DR. IMPOSSIBLE

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS (MATTEL)

“Who is Doctor Impossible? On the surface, he appears to be a dark, mirror-image of Mister Miracle.  Where Mister Miracle is aided in his fight against evil by a personal super computer known as Mother Box, Doctor Impossible accomplishes his evil deeds with the help of his “Father Box.”  Doctor Impossible claims to be Mister Miracle’s brother from Apokolips.  Origins aside, Doctor Impossible remains a formidable foe and disturbing flipside to the powers of Mister Miracle.”

Believe it or not, that bio is the most ever written about this character.  Crazy, right?  Dr. Impossible was introduced during Brad Meltzer’s post-Infinite Crisis run on Justice League of America, and never really amounted to a whole lot.  In his defense, DC decided to put a hold on the usage of the New Gods in general not too long after his debut, but even in his inaugural story, he’s little more than a bit player. Despite that, he’s gotten two whole action figures, one of which I’m taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Like last week’s Mr. Miracle figure, Dr. Impossible is from the sixth series of Mattel’s DC Universe Classics.  As a matter of fact, Dr. Impossible was just a variant of said Mr. Miracle figure.  Being quite frank, his shared pieces from Scott are probably what really got him made, since he was presumably a cheap to produce figure.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 25 points of articulation.  Just like Scott, Impossible’s built on the medium base body, albeit with far less unique pieces this time.  He only gets a new head (slightly re-tooled from Mr. Miracle) and forearms, as well as Mr. Miracle’s cape add-on piece.  Obviously, he’s not quite as impressive as Miracle (who just has an objectively better and more dynamic design), but he’s a solid enough translation of the source material, and he looks pretty decent with the Mr. Miracle figure.  The paint on Dr. Impossible is solid work.  It’s cleanly applied, and the colors are pretty accurate to the source material.  I like the flat colors used here more than the metallic shades on the DCD figure, so that’s a plus.  It’s a shame that he doesn’t get any of Miracle’s accent work, though.  Where Mr. Miracle was packed with a bunch of character-specific extras, Dr. Impossible is not so lucky.  All he gets is the leg of Kaliback, which is exactly the same as Miracle’s piece.  This coupled with his lessened use of unique pieces makes the figure feel rather light for the base price.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Where Mr. Miracle was largely absent from retail shelves around me, Dr. Impossible was quite plentiful.  He was quite plentiful everywhere, and for a good reason: compared to the Mr. Miracle figure (who came with the exact same piece of Kaliback), he’s just not as good a figure.  Add in that he’s a character that even hardcore DC fans will have only moderate interest in, and you’ve got DCUC’s first major peg-warmer.  So, if he’s a disappointment, why’d I get him?  Mostly because the guys at Cosmic Comix just know me way too well.  When I brought Mr. Miracle up to the counter, David (the guy behind the counter, who is aware that I’m an opener) quickly asked if I might be interested in a Dr. Impossible with a dinged up box, offering it at $5.  For $5, I was content to buy him.  Sure, he’s not anywhere near as good as Miracle, but at a fraction of the price, I can certainly enjoy him for what he is.