Emblematic of superheroes’ tendency to fight mirror images, Bizarro was introduced in 1958 in — appropriately enough — twin forms.
In Bizarro — The Super-Creature of Steel (Superboy 68, Oct. 1958), writer Otto Binder and artist George Papp showed us how Prof. Dalton created a doomed, imperfect duplicate of Superboy.
“Bizarro was a pathetic, quasi-living creature, who had come into being when a device supposedly capable of duplicating physical objects was used on Superboy,” noted comics historian Don Markstein. “It proved not quite up to the task, and the result was a brain that functioned at a child’s level behind a face that looked like crumpled-up paper. Bizarro (who took his name from hearing the word ‘bizarre’ applied to him) had all of Superboy's wonderful powers, but no real spark of life — a fact he was just bright enough to understand. He returned to oblivion on the final page, and was no doubt happier that way.”
Meanwhile, in the Superman newspaper strip, another tragic version of Bizarro was introduced by writer Alvin Schwartz and artist Curt Swan. This one was an imperfect duplicate of the adult Superman, and distinguished from the comic book version by the fact that he sported a B on his chest in place of the S insignia.
Bizarro was not an evil version of Superman, but a confused one — a powerful figure deprived of Superman’s intellectual and moral clarity.
In the Superboy story, like the Frankenstein monster, the ugly, innocent creature is hurt by the fact that Smallville residents fear and shun him. The tale has that throb of pathos achieved in some of the best of the Superman stories in the 1950s and 1960s.
Mort Weisinger-edited titles often play on children’s fears of rejection, isolation and abandonment. Here, Bizarro is flatly rejected even by the woman he regards as his mother, the ordinarily kindly Ma Kent.
“Funny books,” indeed.
Ellis Rose wrote:
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me that in the 1960s, people would have looked at me cross-eyed or laughed at me if I used the word "Bizarro". Today I watched a video commentary where a commentator referred to extreme Repub behavior by Matt Gaetz as "Bizarro" while shaking her head. The world has changed, and I would not be surprised to find out that it is morphing into a cube.
Charles W. Fouquette wrote:
ReplyDeleteEveryone has that sense of being an outcast from time to time. In this instance, one can have sympathy for the monster who only looks like a monster. Great post, Dan.
James J Gerber wrote:
ReplyDeleteMy favorite thing about Bizarro is at some point, the writer will get sick of sticking by Bizarro rules and and just wing it.
Mark Engblom wrote:
ReplyDeleteAs the kids say. “I was today years old” when I found out about the comic strip version of Bizarro! As a lifelong Bizarro aficionado, I will definitely hunt it down!
Although I prefer the mixed-up mayhem of the adult Bizarro and his cube-shaped Bizarro World, the original (Bizarro Superboy) also has a place in my heart. Reading the tale now as an adult, I can’t help but wonder if the tale is a meta-analogy for the mentally ill or disabled among us and the cruel ways they are viewed and treated. Bizarro Superboy’s only “crime” was that he didn’t understand or couldn’t fully process the ways of “the perfect” and quickly earned their wrath. Finally, emblematic of that era, Bizarro Superboy was whisked off stage, much like how the mentally ill and disabled were treated in real life.
I may be reading too much into the tale, but knowing how much subtle (and not so subtle) psychology editor Mort Weisinger wove into his Superman mythos, I believe there’s SOMETHING going on here.
I replied:
A fascinating take, Mark. Your analysis rings true.
Anthony Picco wrote:
ReplyDeletePersonally, as a kid I always hated the Bizarro world. The first one n Superboy was good but when it became a "thing" I always felt cheated when I found a story in a comic I bought.
I replied:
Yes, I tend to agree. The Bizarro world wore out quickly, and shared nothing of the poignance of these first stories.
Paul Zuckerman wrote:
ReplyDeleteNotice the "B" on Bizarro's chest in the ad-changed by the time that the issue appeared. There is one Lois Lane story drawn by Boring where Bizarro in his one-panel appearance has the B on his chest. Having the B on the chest when Bizarro emerged from the duplicator machine made no sense since the costume was in fact a perfect duplicate of Superboy's (not Superman's) uniform.
The pathos of the original Superboy Bizarro was replicated to a lesser degree in the first adult Bizarro story in Action comics a short time late - which happened to be my introduction to the character. Those early adult appearances are radically different than both the earlier Superboy and the later adult Bizarro versions since the early adult Bizarro instilled a sense of danger, especially when he was going to transform Superman into a Bizarro.
The humorous version that became dominant as a result of the solo strip was good for a laugh but did water down the characters. But in the hands of a good writer, they could still wring drama out of the characters. One of the saddest uses of Bizarro, in fact, is in Action 270's the Old Man of Metropolis, and the pathos of the character is the main characteristic of Bizarro in the story.
John Watson wrote:
ReplyDeleteI bought Superboy #68 off the spinner rack just prior to entering the 4th grade. I considered it a dime well spent!
John Watson wrote:
ReplyDeleteI bought Superboy #68 off the spinner rack just prior to entering the 4th grade. I considered it a dime well spent!
I replied:
And now you can pick up a nice copy for a mere $500 or so.
Matthew Grossman wrote:
ReplyDeleteIt’s well, bizarre, that Silver Age Superman’s most enduring cultural legacy may well be the coining of a new English word, ‘bizarro’, perfectly describing the surrealism of contemporary life in a media-oversaturated world in which the only certainly is the stupidly shocking.