You thought Superman was powerful? Well, to be fair, the Man of Steel has some of the most impressive feats in the entire superhero genre. Over the years, DC Comics has helped Superman evolve from a man who could leap tall buildings in a single bound to someone who could hold the power of a black hole in the palm of his hand. It seems every decade, storytellers find some new way to make DC’s iconic hero that much more powerful, to the point where the man is pretty much indistinguishable from a god.
Videos by ComicBook.com
But there are a lot of godlike beings in the DC Universe, some of whom are even foes of Superman himself. After all, he’s been facing that cosmically superpowered pest Mr. Mxyzptlk for decades. The imps that reside in the Fifth Dimension have the power of pure imagination and can easily reshape reality to their whims. Thankfully, Clark Kent has always been able to trick Mxyzptlk, showing that it’s not all just about raw power. But what happens when you combine the essence of Superman with the nigh-omnipotent power of a Fifth-Dimensional imp?
Meet Kal-Elf, Superman’s Reality Warping Counterpart
Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum by the wonderful team of W. Maxwell Prince and Martin Morazzo has been putting DC’s top dog through the ringer. Superman has had enough on his plate experimenting with the new types of kryptonite he’s discovered (not to mention their wild effects). But the Fifth Dimension is under attack, and Mr. Mxyzptlk, its most famous resident, has pulled Superman into the bizarre land of imagination to help defeat a wicked boy named Brian-iac (not Brainiac), the living avatar of Anti-Imagination who wants to end all flights of fancy for good.
Superman agrees to help, but the problem with the Fifth Dimension is that it’s downright screwy. Mxyzptlk informs Superman that to survive this realm, a Three-Dimensional hero needs a Fifth-Dimensional familiar. The arrival of Batman and his infamous copycat, Bat-Mite, reinforces this. So Clark digs deep into his imagination and thinks up a familiar who embodies everything good about Superman, who’s made from the wild, indescribable, magic of the Fifth Dimension. It isn’t long before a pint-sized counterpart of the Man of Steel pops up and introduces himself as Kal-Elf.
Kal-Elf is exactly the kind of help that Superman needs to fight back against Brian-iac. Kal-Elf easily dispatches Brian-iac’s forces by transforming into things like a giant locomotive and a ‘birdplane’ (inspired by the classic Superman line). He proves crucial to helping defeat Brian-iac, and in the end, they send the kid on a one-way trip to meet Santa Claus. While it’s the end of this adventure for Kal-Elf, the Mite of Steel turns to the viewer to remind us all that he’ll be back as long as stories continue to thrive.
The Superman of the Fifth Dimension is the Strongest Man of Steel Ever
Now that is a bold claim, considering we don’t get to see Kal-Elf do much in the book aside from knocking out a couple of Brian-iac’s lackeys. But just stick with me on this. For years now, we’ve known that the Fifth Dimension connects everything in the DC Universe to imagination. Mites, imps, genies, anything from that offbeat world is capable of transforming the Third Dimension however they wish. Remember when the Joker stole Mxyzptlk’s power and created a world where he was the indisputed ruler of everything?
Well, Kal-Elf has that exact kind of power himself. His power isn’t shown to its fullest extent because Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #4 takes place almost entirely in the Fifth Dimension. But nearly everyone agrees that imps are some of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe. Heck, Superman never even really beats Mxyzptlk. He just tricks the guy into saying his name backwards to banish him. Now there’s a new Superman who has the same do-gooder spirit and attitude with all the power of Bugs Bunny in Duck Amuck.
I’m not trying to diminish Superman here. He is and always will be the DC Universe’s apex superhero. And chances are Kal-Elf’s appearances may be limited to this one non-canon story (I hope not, though, the guy’s adorable). But just thinking it through logically, it makes sense. Imps have godlike, virtually unlimited powers, and now Superman just dreamed up someone exactly like him, but with all the advantages Mxyzptlk has. Ergo, the most powerful Superman that I’ve ever seen.
I’m admittedly a fan of imps and the Fifth Dimension, so I might be a little biased. But from what I’ve seen, Kal-Elf is coming out of the gate strong, and if a writer really wanted to, they could easily bring him back and show the world just how powerful he really is. Though a Superman with reality-warping powers might be too strong, even for superhero stories, so maybe DC should hold him back a little bit. After all, we can’t have Superman’s godlike imaginary friend making him look bad now, can we?
What do you think about Kal-Elf? Let us know in the comments and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Image courtesy of Focus Features. -
Courtesy of Comedy Central
