Flex Mentallo has been around for many years, having been known as a prominent member of the Doom Patrol for a long time. His origin is that he was a hero that was mysteriously brought to life alongside many other heroes and villains that were all drawn many years ago by a young boy.
Seeing as he was shaped by the mind of a child, he has a very innocent demeanour, never succumbing to the guilty pleasures the world tries to constantly offer him, and he also has a really weird power for the same reason: the ability to change reality around him in various ways by flexing his muscles. This happens to be his regular means of combat, and here, we'll be going over the most bizarre things he's done with his Muscle Mystery.
10 He Can Knock People Back
The concept of knocking people or things back without actually touching them is always an interesting one. Flex Mentallo has knocked back criminals in the middle of combat just by flexing his muscles. For some reason, it just sends them away, as if they're struck with a supernatural force.
He goes onto use a similar variation of this same attack to make an explosion of concrete underneath an opponent to send them into the air. Just imagine you're robbing a bank and running down the street with the bag of cash, and you notice a man flex at you from across the street, followed by the ground exploding underneath you. That's exactly what this is like.
9 He Has Fought Robots
Fighting robots is a common trope throughout comics, even if the line they appear in isn't centered around the science fiction genre. There was one occasion where a horde of robots was before Flex Mentallo in battle, and with a single flex, the robots were felled.
It isn't really explained what exactly happened. He might have done that super-powered force flex, except the robots aren't really destroyed. He might have just caused the robots to malfunction. If this is the case, he would be good to have around in the Justice League every time Lex Luthor decides to make a robot to face off against Superman.
8 He Can Remember Things Erased From Memory
Another common trope in comics is where a villain tries to use an ability on a superhero, only for them to overcome it through sheer willpower, or something similar to that. A common ability used in this trope is the ability to manipulate someone's mind. Well, Flex Mentallo had his memories erased, and he brought them back by flexing his muscles.
It's really interesting to think that even when Flex Mentallo would grow old (that is, if superheroes made from the imagination of children can even grow old the same way), we would never have to worry about him getting short-term memory loss, because he can just flex and remember everything. It would only be bad if he forgot how to flex.
7 He Can Cloud Up People's Mind
There are many superheroes who use telepathic abilities to control or overwhelm the minds of their opponents. Martian Manhunter is the most famous example of this type of hero, and Superman has also had similar abilities, though he was only famous for them before the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Flex Mentallo can also use a similar ability where he overwhelms the mind of someone by flexing so hard that it just clouds up their mind. He never actually use this ability on anyone, but that's because he used it when nobody was looking intentionally. Kind of makes you wonder why he has it.
6 He Turned The Pentagon Into A Circle
Being able to shape things with one's will is a less common ability in comics, attributed often to people who are known to "warp reality," such as Molecule Man or Doctor Manhattan. While this ability is on a smaller scale, he turned the U.S.'s own Pentagon into a circle.
This is probably one of the most well-known things that Flex Mentallo has done, as it was referenced in comics he was in decades later. Another reason you can tell it was well-known was how stressed it was that it was absurd in his dialog, despite being less absurd than many other things we'll see on the list.
5 He Can Greatly Enhance His Senses
This is the type of power that a superhero like Superman would have, though considering the nature of Flex Mentallo, I suppose it isn't surprising at all that he can do this. Flex Mentallo has stated that he knows techniques with enough Muscle Power to see into the future, read people's minds, and even see into other dimensions.
Considering his telekinetic powers, his telepathic attacks, and the fact that the words "Muscle Mystery" float in the air behind him when he performs his techniques, I guess it's no surprise that he's capable of performing other telepathic abilities, though it still is more bizarre.
4 He Can Defuse Possibilities
This power of his is probably more well-known than any other thing he's ever done, although this power is often misinterpreted. Whenever he uses it, most people think that he's defusing bombs, though it's explained later in the Flex Mentallo line of comics that the bombs were actually metaphors that represent possibilities.
He is literally flexing to stop possible disasters from happening. This ability is also referenced in later comics alongside the Pentagon ability, although even the writers misinterpret the feat to thinking that all he is doing is defusing bombs. To think of the possibilities of what he could do with this.
3 He Was Causing Unusual Phenomena En Masse
This power is the opposite of the last power, sorta: he is causing a bunch of bizarre possibilities to occur as a mere side-effect of his flexing. He was just practicing his flexing in his apartments, and people started experiencing weird phenomena all over the other apartments.
People were spontaneously and uncontrollably having orgasms, having visions of worlds folded into empty envelopes, people having bizarre dreams that all contained the word "obviously." Wine glasses would ring before cracking, and the color of paintings would become reversed. It was said people even began to see God and thought he looked shifty.
2 He Defeated An Unfightable Author
It was mentioned earlier in this list that Flex Mentallo was created by a young boy's imagination, that he was a superhero that was drawn by him when he was young. Well, that boy grew into a man who became a rock star that got hooked on drugs and sex, had some minor hallucinations here and there, and eventually became a villain.
Earlier in the Flex Mentallo comics, this man had witnessed infinite universes just grinding across each other, and was fine. As a villain, it was said he was going to kill the whole world. He is a villain that nobody has ever faced because nobody can face him. Despite this, Flex Mentallo flexed and defeated him in the end.
1 He Flexed To Save All Reality
Milk Wars is probably the most bizarre Doom Patrol comic event to date. There were these writers from a group called Retcon Corp that controlled all of DC Comics to the level of Grant Morrison's Monitor-Mind the Overvoid, the comic page, itself, and they can even implement fan fiction into the stories, ignoring copyright entirely. They tried selling DC to Lord Manga Khan, a cosmic broker from the Silver Age.
After failing to sell to them because of all of the wild narratives that broke loose that Manga Khan and his boss didn't care to fix, Retcon had an ultimate fail-safe where they intended to wipe the Overvoid clean and start anew. Batman told Flex Mentallo that the only way he could fix it was by flexing. Flex Mentallo was unsure at first, but once he was linked to the bodies of other people helping him, he performed a new type of Muscle Mystery called "Inflation Intensity," which ended up bringing back everything and fixing all the changes Retconn made to the continuity.