Just about every hero of note has
at least one “mirror” villain. A baddie with powers or abilities virtually
identical to the heroes. Spider-Man has Venom. Iron Man has the Crimson Dynamo.
The Flash has the Reverse-Flash. And so on. But, I doubt any of these mirror
baddies are quite as visually distinct as Superman’s mirror villain, Bizarro. He’s
kind of the definition of a broken mirror, all the Superman power, but none of the
Superman looks. Sucks for him. Like sooooooo many other DC characters, he’s had
a number of different origins, I’ll be focusing on the version created after
the Crisis on Infinite Earth’s storyline.
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| Yeah, not a great likeness. |
Lex Luthor is obsessed with
Superman. This was an undisputed fact even before he had gotten his hands on
some of the Big Blue Boy Scout’s DNA. Being a man of near infinite resources
and few morals, Lex ordered a team of scientists to clone Superman. The plan
was to make a perfect copy of Superman, but one that would obey Lex’s every
command. Unfortunately for Luthor, and one could make the argument that it was
unfortunate for the clone, Lex made a major miscalculation during said cloning
process. At the time, Superman’s origin of being the Last Son of Krypton wasn’t
widely known. Got to love Universe Wide reboots. So, because Lex and his team
assumed that Superman was simply a “Metahuman,” they made some major errors
coding the DNA. I’ve never heard the specifics, but a rather persistant problem
in the cloning Superman department is that Kryptonian DNA is significantly more
complex than the adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T) that
makes up your average human. I actually just watched a Film Theory on Youtube
that pointed out some of the problems that can occur if the amount of specific
elements in the human body are off even by a small margin. Here’s the link, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3EIDSIvmZs.
For those who don’t want to watch, things can get a little wonky if people don’t
have enough phosphorous or calcium in their makeup. Now imagine what happens to
a superpowered alien when he doesn’t have the proper amount of… some unknown element
from Krypton. Wait, you don’t have to imagine it, because it’s Bizarro. Lex’s
first clone was visibly flawed, having too pale skin, obvious physical deformities,
and the mental capacity of a five-year-old. Lex immediately ordered the clone
to be destroyed. Which really didn’t work out so well. Imperfect Superman Clone
> most things. Bizarro escaped the lab, and was pretty confused about what
to do next. This first Bizarro was mute, and only had a few vague memories of
what it meant to be Clark Kent/Superman. I guess Kryptonians have Genetic
Memory… That’s an odd superpower even for that species.
He tries to “help” people, but kind
of kept messing up. Like carrying a broken down bus to a hospital and lobbing
it through the front door. His “heroic actions” kept getting more and more
dangerous, until he finally kidnapped Lois. How shocking. Superman finally has
to destroy his unstable clone, colliding with him in Midair. Good riddance to
bad rubbish, some of you may be thinking. But, it might be a little more
complicated than that. For you see, when Bizarro exerted himself, his imperfect
form crumbled slightly. During one altercation, Lois Lane’s sister Lucy was
exposed to the dust. Which, somehow, helped her partially recover from
acid-in-eyes induced blindness. When he was completely destroyed, a large
amount of dust hit Lucy, completely restoring her. Superman, and everyone else,
came to believe that this Bizarro may have deliberately allowed himself to be
destroyed to help her.
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| Not sure why his costume changed too.... |
This is not the last Bizarro, as
Lex continues to try and perfect his cloning process. While each Bizarro is
slightly different, they all seem to possess the same child-like level of intelligence,
and obvious physical deformities. He’s usually portrayed as a sort of
Frankenstein’s monster, a tragic creature that does evil deeds either because
he was A.) Tricked by more intelligent villains, or B.) Simply because he didn’t
know any better. Poor Bizarro.
Bizarro’s powers vary from
incarnation to incarnation. Sometimes, he has all the same powers as Superman
and just has an ugly, ugly face. Other times, he has similar powers but different
effects. Like having Freezing Vision instead of Heat Vision, or Breathing Fire
instead of having Arctic Breath, or the really bizarre Bizarro Telescopic
vision, which lets him see a short distance behind him rather than a long distance
in front of him. Kryptonite also affects him differently, green Kryptonite
strengthens him, while imperfect blue Kryptonite weakens him. Some versions are
also weakened by sunlight rather than strengthened by it. That one’s not too
surprising, if I were Bizarro, I’d be a night person too.
Bizarro has appeared in a number of
Superman related franchises, typically as the failed and sympathetic clone of
Superman.
He was a recurring character in Superman: The Animated Series.
Introduced as a Superman clone that started off fine but slowly degenerated in “Identity
Crisis.” Heck, the first time the viewer notices something is up is when we see
the apparent Superman save a car from falling off a cliff. The driver? Clark
Kent. As the episode continues he gets more and more sickly and deformed until
he resembles… well, himself. Throughout the episode he continues to argue “You
no am Superman, Me am Superman” whenever he’s confronted by the original
Superman. That is an impressive level of denial. He’s apparently killed when he
destroys the lab Lex was using to clone Superman. He returns in “Bizarro’s
World.” In it, he survived the explosion at Lex’s Lab and, after some time, discovers
the Fortress of Solitude. He finds Superman’s greatest treasure, a holographic
recording of Krypton’s history, and gets pretty darn confused. He tries to
recreate the recording he saw in downtown Metropolis, right down to blowing up
it up. Superman is able to stop Bizarro, and convinces him to fly off to a new world.
Basically, Superman turned an entire uninhabited planet into a cardboard box
fort for Bizarro. Now, he can be the hero all he wants, without hurting anyone.
High Fives all around. He returns in Justice
League: Unlimited, on the side of the bad guys. He’s tricked into do it. It’s
not his fault.
 |
| He could use some sunblock. |
A distinctly different version of
Bizarro appears in Smallville’s season
6 and 7. In the beginning of Season Six, Clark Kent escapes the Phantom Zone
after being imprisoned, but several Phantom Zone Prisoners escape as well. The
Phantoms are the disembodied essence of intergalactic criminals. They can
possess humans, and in doing so imbue them with the powers they had had in
life. The most dangerous “Zoner” was a failed Kryptonian experiment. He had so
much power that any being possessed by him would burn out and die within a few
hours. Lex Luthor was after this particular phantom, as the blood taken from a
possessed human was necessary for his Super-soldier experiments. Lex captures
the Phantom’s most recent victim in “Phantom,” and tries to extract some DNA
from it. Clark tracks the Phantom to Lex’s hidden base inside a dam, and is
attacked by the phantom. While battling, the Phantom is able to get enough of
Clark’s DNA to make himself a physical body. He looks exactly like Clark, but
with the opposite color scheme. Oh, and is effected differently by stimuli. He
gets stronger from Green Kryptonite, purifying the crystals, and weakens if hit
with direct sunlight. His face gets distorted and rocky when hit with sunlight.
They battle throughout the season 7 opener “Bizarro.” With some help from J’onn
J’onzz the Martian Manhunter, they’re able to defeat the Phantom, and imprison
him somewhere on Mars. He returns in “Gemini,” where he takes the place of
Clark Kent, whom had been put in time out by his father, Jor-El, in the Fortress
of Solitude. He and Clark’s on-again, off-again, oh-god-they’re-really-back-on-again-what-the-heck-is-wrong-with-these-two
girlfriend Lana team up to try and take down Lex Luthor. They have mixed
results. In “Persona,” he tries to track down Milton Fine aka Brainiac, in the
hopes the Kryptonian Super Computer could help him find a way to counter act
the sun’s effect on him. Clark is released by Jor-El, and he’s able to get a
sample of Blue Kryptonite. Blue Kryptonite, in this universe, strips Kryptonian’s
of their powers essentially making them human. It’s theorized that for Bizarro,
it’ll make his powers increase exponentially, destroying him. Which it does. In
case I wasn’t clear, this Bizarro is a complete sadist, interested only in destroying
Clark and stealing his identity.
I can’t help but feel sorry for
Bizarro. He’s an unwanted failed experiment that doesn’t have the mental
capacity to understand why he should have an undying hatred for Lex Luthor. He’s
like Frankenstein’s monster, but is decidedly more sympathetic. What? Bizarro
never read Paradise Lost and then went on a killing spree to get vengeance against
his creator. Major points in Bizarro’s favor. When you get right down to it, he
really is just a big child. All the power of Superman, but a five-year-old’s
ability to reason. That is pretty terrifying. It’s no wonder that he’s constantly
being tricked into being a bad guy. Tell him he’s being Superman, saving the
day, and he’ll literally do whatever you want. It’s really sad when you think
about it. He's the failed clone, the Bizarre Bizarro. Next time, still working on that. Have a great time everybody.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/87/ActionComicsCvr785.jpg
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/superman/images/c/cd/Bizarro-animated.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100917045557
http://superman.wikia.com/wiki/File:Bizarro-smallville.jpg
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