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Showing posts with label Bizarro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bizarro. Show all posts
As we were discussing in our previous post, Bizarro's change in personality and powers when he returned in Superman #306 are examples of the Bronze Age grim-ification of the DCU.
Silver Age Bizarro was just a wacky misfit, as the in-story recap relates:
Glorifying the flawed... the misshapen... the perverse! This was... Wizard World.
But the Bronze Age story makes it very clear that "Bizarro has changed; he wasn't a threat before but now he is." Note that in the panel below, Superman implies that he used to be superior, power-wise, to Bizarro (who was, after all, "imperfect"), but now Bizarro is his equal or superior.
And this must be true, because Superman is nearly infallible, you know.
This is also the point at which Bizarro's heat vision and freeze breath got "reversed", surprising him and Superman both.
Notice anything about Bizarro's speech patterns, kids? They aren't "opposite". Bizarro says exactly what he means (albeit "imperfectly"). Only later, during the Post-Crisis Iron Age, did writers hamper Bizarro with the annoying affectation of "opposite speech", which does nothing but confuse the reader. If anything, it makes Bizarro seems smarter than us, since he understands what he's saying and we don't. DC; please start that; me am love brilliant Bizarro opposite speech.
Anyway, Bizarro was suddenly stronger, stupider, and a lot more emotionally volatile.
And, therefore, a lot easier to start using as an actual villain:
This story was published in 1976.
Bizarro joined the Secret Society of Super-Villains in 1977
and the Legion of Doom in 1978.
So Superman decides to get the bottom of this mystery, and find out why Bizarro thinks his world is gone and what changed his powers. Which I'm sure Superman will, because Superman is nearly infallible.
While the Bronze Age may have changed from the Silver Age in tone, in other aspects it was nearly indistinguishable. For example, in its reliance on utterly stupid hand-waving plot devices. Like... cosmic clouds.
Yes, I am confused; and don't call me "Patience".
Well... that explains EVERYTHING! At least, it does if you're Superman. Who's nearly infallible, you know.
Turns out Bizarro flew through a "cosmic cloud", which changed his powers, caused a mirage that made it seem as if Bizarroworld had been destroyed, and altered Barak Obama's birth certificate to read "Born in the U.S.A.". It's just amazing what cosmic clouds can do; just ask Reed Richards.
Oh, and another thing didn't change from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age. Superman was still a total... oh, what's the word I'm looking for?
Oh, and another thing didn't change from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age. Superman was still a total... oh, what's the word I'm looking for?
"Great Rao, if I'd know it was that easy to get rid of her,
I'd have given this bozo his own room at the Fortress."
Jeez, Clark; that's TMI about your love life with Lois.
When aren't I glad to see you? Try "1:05:31P.M.", you dick.
I was right, as usual. Because I'm nearly *sigh* infallible.
And yet, my face (pictured at right) is STILL not on the quarter.
Anyway, you'll remember that all this hullabaloo started with a big fight involving the Toyman at the Metropolis Coliseum. Now, I'm sure you think of the Toyman as another innocent hold-over from Superman's Golden & Silver Ages; you're probably thinking, "Wasn't his murder of Cat Grant's son (Superman #84, 1993) the first time he ever even killed anyone?"
No. No, it wasn't.
In this very story Toyman kills a host of guards and policemen as part of the battle at the Coliseum.
"Poor Winslow! Being alive, unlike all his victims, whose surviving friends and families I'm not thinking about at all! Why? Because I'm just too focused on all the ... the ingratitude of it all. Ingratitude toward ME. What's WRONG with you people?!"
Every modern DC reader knows how Bizarro works; he's a dangerous anti-Superman with some reversed powers, like freeze-vision and heat breath.
But What Kids Don't Know is that that wasn't always the case; and that the change was specific and intentional. For that, we'll have to take a look at Superman #306.
For Rao's sake, Lo-Lo; invest in a pantsuit.It's easy to see why writers want to use Bizarro as a villain. First and foremost, they can have no qualms about portraying him as Superman's equal, who can fight him to a standstill. Besides, he's a colorful and unpredictable character, engaging for the readers and challenging for Superman (qualities that Superman foes do not always have in abundance).
But before Superman 306, Bizarro was more an annoyance than a villian. He was that Big Dumb Dog who doesn't know his own strength and knocks stuff over (like, say, your guests) at a party. The main threat wasn't that he would fly around killing people; it was that he would expose Clark Kent's secret identity or become, um, too chummy with Lois, let's say.
Once he had a whole planet of his own (Bizarro World, or "Htrae") to muck about on, Bizarro became mostly comic relief or even (in desperate straights) an ally Superman could call on. Because being the most powerful super- being on Earth and having a bunch of super-powered robot duplicates, a supercousin, an entire city full of microscopic superallies, and a dog that can bite through steel is not always enough, you know.Bizarro's original schtick was that he was "imperfect", and "imperfect duplicate" of Superman. He wasn't "the opposite" of Superman, just a badly defective version. His grammar was fractured, his features craggy and white, his intellect impaired. Defective ... not opposite. His powers were the same as Superman's and his costume was the same as Superman's (no, his chest logo was NOT reversed).
Bizarro the Well-Intentioned Buffoon, however, got played out and pretty much disappeared after 1965. But the seeds of what would become of him later were sown in the first line of the 'constitution' of Htrae: the Bizarro Code. "Us do opposite of all earthly things!" This became the basis for Bizarro becoming less an "imperfect Superman" and more an "anti-Superman", who could believably be a part of the comics' Secret Society of Supervillians and television's Legion of Doom (both of which happened in the Bronze Age).
What Kids Today Don't Know is that the move to make the DCU a little less goofier and a little more threatening isn't something that happened suddenly or magically with Crisis on Infinite Earths. Marvel ex-patriate Marv Wolfman did not invent tragedy, folks; the Greeks did.
Darkening the DCU in fact was one of the major thrusts of the Bronze Age. Oh, it may not seem like it to a fan of the Golden Age, where corpses lay at the entrance to every alley. And it may not seem like it to a reader in the modern era, where severed heads fly around like it's the Pantha Family Picnic. But don't be one of those ignorati who lump the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages together as one big happy innocent "Pre-Crisis" romp; the shift in tone between the Silver Age and the Bronze Age was HUGE.
In the Bronze Age, goofy sidekick Snapper Carr betrayed the Justice League to the Joker. Robin left Batman. Speedy, one of the original Golden Age sidekicks, got hooked on heroin. Martian Manhunter was deemed so ridiculously and irredeemably Silver Age that he was given a bus ticket off planet and virtually disappeared. An evil (or at least really tacky) conglomerate bought the frickin' Daily Planet, people. A depowered Wonder Woman tortured prisoners and used an uzi. The Flash was tried for murder. I mean, really, folks. What else do ya need to be able to see it? Hal Jordan having a sexual relationship with a 13 year old girl?! Oh, that's right; he DID.
So when Bizarro was reintroduced in the Bronze Age, all was not wacky fun and games. As we shall see in my next post... .
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