Supervillain Origins: Bizarro

Supervillain Origins: Bizarro

This monster of steel is a warped copy of superman. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we will explore the comic book origins of Bizarro.

As with most comic book characters, there are often re-imaginings and different versions to a character’s past. We have chosen to primarily follow the storyline that unfolded in 1958’s “Superboy” #68, which was expanded upon in 1959’s “Action Comics” #254.

This seemingly mindless character was first introduced in a young superman adventure when Superboy was invited to observe and oversee a professor’s unveiling of a duplicator ray, created to make more Radium for hospitals.

Unfortunately, the test duplicate turned out to not have any of the same radioactive properties of the original. With the professor falling into despair, Superboy decided to show himself out.

However, as the professor tripped and hit the machine, its beam hit Superboy, resulting in an explosion, and producing an imperfect replica of the superhero. As a result, the professor insisted they clean up the mess of otherwise un-noteworthy glowing metal before destroying the facsimile.

However, after taking the rest of the trash outside, they returned to discover that the double had disappeared. Finding it wandering outside, Superboy went to grab it, while making the comment about its bizarre appearance. This led his double to take on the name “Bizarro”. However, before Superboy could grab his duplicate, he was forced to first address an incident that had suddenly broke out at the Zoo nearby.

This allowed Bizarro the time to take a walking tour of Smallville, shocking bystanders with his appearance. Seeing his reflection in a storefront window, he became enraged and hurled a car through the glass, causing the police to try and gun him down.

Possessing Superboy’s memories, Bizarro flew to the Clark farm seeking motherly comfort. This didn’t go down well, and he decided to find himself his own new family.

Bizzaro then unknowingly forced a frightened couple to pretend that he was their son. Too terrified to object, they let him take the place of the scarecrow on their farm. As he dressed himself in the old scarecrow clothes, it suddenly occurred to him that he was now in disguise and could easily make friends. As he wasn’t really disguised in the slightest, this idea also didn’t go so well either and the townsfolk he encountered fled at the sight of him. Disheartened, Bizarro had given up hope when he was approached by a young blind girl, who gladly accepted him as her friend.

Planning to destroy Bizarro, Superboy flew into space in a lead suit in order to retrieve some Kryptonite. But as Superboy returned with the Kryptonite and launched it at Bizarro, the metal monster simply caught the toxic rock and threw it back at Superboy, revealing his immunity to the singular Kryptonian weakness.

In a further effort to defeat the duplicate him, Superboy used his totally not made up power of “super-ventriloquism” to trick the creature into entering an army test site. His encounter with Bizzaro there revealed that the duplicate possessed the opposite powers to all of his own, such as fire breath.

When even a nuclear bomb failed to kill Bizarro, Superboy tried brute strength and attempted to throw him into spac,e hoping that he would be too dumb to find his way back. But, to Superboy dismay, this attempt failed almost immediately as well.

About to give up on ever defeating Bizzaro, Superboy noticed that the creature was momentarily weakened when a garbage truck passed him on the street. Realizing the truck contained the debris from the Lab accident that created Bizzaro, Superboy deduced that those pieces of debris must have the same effect on the duplicate that Kryptonite had on him.

Retrieving this new secret weapon, Superboy waited until the right moment to strike. When Bizarro became heartbroken upon discovering that his only friend was blind, Superboy spring into action. Ramming him with the metal, Bizarro exploded and the residual molecules from his body convenient cured the girl’s blindness.

Despite his fate, Bizarro returned the following year when Lex Luthor created his own duplicator after stealing the plans for the original.

Luring a recently grown up Superman to his lab to copy him, a new Bizarro was formed, inexplicably possessing all the previous Bizarro’s memories.

Though this Bizarro was dedicated to helping the Man of Steel do good, Superman decided to kill him anyways, due to his penchant for unintended chaos. Ultimately, Bizarro was pacified when Lois Lane copied herself, giving the creature a mate.

Certainly the most bizarre addition to the Superman comics, Bizarro remains a fan favorite for giving the man of steel a sympathetic yet villainous doppelganger. He frequently serves as a tragic character, one that wants to be heroic like his counterpart, but always ends up serving superman’s enemies. One particularly bizarre issue even gave him his own Bizarro version of Earth to live on.

Are you a fan of this bizarre version of Superman? For more gripping comic book origins, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.