialogue he had here wasn't that great. The story sees Impy arriving on Earth claiming he wants to make a movie, with Falcon (the newest member of the Avengers) as the star.
After several bland scenarios in which the heroes have to fight some of their enemies in some rather uninteresting fights (all thanks to Impy, of course) the "movie" ends with a climax featuring the Chitauri aliens arriving to our planet trying to conquer it, in an obvious re-enactment of certain scenes from the final act of the live-action Avengers movie. The episode ends with Impy apparently sacrificing himself to save the world by turning into a rocket and stopping the aliens himself. It's a pretty weird episode overall, with not that many funny scenes (though there were some failed attempts), which is kind of sad because Impy does usually bring at least some laughs with him when he appears in a show. Here the plot wasn't that entertaining, and I found Impy himself a little too annoying. As a whole, it's probably my least favorite episode of the show (at least so far - and I actually hope it stays that way), which isn't saying that much anyway since most of the episodes that have aired so far haven't been that great either. He later has a brief cameo in the episode "Mojo World", where he's shown in an inter-galactic bar watching a broadcast of Mojo's show, where Hulk and Hawkeye were fighting various other aliens.
And Impy's most recent appearance has been on Hulk and the Agents of SMASH, a show which follows the misadventures of Hulk and his "family": A-Bomb, She-Hulk, Skaar and Red Hulk, in a sort of parody of reality TV shows. It's not that great of a premise, and the show isn't anything special (it's probably my least favorite of the three current Marvel toons), but it does have some rare, neat moments form time to time. Impy's episode, however, wasn't one of them. He was once again voiced by Tom Kenny (in an attempt to highlight the fact that the shows supposedly take place in the same continuity), and had the same character design. "Mission Impossible Man" premiered earlier this year, and this time Impy tries joining the Hulk team since he's apparently a fan and wants to be a hero himself. He uses his powers in his usual bizarre way with some even weirder results, such as merging Hulk and Rulk into a two-headed composite Hulk - it was a neat visual but it didn't really add anything to this episode.
The episode is still better than the previously mentioned Avengers Assemble adventure. Impy is left powerless after Sauron drains his powers, and uses them to summon Fin Fang Foom. The Hulks obviously manage to win the fight and everything is back to normal (well, as normal as the Impossible Man can be I guess). It's not a bad episode, though the only thing that really stood out for me was the brief mention of Hank Pym/Ant-Man; while he's nowhere to be seen, it's nice to have some sort of confirmation he at least exists, since these shows seem to stay away as much as possible from introducing any new heroes, apart from the "more popular" ones. All in all, a decent episode and like I said better than Impy's introduction in Avengers Assemble. He was still kind of annoying, but at least he was more tolerable here. It's still nothing spectacular but it kind of works. I'm guessing Impy's going to return eventually, so I hope things will get better when he does. He's not one of my favorite characters from Marvel, but when used right he can be pretty entertaining. But since I doubt he'll make that many appearances in the near future, I'll update this thread only on April Fool's Day.
The Impossible Man, sometimes called Impy (which is how I'll mostly address him in this thread since it's shorter), debuted in the comic book Fantastic Four #11 (from February 1963) and was created by the team of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Impy is a small, green-skinned alien from the planet known as Poppup where all inhabitants posses shape-shifting abilities. He's traveled to our planet looking for some amusement, and the Fantastic Four seem to be his main targets in his various and numerous pranks. Although he is capable of doing pretty much anything he wants, he's not a full-fledged villain, but rather a fun-loving and more often than not annoying prankster.
His first animated appearance was on The New Fantastic Four animated series, from 1978. He appears in the episode cleverly titled "The Impossible Man", where his voice was provided by Frank Welker (heh, another thing Impy has in common with Mxy), who also voiced HERBIE, the small floating humanoid robot that replaced the Human Torch as the fourth member of the team on this show. As for Impy, this episode sees him arriving on Earth for a vacation. However he is soon tricked by a group of gangsters into helping them rob banks, due to his rather naive personality. The Fantastic Four intervene though they seem unable to stop the alien due to his impossible powers. The episode has some pretty silly scenes, and not just because of Impy. Towards the end, after Impy learns the truth about his pals being the bad guys all along, he is once again tricked, though this time by the heroes. Wanting to get rid of him, Sue Storm explains that Earth's atmosphere will gradually make Impy's powers disappear and to prove her point she tricks him by making him look into a couple of fun house mirrors. All in all, it's a decent enough episode I guess, but it feels kind of boring (though the same goes for pretty much the entire show).
Impy was next featured on The Super Hero Squad Show, which premiered in 2009. His first appearance on the show was a brief cameo in the episode "Tremble at the Might of MODOK!", where he could be seen taking part in the Big Really Amazingly Immense Noggin Convention hosted by MODOK (other members include Egghead and Puppet Master) at the start of the episode. He doesn't have any lines or actually do anything here so there's not a lot to talk about. But later on, he did get an episode mostly focused on him, in the second season. Interestingly enough, his voice was once again provided by Jess Harnell, reprising his role from the Fantastic Four cartoon that aired 15 years earlier.
During the show's second season, the Silver Surfer turned evil and became the Dark Surfer, after being corrupted by the power of the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity Sword, replacing Thanos as the show's main villain. In the episode titled "Missing: Impossible!" (2011), Impy arrives aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier (which has been modified by Iron Man for space travel), and starts playing pranks on the other heroes, until revealing himself and telling his origin story. He claims he wishes to establish diplomatic relations between Earth and Poppup, after Ms Marvel was assigned as ambassador to his home planet (and was frequently hit with pies in her face, apparently a great honor on Poppup). While staying with the heroes Impy tries to help but makes a mess of things resulting in some pretty funny scenes. He also starts a nice friendship with the Hulk, something which will be addressed again towards the end of the episode.
There's another fun scene I wanted to mention: while Impy was off fighting, the heroes were trying to evade the Helicarrier's defense systems which were targeting them (after Impy fixed them). HERBIE finds the way to resolve this, by changing the settings on the computer (the options available being labelled as "not evil", "kind of a jerk" and "Hollywood executive", the one which was selected during the attacks). All in all, a fun episode. It helps that the show was mainly a comedy as well so Impy's usual craziness didn't feel that out of place. While I haven't followed the show that closely, the episodes I have seen have been pretty great; a nice mix of comedy and action, and I'd say most of the comedic aspects work better here than in the current batch of Marvel toons. Overall, this was probably the most entertaining version of Impossible Man we've seen so far in animation. He might have appeared in some other episodes or at least have cameos but since I never really followed the show that closely I think I managed to track down his most notable appearance.
While Impy was never officially featured on Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, there exists a "what if?" type piece of fan-art done by an artist who worked on the show as a character designer, depicting Impy as he turns four members of the Avengers into the Fantastic Four. Ant-Man and Wasp become Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman, Captain America is the Human Torch and the Hulk turns into the Thing. It's pretty amazing, and while I doubt this would have actually happened even if Impy appeared on the show it's a fun enough idea. It's also pretty clever, how the heroes chosen match their FF counterparts, with them being either the couple with some relationship problems, or the "monster" of the team. I'm kind of drawing a blank on the Cap/Torch connection though, other than the fact they were both played by the same actor in their most recent live-action movies.
The current batch of Marvel animated shows has also featured Impy, with him so far appearing in two of the three toons that can be seen inside the Marvel Universe programming block on Disney XD. The first show where he guest-starred was Avengers Assemble, a show that tries to keep as many elements from the live-action hit movie intact, while also trying to make it fit in the same continuity as Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of SMASH - there are bound to be some contradictions along the way especially since the show is "supposedly" also a sequel to the previous and in my humble opinion superior Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, despite there being five or so contradictions to it in the first two episodes. Impy appeared in the episode titled "Avengers: Impossible", which premiered in October 2013. His voice was now provided by Tom Kenny, and while he did a decent job the dialogue he had here wasn't that great. The story sees Impy arriving on Earth claiming he wants to make a movie, with Falcon (the newest member of the Avengers) as the star.
And Impy's most recent appearance has been on Hulk and the Agents of SMASH, a show which follows the misadventures of Hulk and his "family": A-Bomb, She-Hulk, Skaar and Red Hulk, in a sort of parody of reality TV shows. It's not that great of a premise, and the show isn't anything special (it's probably my least favorite of the three current Marvel toons), but it does have some rare, neat moments form time to time. Impy's episode, however, wasn't one of them. He was once again voiced by Tom Kenny (in an attempt to highlight the fact that the shows supposedly take place in the same continuity), and had the same character design. "Mission Impossible Man" premiered earlier this year, and this time Impy tries joining the Hulk team since he's apparently a fan and wants to be a hero himself. He uses his powers in his usual bizarre way with some even weirder results, such as merging Hulk and Rulk into a two-headed composite Hulk - it was a neat visual but it didn't really add anything to this episode.
The episode is still better than the previously mentioned Avengers Assemble adventure. Impy is left powerless after Sauron drains his powers, and uses them to summon Fin Fang Foom. The Hulks obviously manage to win the fight and everything is back to normal (well, as normal as the Impossible Man can be I guess). It's not a bad episode, though the only thing that really stood out for me was the brief mention of Hank Pym/Ant-Man; while he's nowhere to be seen, it's nice to have some sort of confirmation he at least exists, since these shows seem to stay away as much as possible from introducing any new heroes, apart from the "more popular" ones. All in all, a decent episode and like I said better than Impy's introduction in Avengers Assemble. He was still kind of annoying, but at least he was more tolerable here. It's still nothing spectacular but it kind of works. I'm guessing Impy's going to return eventually, so I hope things will get better when he does. He's not one of my favorite characters from Marvel, but when used right he can be pretty entertaining. But since I doubt he'll make that many appearances in the near future, I'll update this thread only on April Fool's Day.
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