Bizarro
8 years ago - Bizarro is created by Lex Luthor in an attempt to clone Superman. He escapes and attacks, and is supposedly destroyed, but is actually recovered by Doctor Sivanna and brought into his Secret Society.
7 years ago - Bizarro finds his way back to Metropolis, thinking he is the real Superman. He tries to protect the city but unknowingly threatens it. When Lois Lane & Clark Kent leave Metropolis for Smallville to attend the wedding of Lana Lang, he appears to 'save' (kidnap) Lois, but also somehow recognizes that "Bizarro also hate Lana!" and takes them both. They are saved by Superman, who takes Bizarro into space with Hal Jordan & gives him an uninhabited planet to protect, which they dub Bizarro World.
1 year ago - Bizarro is taken from Bizarro world by Star Saphire and brought to Gorilla Grodd's Legion of Doom, where he is made an unwitting enforcer.
The comic book bad guys of the sixties are such a special thing. Modern comics are written with a lot of guile, and are attempting to appeal to such an elusive audience that they just don't have the sheer ridiculousness that came when this was unabashedly a children's medium. The idea of a clumsy, opposite-day-speaking version of Superman is just so gloriously wacky.
Like most comic book creations, though, once you start to dig into it, the idea actually really starts to present all sorts of fertile storytelling ideas. It's no mistake that we've seen this character reinterpreted and re-imagined a half dozen times with just as many alternate origin stories. This is why comics are so much fun.
Like most comic book creations, though, once you start to dig into it, the idea actually really starts to present all sorts of fertile storytelling ideas. It's no mistake that we've seen this character reinterpreted and re-imagined a half dozen times with just as many alternate origin stories. This is why comics are so much fun.
Bizarro's Comic HistoryBizarro's oldest appearances happened way back in the goofball days of Superboy as basically a Frankenstein's monster. He then had his origins happen again in the pages of Superman, telling what was essentially the same story, but that was fine; continuity wasn't really a thing then. This version of Bizarro went on to have a square planet where he ran a whole civilization of Bizarros complete with a Bizarro Lois Lane, Jimmy and the entire supporting cast, a Bizarro Daily Planet, even a Bizarro Justice League. This is where the idea of Bizarro wearing a stone medallion reading 'Bizarro #1' came from. If I'm not mistaken, the whole idea of Bizarro world was so entrenched in the classic Silver Age pre-crisis Superman lore it actually had it's own BOOK.
Post Crisis, of course, we got a more pared down version of the classic clone-of-Superman story, but we ALSO got a version of the character that was a refugee of a world where the Joker briefly held Mr Mxyzptlk's powers... it's all pretty goofy, but it has never for a second slowed down Bizarro's place as a permanent member of Superman's rogue's gallery. He's just too interesting, too dangerous, too funny, and too tragic a character for us to ever let go of. |
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Our Bizarro StoryWhile there is a lot of possible lunacy that we could include in this story if we wanted to, Bizarro is actually plenty interesting all by himself for us to need to worry about making more Bizarro characters or Bizarro world or anything to do with a magical Joker. Instead, we chose to use a very basic version of his story, using a lot of the framing devices from the animated series.
One part of Superman's mythology that is always going to be permanent is Lex Luthor's ongoing attempt to clone Superman. The result of this, obviously, is Connor Kent. It actually makes a world of sense that Bizarro is actually Lex's first failed attempt. While more sinister versions of the character exist, We are actually big fans of the more innocent, tragic version of the character. There are plenty of bad guys with near-superman levels of strength that do what they do out of sheer malice; the idea that Bizarro is actually trying to help makes him pretty unique. Bizarro is a long-time member of the Legion of Doom, so we wanted to include him here as well. He makes a real challenge to anyone simply by being so powerful, but his actual weakness is simply that he doesn't really mean any harm. |
Bizarro's FutureIt's surprising how often proposals featuring a less villainous version of Bizarro happen. He was part of Ilias Kyriazis & Scott Lobdell's unfinished Doom Patrol proposal, and as I write this he's actually a featured member of Lobdell's new ongoing version of Red Hood & the Outlaws.
It's not uncommon for popular bad guys to experience a heroic turn (see the Punisher, Venom, Harley Quinn, pro wrestling, etc), but I think there's more at play here. Bizarro has always been Frankenstein's Monster at his core, and there's a part of all of us that wants to sympathize with that monster. He's a great weapon for the bad guys to aim at the heroes, but clearly there is something in particular in him that writers (Scott Lobdell in particular, apparently) want to explore. Just where that would happen, I have no idea. He's far too powerful & dangerous to be allowed to bump around on his own. In fact, the story of him searching for a place to belong might actually be a good story to tell. It's not like the character has never had his own book before. |
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