Customer Reviews

Superman: Tales of the Bizarro World

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This am bad book. It am full of stories about Bizarro World, home of Bizarro, the handsome duplicate of Superman. Every story start with Bizarro Code: "Us do opposite of all earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!" Me cry every time me read this book. Me hate it so much, me give it to all my friends. Since book is so bad, you should buy lots of copies.

Hello!

SUPERMAN: TALES OF THE BIZARRO WORLD is a collection of stories that ran as backup features in Adventure Comics #285 - 299 (1961 - 1962). They follow the adventures of Bizarro #1 and his family on the cube-shaped planet Bizarro World (Htrae), which is populated by imperfect duplicates of Superman, Lois Lane, and other familiar supporting characters from the Superman titles. Xaime Hernandez supplies a cover that is an excellent tribute to Action Comics #1.

Fittingly, the humorous introduction to this collection is written by none other than David Mandel, the writer of the "Bizarro Jerry" episode of Seinfeld. What follows is 185 pages of weirdness, courtesy of regular writer Jerry Siegel and artists John Forte, Wayne Boring, and Curt Swan. Of course, we're all familiar with the Bizarro grammar, which throws standard rules out the window. In addition, teeth are brushed with shoe polish, flowers are pulled from weed gardens, alarm clocks signal the time to go to bed, cars have square wheels, and best of all: everyone knows that Bizarro #1 is really Bizarro Clark Kent. The stories are absolute chaos, with plots frequently shifting directions and concluding nowhere near the initial premise. But remember, this is the Bizarro World, so no complaints here! Also, they are quite funny - there are some priceless bits of dialogue, and for some reason, the fact that Bizarro Perry White smokes exploding cigars makes me laugh every time I think of it. John Forte is the primary artist for these stories, and his depiction of life on Htrae captures the oddball mood of Siegel's stories perfectly, with bent skyscrapers, multiple planets in the afternoon sky, and colors that would make any visitor from Earth vomit.

If there's any complaint I have for these stories, it's that Siegel sometimes overdoes it in reminding us that Bizarro culture is so different from ours. For example, while a Bizarro will indeed drive its car through an intersection on a red light, I don't need to be told that, on Earth, we stop at a red light, in order for the gag to work. The stories would work more smoothly if Siegel had just left the interpretation to us. But that's a small complaint - I spent more time laughing at the stories than nitpicking. Cheers to DC for a well-deserved reprint!

Me am thinking you not like this book because it not about Bizarros. It am about Bizarros. Bizzaro code: Us do opposite of earthly things. You am not going to read this book. IT AM BAD. :o)

This book am so awful. Sometime me read and feel very mad at universe. Me read to me 4 year old son. Most comics am not violent enough for he. This am 'cause made long time ago when comics having more blood. Now we talk bizarro all over house. Make us sad sad sad.

This is subversive, dangerous, anarchic, wonderful, gut-wrenchingly funny stuff. These comics first appeared in Adventure Comics in the early 60s. They're more on-target now than they were then. (It probably seemed silly in 1963 when a dieting Bizarro-Lois ordered a steak.)

See Bizarro become a trial lawyer, direct a horror film, and dress up as President Kennedy for Halloween. There's not a clunker in this book. Don't miss it.

I always enjoyed reading the Bizarro Tales when I was a kid. They were funny to read, because they did everything backwards on their planet. If you are a Superman fan, I think you will enjoy these stories which are a part of the Superman universe.

You know, as much as I appreciate the plethora of "Bizarro" reviews for this book, I feel there should be at least ONE straight review for people who aren't in on the joke. So in case you don't quite get it -- Bizarro is Superman's imperfect duplicate. Everything he does is the opposite of Superman. That's pretty much the gist of it.

This book collects the "Tales From Bizarro World" series from the old Adventure Comics title -- stories about a whole planet of Bizarros, including Bizarro-Lois Lane, Bizarro-Jimmy Olsen, Bizarro-Lex Luthor, Bizarro-Supergirl and even Bizarro-Krypto the Superdog.

Amazingly, these stories were written by Superman creator Jerry Siegel himself. They're pretty simple, pretty light, and some of them make absolutely no sense even in BIZARRO logic. It's fluff, but it's enjoyable fluff. It's pure, beautiful Silver Age wackiness, and it's well worth the read for any fan of Superman or goofy comic books in general. Pick it up.