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Bizarro is a fictional comic book recurring villain, part of the world of Superman comics. Superman is a comic book superhero published by DC Comics.
Bizarro is a strange imperfect duplicate of Superman himself. He has all of Superman’s Kryptonian powers, but is an artificial creature with chalk white skin and a limited intellect. Due to its imperfect nature, Bizarro is not affected by most forms of kryptonite, except for “Blue Kryptonite” which has no effect on regular Kryptonians. Traditionally, Bizarro talks in a child-like broken English, and gets a “bizarre” satisfaction in thinking and talking in a manner that is opposite that of the real Superman. His costume is usually almost the same as Superman's, though the current Bizarro has some changes in color and a backwards "S" that the Silver Age Bizarro sometimes wore.
Silver Age Bizarro
The first Bizarro was an imperfect duplicate of Superboy. The story goes that a scientist developed a machine that is supposed to make perfect duplicates of any object, but instead makes flawed, imperfect duplicates. The machine is accidentally turned on Superboy, and Bizarro is the result. In the end, the creature explodes, its particles curing a child’s blindness.
The Bizarro most of us remember from the Silver Age of Comics was a very powerful creature used more often for laughs than as a real threat. When Superman is exposed to the old duplicate ray by Lex Luthor, a “grotesque imperfect double of himself” materializes. In the Frankenstein monster tradition, the creature is lonely and unhappy, unable to really understand social norms, and its destructive capabilities bring it into conflict with Superman. Superman initially solves the Bizarro problem by creating a Bizarro duplicate of Lois Lane, whom the creature takes with him, fleeing into space. As Bizarro explains, “People on earth call us ugly monsters! Us go find another world”. While Bizarro Lois had no super powers, she could survive in space because she was essentially an artificial creature that only imitated life.
Bizarro Superman and Lois find a deserted world with the ruins of an ancient city. From these beginnings, they begin to construct “Bizarro World”. When Bizarro builds a duplicate of the Bizarro duplicate machine, things really take off. First he creates a bunch of Bizarro Lois’ to provide friends for the first Bizarro Lois. Then the Lois Bizarro creates a bunch of duplicates of her husband so that her friends won’t be lonely, or compete with her for Bizarro Superman's attention. In this way, the Bizarro World is populated. The original Bizarro labels himself “Bizarro Superman No. 1” to distinguish himself from the others, and becomes the leader of his people. All "Bizarro Supermen" look and dress alike. So that we can tell him on sight, the original wears a stone medallion around his neck that labels him “Bizarro #1”.
To Bizarro’s way of looking at things, everything is backwards. Ugliness is beautiful, and imperfection a thing to be worshipped. Everything on Bizarro World is based on their crazy code. “Us do opposite uv all Earthly things. Us hate beauty. Us love ugliness. Iz big mistake to make anything perfect on Bizarro World.”
Examples of the application of this code are many. Buildings are warped and ugly, usually shown with cracked walls and broken windows. Female “Bizarros” go swimming in their evening gowns instead of bathing suits. All Bizarro households have “scram” mats by their front door. On Bizarro World, circus clowns make you cry, rockets are shot into the ground instead of into space, girls play football while men play hopscotch, etc. In an ultimate application of Bizarro logic, the male Bizarros get together and use their tremendous powers to reshape their world to be “square rather than round”, creating the galaxy’s first cube planet. Bizarro World's official name is "htrae".
Modern Age Bizarro
Their have been several Bizarro Superman characters introduced into the Modern Age of Comics.
We first Modern Age Bizarro character appears in John Byrne’s Man of Steel #5 (1986), and his story is reminiscent of the first Silver Age version that was a duplicate of Superboy. He was the product of an attempt made by Lexcorps scientist Dr. Teng, to create a duplicate of Superman for Lex Luthor. He scans the Man of Steel’s “cellular and molecular structure” and feeds the data into a “Bio-Matrix”. Of course, the duplicate is flawed. He can make noises, but not form words. He has some of Superman's memories, and tries to dress himself as Clark Kent and report to work. This, of course, brings him into conflict with Superman. Eventually, he and Superman crash into each other and the creature is destroyed, though the dusty remains from its body somehow restores the sight of Lois Lane’s blind sister, Lucy.
The second Bizarro was created years later in Superman # 87 (1994) in a story by Dan Jurgens and Stuart Immonen. This time it is Dr. Happersen, also in Luthor’s employ, who brings the creature to life. Happersen tries to duplicate Teng’s experiment in hopes of finding a cure for Lex Luthor, whose current cloned body is dying. This Bizarro is a bit more articulate than the original. Like his predecessor, Bizarro tries to duplicate Superman’s life for himself, beginning with kidnapping Lois Lane and creating a kind of “Bizarro World” after isolating a few blocks in Metropolis and taking her there. In this flawed duplication of Superman’s life, he would constantly put her in danger so that he could save her. Explaining his reasoning, Bizarro says, “Me help Loiz. Me save Loiz. No dain-jur, no save. Must save Loiz.” Eventually, Lois comes to realize that the creature means her no harm, and begins to sympathize with his plight. Soon the creature is recaptured, experimented on, and tortured by Luthor. The creature dies in Lois’ arms, its last act is destroying the data collected from him by Lexcorps scientists and any hope of Luthor using its remains to further his own ends.
The third and only currently active Bizarro first appears in Superman # 160 (2000) in a story by Jeff Loeb and Ed McGuiness. When the Joker manages to get control of Mr. Mxyzptlk's magic powers, he creates an insane world in his own image. In this warped reality, superheroes were criminals, he is the "emperor", and the world is defended by his own version of the JLA, "The Joker League of Anarky". The most powerful member of this team is Bizarro, a truly backwards version of the Man of Steel. Unlike his predecessors, this Bizarro has a real evil streak, being a reflection of the Joker’s mind. He inexplicably calls himself “Bizarro #1” like his Silver Age version, and even wears the stone medallion over his Superman costume proclaiming this. When he talks, he relentlessly substitutes antonyms for adjectives and verbs and inserts negatives. His speech is so backwards that it is often difficult to understand what he actually means to say. When he first attempts to capture Superman, he says “You no give up, Superman. Me no kill you!” When he hits Superman squarely he says “Bah! Me miss you good that time.” Some of his powers work in reverse as well, such as freeze vision and flame breath.
When reality is put right, Bizarro somehow survives, and returns from time to time to cause Superman various problems. Recently, he has been captured and “re-programmed” by Lex Luthor, and has been made part of Luthor’s “Superman Revenge Squad”.
Other Bizarro Characters
There have been many different versions of Bizarro over the years. In the Silver Age of Comics, there were Bizarro versions of many DC Characters, including Perry White, Lana Lang, Jimmy Olsen, and even Batman. Most of these live on Bizarro World with the Superman Bizarros.
More recently, there was a four issue mini-series called A. Bizarro (1999) by Steve Gerber and Mark Bright, and a version of the creature in All-Star Superman that were both very different characters.
There have been several Elseworlds versions as well, such as in Red Son (2003) by Mark Millar. There is even a "Batzarro" character created in the Superman/Batman #22 (2005) by Jeff Loeb and Ed McGuiness.
Finally, Cadmus created a flawed clone of the Modern Age Superboy called "Match" that has become a kind of "Bizarro Superboy". His existence is particularly painful for the Teen Titans, as he survives the tragic death of the real Superboy.
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