Bizarro

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Bizarro in Red Hood and the Outlaws v2 #5.

Bizarro is a male comic supervillain who features in DC Comics.

Contents

Biography

Pre-Crisis

Bizarro was an artificial being created to be a duplicate of Superman where he was an imperfect creation. Criminal mastermind Lex Luthor once acquired the designs for a Duplicator Ray, first envisioned and built by a scientist named Professor Dalton. Modifying the device, Luthor intended on using it to create a super-strong clone of his nemesis, Superman: a mindless slave who would obey Luthor's every command. However, the duplication process resulted in the creation of an imperfect duplicate of Superman, just as it had many years ago when used to create a 'Bizarro Superboy'. This artificial being came to be known as Bizarro #1, or simply Bizarro, and, ultimately unfit for Luthor's purposes because of its limited intelligence and unpredictable nature, kidnapped Lois Lane and absconded with her to an island to alleviate his own loneliness. (Action Comics v1 #254) Disappointed by Lois's terror and revulsion, Bizarro trained the Duplicator Ray on himself to create a New Bizarro with Superman's features, but New Bizarro quickly turned on its creator to claim Lois for himself. Superman helped Bizarro destroy New Bizarro and used the Duplicator Ray to create a suitable partner for Bizarro: Bizarro Lois Lane. Bizarro accepted Bizarro Lois, and both left Earth to settle on another world out in the reaches of space. (Action Comics v1 #255) Bizarro and Bizarro Lois found a new world to call their own and populated it with duplicates of themselves. In order to distinguish themselves from their ironically perfect duplicates, Bizarro and Bizarro Lois elected to wear necklaces bearing stone engravings announcing them as Bizarro #1 and Bizarro Lois #1. (Action Comics v1 #263) As the ruler of the planet, even as he masqueraded as reporter Bizarro Clark Kent, Bizarro acted as the lawgiver of his people, promulgating the only rules that Bizarros were to live by in the Bizarro Code. On one occasion, Superman was accused of trying to make Bizarro World 'more perfect', a capital offense to Bizarro #1 and his disordered mind. In order to receive a pardon for his 'crime', Superman agreed to terraform Bizarro World into a cube-shape, thereby making it even 'more perfectly' imperfect. (Action Comics v1 #264)

Although he regarded Bizarro mainly as a mischievous idiot with super-powers, and rightfully so, Superman realized that within Bizarro was contained as much sheer power as that within him, combined with a lack of susceptibility to Kryptonite radiation. Bizarro nearly went to war with Earth when his child with Bizarro Lois went missing on the planet. To hold Bizarro off in a disastrous conflict, Superman synthesized a weakness for Bizarro artificially, using the Duplicator Ray to imperfectly replicate Green Kryptonite into Blue Kryptonite. Fortunately, Superman and Supergirl realized what Bizarro's goals were and helped him recover his infant son. (Superman v1 #140) Some time later, Bizarro created a Bizarro Batman, based on the image of the Earth hero Batman, to team up with just as the real Batman and Superman did regularly on Earth. Together, the team of Bizarro and Bizarro Batman made it their mission to make Earth match the standard of imperfection on Bizarro World, creating chaos with the Joker along the way. However, when they learned that Batman and Superman were creating order and perfection on Bizarro World in turn, the odd creatures returned and banned the 'vandals' from their world, promising to remain there in order to prevent them from interfering in the matters of their misshapen world again. (World's Finest v1 #156)

Bizarro #1 brought a legion of Bizarro Supermen to Earth, telling Superman they were going to prove how much they liked him by destroying the planet, but proceeded to run away when they spotted a sparrow because it was not able to harm them. Superman decided the Bizarros backward thinking didn’t make them a threat to consider seriously, and figured they might provide some laughs for him while they were on Earth. The Bizarros spotted superman fix the support structures of a bridge so they decided to show him they could fix things worse than he could. The Bizarros put arms on the Venus de Milo, sealed the crack in the Liberty Bell, and straightened the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They spotted Superman yelling at a boy for being a litterbug, so they grabbed up garbage dump trucks and flew them around Metropolis, scattering waste. Perry White told Lois and Clark to get the Daily Planet payroll, and on their way back they were ambushed by armed criminals, and Clark couldn’t leap into action, fearing revealing his identity in front of Lois. Bizarro #1 made good his promise to destroy the planet by smashing the Daily Planet’s globe before flying off into space, and letters from the Planet sign fell onto the crooks, knocking them out and inadvertently saving the day for Clark. (Superman v1 #169)

Irritated by the cube-shaped planet's existence, Aethyr, the demonic living intelligence of the Phantom Zone, caused Bizarro World to abruptly explode in a manner similar to Krypton's demise. In backwards imitation of Superman's father Jor-El, Bizarro and Bizarro Lois Lane ensured that there would be no Last Son of Htrae by shoving Bizarro, Jr., into a rocket within the Fourtriss uv Bizarro and launching it directly into Bizarro World's molten core so that he would die first. With that, Bizarro and every other member of his people eagerly awaited obliteration with cries of unrestrained joy. Strangely enough, of all Bizarros, Bizarro #1 was the last to die, as his still-animate head was blasted across the galaxy by the force of Bizarro World's destruction and crashed directly in front of Clark Kent and Lana Lang in the WGBS building before finally expiring. (DC Comics Presents v1 #97)

Post-Crisis

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Bizarro

An initial attempt was made by Lex Luthor to create his own Superman in secret which he did so through his Project Changeling. Liberating a brilliant Chinese scientist named Dr. Teng, he arranged for events that would draw the Man of Steel to Lexcorp. Whilst there, hidden scanners were used to examine his cellular structure in order to grow a copy in a bio-matrix via a duplication process. The resultant creature though began to quickly crystalise as the bio-matrix was made to copy human DNA and the Project had not considered that Superman was from another world. This led to the experiment being deemed a failure with the scientist fired and the seemingly dead creature being disposed of though in reality he reanimated where he began wandering Metropolis. The clone although mute and possessed of only limited intelligence and vague memories of Clark Kent's life attempted to mimic Superman. He kidnapped Lois Lane and was finally destroyed when colliding with Superman in mid-air. Each time he exerted himself, the clone crumbled slightly. When Lois Lane's sister, who had been blinded in a terrorist attack, was exposed to Bizarro's dust, she regained her sight. While Superman had not expected this effect, he speculated that Bizarro heard the sister explain her partial recovery and may have deliberately allowed himself to be killed to cure her.(The Man of Steel v1 #5)

Post-Flashpoint

Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Bizarro

The New 52

Bizarro was the result of genetic experiments conducted by Lex Luthor using DNA samples from Superman and was an attempt at creating a similar being to serve him. (Superman v3 #23.1)

Rebirth

Overview

Personality and attributes

B-0 in Superman v3 #23.1.

An initial incarnation of the creature came to be designated as Bizarro #1. (Action Comics v1 #254) One incarnation of him was a genetic clone experiment given the designation of B-0. (Superman v3 #23.1)

Powers and abilities

Bizarro was said to be composed of lifeless matter that had taken human form. (Action Comics v1 #254) It was said that his body was not organic and instead had the necessary components to mimic living cells. As such, he was classed as not being alive but rather was an artificial being. (The Man of Steel v1 #5)

As an imperfect imitation, it was noted that he was immune to the effects of Kryptonite radiation. (Action Comics v1 #254)

Atomic bombs were said to be incapable of harming him. (Action Comics v1 #254)

When he was super-intelligent, among his creation was a secret headquarters for the Outlaws with this taking the form of a floating base that was a city-block wide. It utilised pan-spatial visual distortion and post-gravity stabilisers to hide itself from outsiders whilst making the true size of the base difficult to gauge. The control centre could have a hologram that operated the main systems where it could monitor the parameters of a predictive criminal alternative program. There was a war room that served as a meeting place for the team to gather. A key feature of the headquarters was the doorway that resembled an ordinary door but actually made use of quantum trans-locationalism that utilised latent wormholes inherent in the omniverse's temporal DNA thus giving travelers the ability to go anywhere. As such, the quantum doors gave the users the capacity to simply access to anywhere and back. It included an armory along with a place Bizarro referred to as the Garage that stored many vehicles. Jason Todd came to consider it as an invisible Batcave for the Outlaws. (Red Hood and the Outlaws v2 #14)

Notes

  • Bizarro was created by Otto Binder and George Papp where he made his first appearance in Superboy v1 #68 (October, 1958).
  • In 500 Comicbook Villains v1 #1 (2004), Alvin Schwartz claimed to had originated the concept of the character stating, "I was striving, you might say, for that mirror-image, that opposite. And out of a machine which would reveal the negative Superman, came the mirror image – always remembering that in a mirror everything is reversed... The times were such that one-dimensional characters, your standard superheroes, even in comics, seemed rather simplistic, like paper cut-outs. What was demanded was the full dimensional personality – a figure that carried a shadow, if you like. I was certainly inspired to some degree also by C. G. Jung's archetype of "the shadow" – and Bizarro certainly reflected that, as well."
  • In Phantom Zone v1 #1 (1982), an incarnation of General Zod was said to had created bizarro style duplicates of himself in an attempt to take control Krypton and it was for this that he was sentenced to the Phantom Zone for his crimes.
  • During The New 52, writer Scott Lobdell commented in an interview on Newsarama on the creation of the character H'el, "When I was first pitching for Superman I looked at his villains who hadn't yet appeared in the New 52. First among those was Bizarro. In examining the character I realized that 'Here is a character who is the exact opposite of Superman — the guy should be frightening: just imagine someone with all of Superman's powers but he's completely crazy.' Too often, I felt, here was a character who was too easily dismissed as a goof with his 'Me ams'."

Alternate Versions

  • In All-Star Superman v1 #7 (2007), an alternate version of Bizarro appeared in the setting alongside other clones where they came from an alternative universe called the Underverse.

In other media

Television

  • In Challenge of the Super Friends, Bizarro appeared in the setting of the 1978 animated television series where he was voiced by actor William Callaway.
  • In Superboy, Bizarro appeared in the setting of the 1988 live-action television series where he was portrayed by actor Barry Meyers. He came to help himself to civilian clothes and began calling himself Kent Clark where he came to be in love with Lana Lang.
  • In Lois & Superman, Bizarro appeared in the setting of the live-action television series set in the Arrowverse where he was portrayed by actor Tyler Hoechlin whilst his armoured suit form was performed by actor Daniel Cudmore. This version was a native to another planet in the Multiverse that existed in the Inverse World where everything was reversed with the Earth being cube shaped.

Films

  • In JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time, Bizarro appeared in the setting of the 2014 direct-to-video animated film where he was voiced by actor Michael Donovan.
  • In Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League vs. Bizarro League, Bizarro appeared in the setting of the 2015 animated film where he was voiced again by actor Nolan North.

Video games

  • In DC Universe Online, Bizarro appeared in the MMORPG video game where he was voiced by actor Joe Mandia.
  • In Injustice: Gods Among Us, Bizarro appeared as a support card in the mobile version of the video game.
  • In Injustice 2, Bizarro appeared as a playable character as a premier skin in the video game where he was voiced by actor Patrick Seitz.

Appearances

  • Superboy v1: (1958)
  • Action Comics v1:
  • The Man of Steel v1:
  • Forever Evil v1:
  • Bizarro v1:
  • Red Hood and the Outlaws v2:

External Links

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